Model Railroading > Long Trains On Banked Unitrack

When I moved into my current apartment, I made sure to get one with an extra room so I could set up a small N scale layout to run my growing collection of trains. My Dad is ditching some HO modules, and wants to repurpose them as an N scale layout for me. This is great, because it would allow me to quickly disassemble the layout when it comes time to move one day. I would be using Unitrack for this layout.

Problem is, my Dad already bought a Unitrack set, and it's the new Doubletrack stuff with ridiculous banked curves on 15" minimum radii. Layout will be 6'x9.5' it sounds like, so there won't be any 180 degree turnbacks.

I want to use this layout to determine train lengths for a future dream layout, and vary train lengths from a minimum of 30 cars to as many as 50 just for fun. Anybody have experience running trains of this length on the Double Track Banked Unitrack? I'm sure double stack and autorack trains of any consequence would have significant problems, but what about coal trains and general freights?

Superelevation is for actual speed, not scale speed. It may look
nice, but it is for shorter trains.

In HO it seems to limit trains to about 40 cars. I don't know about
N scale.

Larry

I had a large N scale around the room Kato Unitrack layout set up a while back where i regularly ran 60-80 car freight trains and had no problems at all and i used the super elevated 18 7/8" - 17 5/8" sections. The only trouble I ever had was starting/stopping a train, you had to do so slowly so you didnt have excessive forces on the train in the curves, as it would string line easily. All my freight cars were Micro-Trains and Kato. I also even had one stretch where i used a brief stretch of the Kato elevated Unitrack set, and there the long trains would frequently derail on the uphill side near the engines. However running trains in "DPU" fashion would allow the trains to flow easily around the curves and up the grades without issue.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/02/13 17:04 by TheIndianaConnection.

My buddy runs the elevated curves. Auto-racks and intermodals have no issues on them.
Make sure your weighted (heavier) cars are towards the front or add weight to the lighter cars. Its helps.

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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/03/13 11:00 by Coguy.