Bachmann EMD DD40AX Question

[JDA9]

Can anyone tell me the minimium radius on this engine? Would 11.25" radius track work? Has anyone tried it?

Thanks

[ACY]

It will not run on 11.25" radius without derailing the trailing car. Maybe try 12.5", I am not sure exactly what it needs to not derail most rolling stock including 89' cars. I only had 2 89' Bachmann autoracks to use for rolling stock when I tested it.

[skipgear]

It will run just fine on 11.25" R track. I wrote the review for these for the NTrak newsletter when they came out 2 tears ago. I even tested it on 9.75 R" and although it showed a little binding in the corners, it still went through them.



You have to excuse ACY, he knows not of what he speaks.

It may not look good doing it but the mechanism can handle 11.25" R. The problem you will have will be not derailing the first car in your train because even with pilots attatched to the trucks, there is still a pretty good overhang with the couplers.

[ACY]

You are correct in that the loco itself will go through fine, but unless you modify the couplers on either the loco or the trailing car, you will have a derailment. All I know is I tested out the loco briefly at my LHS on 11.25" radius Bachmann track and saw that it would pull the trailing car off the track. I don't know what good it does you to just run the loco. I just had to guesstimate what would be required to ensure there would be no derailments without any modification for most rolling stock, which would be up to 89' cars. The trailing car was a Bachmann 89' autorack.

[skipgear]

Running properly weighted cars, I had no problems. It pulled a 25 car train no sweat. I had no issues with pulling the lead car off. In fact my Kato SD90 is worse than the DD40 at derailing the first car.

[ACY]

I'd venture to say that a stock Bachmann 89' autorack is not sufficiently weighted especially not to NMRA standards, but all the other N scale rolling stock was locked in the display cases, so I had to settle with testing it with 2 autoracks. Ideally if it were on my own layout I would use adequately weighted rolling stock. But with stock/unmodified rolling stock of up to 89' you apparently need a little larger radius or you need to modify the couplers.