I'm curious as to why HO scale models seem to have relatively tighter minimum radius requirements than the same model in O scale. I'll give some examples... The MTH HO NYC Mohawk will run on 18"r. So will the BLI PRR M1b. I have owned and verified both of these. MTH's O scale Mohawk is listed at 54"r in the catalog. I'm wondering why it takes so much "more" min. radius? Given that 18"r in 1:87 HO scale works out to be 32.625"r in O scale. I understand that we are dealing with OW5 here, but I just don't understand the roughly 60% increase in relative radius. Do HO models just build in more compromises to allow for tighter radius?
Original Post