If you are at the stage where you are about to add ballast to your model railway track, ask yourself if you think you...
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How can I tell how much space a curved track section will take up?
Curved track measurements are sometimes a little hard to get your head around, some are advertised using a radius expressed in mm, some simply use the radius 1,2,3 or 4 system and others talk about the arc. So how can a new modeller figure out what track will fit where?
To figure this out, the measurement you want to concentrate on is the radius expressed in millimetres. The radius of a curved track section refers to the distance from the centre of an imagined complete circle of track to the middle of the sleepers at any point around the circle.
This measurement is useful as it tells you how much baseboard depth is required to achieve a 90-degree turn. Double the number and you now know how much space is required to make a full 180-degree turn and so on.
One word of caution, don't forget the radius is only measured to the centre of the sleepers, so if you are tight for space, the rest of the track's width should be accounted for in your calculations.
Posted in: Tracks
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