If you go with an 18" circle, you will need twelve 18" radius curves.
If you go with a 22" circle, you will need sixteen 22" radius curves.
If you have a small enough loco and cars, you could try 15" radius. A 15" radius circle would be 32" wide and you would have 8" on each side. For the circle you would need twelve 15" radius curves.
You could add a 9" straight and a 3" straight for 12 inches.
That would leave you with 2" on each side. 32+12=44" wide
If you do an oval with 15", you will also need 2 pieces of both 9" and 3" straight or you can can use either the 9" or 3".
For a square you need four 9" and 3".
For the 18" oval or square it is the same number of pieces with 4.5" and 3" instead of 9" and 3".

Suds -
Are you talking HO or a different size? And how big of a loco will you have?
If HO, 22" radius would give you a circle - 22R+22R=44+2=46". That leaves 1" on all sides from the edge of the board.
With 18" radius, you could have a square - 18R+18R+4.5S+3S=43.5+2=45.5. That leaves 1.25" on all sides from the edge of the board. Eliminating either the 4.5" straight or the 3" straight on two sides would give you an oval.

Ron -
Thanks for the Wayback site. I had accidently deleted a page from my website about a year ago. I found it on the Wayback site.

I didn't want to hijack the 4-4-0 thread.
You can see more of my Christmas layouts here.
http://www.sarget.com/xmasdex.html
I don't know what I did with the 2005 layout pics.
Now, it's still the same as the 2006 layout. I just leave it up all year because kids enjoy it all year long.
I have the pencil forest on the corner and, when people bring their kids come over, I tell them they can take a pencil from it.
In the middle of summer, it's kind of relaxing to shut the drapes, turn off the house lights, and run the trains. Makes me forget it's hot outside.
These are from '04 -



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These are from '06 -

I know they (the real ones) didn't normally pull that many.
I just did that to see how many it would pull after someone else questioned the ability of the little 4-4-0's.
For that layout, I just covered most of it with white felt for Christmas and left openings for the track loop.

My mistake. It was 29 cars. Here's a pic of a plain old Bachmann old time 4-4-0 pulling the string of cars. The front half is headed up a 2% grade.

Is the rubber traction tire missing? I've pulled up to 40 old time cars with these engines.

Yampa - The earth's core is cooling. Where does the heat go? Dissipate outward? There's your global warming.

Casey Jones steaming and a rollin'
Casey Jones you never have to wait
When you hear the tootin' of the whistle
It's Casey at the throttle of the Cannonbal Express

I've got it on DVD, too.

Or you can run feeders from reversing track to reversing track with standard sections in the middle.

Didn't some company do Lincoln funeral cars quite a while back?

I'll have to see what I have in the garage.

Thanks for the info.
I haven't been to the strip in years. Closest one to me is 1/8 mile.
I like seeing the "off-the-wall" stuff racing like trucks and vans.
If I ever get my T-bucket put back together again, I'd like to take it to the strip.
Thanks for the video!

Was it 1/8 mile or 1/4 mile and what was your time and speed?
Cool video!

I don't want to screw up your list. The BP S & D was a ficticious railroad in the movie and series Scalplock with Dale Robertson.