@Ryan Selvius posted:Thanks for the input on passenger cars. At this point I’m gathering information for layout planning. I’d like to convert all my equipment to body mount Kadees and fix the pilots on my diesels. Will leave the 3 rail wheelsets.
I figure the largest curve I’ll be able to muster is 0-96 (48” radius) so hopefully that is sufficient for 21” passenger cars to operate smoothly and not look horrible.
They will operate no problem. How they will look is pretty subjective, but as I posted above they are not going to look realistic so it's up to you to decide if that's OK. Most serious passenger modelers in HO that I've met run a min. of 40-45"r which puts them right around that 4x range which would be roughly 84"r in O scale.
Passenger cars are the hardest thing to model to make look realistic IMHO. However, people that run on 3R track seem to be more willing to live with the compromise in my experience. Lay out the curve and throw some cars on there and see if you can live with it. Thats the best thing to do.
