Hi, Doug.

Great job getting the design in CAD and uploaded to the board.  A picture is worth a kilo-word.

Concentric loops are pretty hard to do in just 42" width.  

With 15" radius curves you will be restricted to shorter locos and cars.

I see 8, and possibly as many as 10, "S" curves, which will drive you crazy with derailments.

According to John Armstrong, you need a straight at least as long as your longest loco or car between opposing curves.

"S" curves love to hide in and around turnouts.  

Both a right and left crossover are needed to be able to change inner to outer loop,

and outer to inner loop without backing the whole train through.

If you run "old school" DC block control, (not DCC), and want to run 2 trains on 2 loops under separate control, (2 DC power packs)

you will need to cut rail gaps and make underside foil cuts on each crossover you use.

Hope this helps.

Sincerely,

Joe Satnik

Edit: Added Italics

Download server busy ? Try late at night?

Duplicate question in HO:

http://www.bachmanntrains.com/home-usa/board/index.php/topic,29653.0.html

Scroll to bottom for track section lengths.

Hope this helps.

Sincerely,

Joe Satnik

Edit: Italics added.

The Frogs' new message, as Joe has gotten hoarse saying it so often:

Com...Rail....Com....Dot......Rail...Dot......Any....Dot...Rail......Com....Any...Rail...

Dot....Any...Rail....Com...Dot...Rail.....Com...

Any....Rail....Dot....Com.....Any.Rail.Dot.Com.....

All that engineering is taken care of in this great easy to learn Rail CAD program.

Free download and fun to use.  All Bachmann track libraries included.

AnyRail.com

Free license for the first 50 track pieces.

Hope this helps.

Sincerely,

Joe Satnik

Copied from a larger post of mine from 2010:

http://www.bachmanntrains.com/home-usa/board/index.php/topic,15413.0.html

Dear All,

Measure the straight line (chord) distance between the inside corners of the roadbed.

Chord length calculated to the nearest sixteenth of an inch and ~ mm:

18"R-30deg = 8-13/16" ~ 224mm

22"R-22.5deg = 8-3/16" ~ 208mm

Hope this helps.

Sincerely,

Joe Satnik

Pt3,

Sounds like an interesting prototype.

You will need to use insulating rail connectors on both rails of both diverging legs

of the wye turnout, and use polarity changing electrical switches to feed power

separately to the mainline (standard turnouts side of the insulators)

and the stub (wye turnout side of the insulators).

Book #12, "The Complete Atlas Wiring Book" covers the details of DC block wiring,

including the use of their "Twin" polarity changing switch. 

With DCC, the rail insulator locations stay the same,

but the polarity changing switches are replaced by DCC auto-reversers. 

Hope this helps.

Joe

Dear Pt3,

On Anyrail, each half of the wye shows 4.75 degrees of turn, and the standard turnout is 30 degrees of turn. 

In a wye configuration, you would need to add up to 90 degrees. 

So, 90 - 30 -4.75 degrees = 55.25 degrees.

So, you would need to find curves or fractional curves that added up to 55.25 degrees. 

30 + 15 + 7.5 + 3.75 = 56.25 degrees, which is one (1) degree off on each side, or 2 degrees off for the entire wye system.   

There's probably enough slop in the system to make it work.

If you wanted perfection, you could use the 14 degree curve found only with a #4 turnout, but that would get pricey.

Tip: Build your wye in CAD using the perfect 14 degree pieces. 

This will get you in the ballpark for the straight length needed between the main-line ends of the 2 standard turnouts. 

Hope this helps.

Sincerely,

Joe Satnik 

Harvey,

This book might help:

The Story of Williams Electric Trains
by John Hubbard

1989, Greenberg Pub. Co.

ISBN   0897780620
ISBN-13   9780897780629
Pages   112
Publisher   Greenberg Pub. Co.
Published   1987
Language    English

IIRC from this book, or perhaps Classic Toy Train magazine articles, old catalogs were never archived.

"Getting out the next catalog" was the important thing to Mr. Williams.

I value the few I do have from the early to mid 2000's.

Hope this helps.

Sincerely,

Joe Satnik

Download and learn how to use Anyrail.com, a easy to learn layout CAD program.  

It's free for the first 50 track pieces.  

I'm surprised that the 10 degree 18" radius curve didn't straighten out your #6 turnout.  

That's as close as you're going to get with the HO E-Z Track that is currently available.

Joe

Edit: grammar

Wrong scale ruler?

3 scale feet in HO is around 7/16", or about 10mm. 

ACY,

Don't know right off hand. 

Walthers on-line shows only a few things N turntable related, not much help.

Perhaps a full print catalog would have more.   

A competitor has interesting turntable approach track kits.

Another competitor's 2003 catalog (on my shelf) shows

a 15 degree turntable and a 3 stall roundhouse.

I suppose you could skip the middle roundhouse stall

if you had a 4-2/7 degree curve to add to the 25-5/7 degree stall  to make 30 degrees. 

Hope this helps.

Sincerely,

Joe Satnik

Dear All,

This turntable has 7 track stalls across 180 degrees,

which yields 25-5/7 degrees, or 25.7143 degrees per stall.

It would help to have a sectional curve the same number of degrees (25-5/7)

to facilitate having more than one approach to the turntable from the main track.

The only multi-track approach that would work for now would be 180 degrees apart.

A modeler would need to cut sectional curve track to 25-5/7 degrees

or use flex-track to create a run-around track:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ouq1FslNOLY

Another useful accessory would be a N scale roundhouse

(or expandable roundhouse) with 25-5/7 degree stalls.

Hope this helps.

Sincerely,

Joe Satnik   

Amazing.  Should all be in a museum. 

Sincerely,

Joe Satnik

Hi, Bruce.

How about a fold-away layout?

http://ogrforum.ogaugerr.com/topic/fold-away-layout

(Scroll down)

Hope this helps.

Sincerely,

Joe Satnik

Dear All,

Every hobbyist should own and know how to use a Volt-Ohm meter. 

It would be perfect for troubleshooting the layout and crossING problems described in this thread.

DVOMs are cheap at Harbor Freight. 

When on sale with coupon, they're nearly free.

Hope this helps.

Sincerely,

Joe Satnik