Hello all, Im new to Z scale and do not own a single thing of it. I am not looking to do a serious intricate layout of any kind. All I'm looking to do is to pick up the basics. I want to put the train on my desk and have it go around a few things on it and that's it. Here is a backround as to why I want to do this, if you do not care than skip this and get to the good stuff. I grew up loving trains, and had many HO scale trains. That all stopped when I was about 13 or so. I always did like trains but felt I was to old for them. Fastforward to now, I just turned 30. While I was dating my now wife, we were talking about things we like and are into. I brought up that I like trains and she asked why. I said Trains have been around for over 200 years and are still today a reliable and effective way to ship goods thousands of miles. The power the locomotives have to move thousands of tons of freight thousands of miles is quite an engineering accomplishment with not much fuel being consumed in regards to the amount of weight that it is pulling for so many miles. She said she thought that was really cool and that she completely supports anything that I like and that makes me happy. Back to trains, I never cared for the look of diesel Locos, I was always a steam engine kind of guy until recently. I love the look of the moderen locos we have now and when I found that there is Z scale that can fit virtually anywhere and not take up much space I thought awsome! However, I could not find any modern locomotives, only the older diesel style which I do not find appealing at all. Finally, a year later, AZL started making the SD70M Locomotives and they look great so now Im ready to pull the trigger. After doing some reading, I do have to factor in the turn radius. I'm looking to go as tight as I can but rolling stock might be a problem. Here's a list of what I'm getting with some questions. -AZL SD70M: Cant decide on Union pacific or BNSF Heritage 2. Both look really good, but the Union pacific has the flared look which i like more and BNSF does not. But BNSF looks a little nicer I think in terms of its paint scheme and detail. What do you guys think? -Rolling stock: I was looking to get the double and single stack trailer cars for a modern freight train look. But I am open to suggestions to create a cool looking train. Also, Iv read that the sharper the turns, the more limited I am on rolling stock. Can some break down what rolling stock is good with which diamter of turns? -Power supply: No clue or Idea what so ever. Please help with this one. Looking for a good uninterrupted power supply, good control ect. -Track: Iv heard rokuhan has very good track. I want track that's going to cause me the least amount of headaches and will not cause my train to pause and skip. Any suggestions? -Turns: Im looking for the sharpest turn I can use, but I dont want the train to derail every lap either. Defeats the purpose of owning one If I cant run it. What would you guys recommend as a minimum? Sorry for such a long winded 1st post but I am really excited to get my first Z scale. Any help or suggestions on anything would be greatly appreciated!
Welcome to Z scale! Reading your story reminded me of my own path back in to model railroads, at very similar ages. AZL SD70 - can't go wrong there! (but I am biased... very very biased.... <grin>) Rolling Stock - again, I'm biased - I like all of our AZL stuff. They all run well down to 195mm curves (due to European Marklin founding of the scale, almost everything is metric, but the conversion is pretty easy as 25mm = 1 inch. So 195mm = 7" radius) Power supply: I like Rokuhan. DCC works well in Z scale too. Track: Rokuhan. If you can, avoid curved turnouts and double slip switches, and I would keep the curves down to a minimum of 195mm radius. Do NOT use their sharp turnouts (R022 and R023) or track less than 145mm radius as VERY few trains are compatible with that super tight stuff. Turns: The wider the radius, the better it will run and the longer the train will be. How much space do you have for a layout? Best, -Rob(A) AZL
I understand your story, as well mine was not to different. Just I was a little earlier back, about 26. Rob gave a great response. I really like the Jorger delux as the best controller. They are hard to find these days. Now the snail speed controller is very good and as well as the medvend AN-1-C panel mount. My understanding is there is a new blue line snail controller that is even better. You might want to look into that.
The length is about 3' 10". A few of the turns are going to be about a foot in diameter. Im not 100% on the train language but when I mean 1 foot diameter I mean from the begging of the turn to the end of it, 180 degrees. Here is an attached picture for details. It took me literally 100s of seconds to build in the most expensive sophisticated computure software available today. Orange is the railroad tracks.
Sorry, but one foot is way too tight a radius... Only small Marklin locos will negotiate a turn that tight. You are going to need 18-20" for a 180 degree turn and even then that is tight. It may be time to do more research to see what is what.
What about some straight track in between. 90 + Straight + 90. Would that help on the stress of the turn? Or is the angle itself all that matters? I have a few inches to spare.
I'm afraid that no amount of straight pieces of track will affect the turning radius at all. As mentioned earlier, only Marklin short locos will handle a radius as tight as you suggest. All AZL and MTL locos need at minimum the 195 mm radius which equates to about 15" diameter. It has been some time since I actually figured out what mm and inch equivilant was, but trust me, you want to go as wide a radius as you can for realism. When you see a passenger car or any long body car negotiate a tight turn, the overhang simply makes the whole scene look very toy like. Drawing board time.
Easy: 25mm = 1" (OK, technically it is 25.4mm=1" but just use 25:1 unless your doing huge lengths) Yeah Loren, I completely agree with you. The smallest space you can realistically use is a 16" box (I added one inch for overhang) Can you build a layout on a desktop? Sure! One of our club members built a cool dog bone shaped layout on a foam base with little 2" legs that he just pops on top of his desk. Best, -Rob
Using AnyRail I have sketched out this layout. (Click on the link to enlarge it.) It is on a supposed board size of 1200 mm x 300 mm (approx 47" by 12"). The curves are Rokuhan R011 120 mm radius. A free trial copy of AnyRail (https://www.anyrail.com) can be down loaded which will let you create layouts of up to 50 track sections. I have a layout that uses this curve size for a reverse loop but the S bend portion is extended so that the direction changes are not as sudden. It works with a slow Marklin suburban commuter train (for example, Marklin locomotive 88787 and two coaches from the 87170 set), but I would not want to try this train through a sharp S bend. Also, as Loren mentions, there is a lot of overhang. Something like the Marklin 88313 Railbus set (if you can get one) would probably run on the above layout without problems. Another possibility is the the PowerMAX (http://www.searails.com/powermax.html) but they just seem to supply bare chassis. (This is speculation, as I do not own one of these units). Using this power unit should enable you to go down to very small radius curves, but then this really does becomes a toy train set. Rob Pearce (aka ViperBugloss)
Those curves are too tight for our SD70 locomotive, or any other locomotive we have made. I think the same is true for MTL and 90% of Marklin's locomotives. Anything less than 195mm radius will not work for AZL. Best, -Rob(A) AZL
Ok, looking closer at my measurements it looks like i got enough room for the 195mm turns. To figure out how much space I need for my 90 degree turns, all i have to do is divide 195mm or 15.34 inches by 4 right? Which is 3.835 inches. As long are the turns are functional. Its going on my desk with no scenery or anything to make it look realistic. I just want it to run. The drawing viperbugloss did is the same type of layout im doing for my track. See my picture in the previous post. What is the total width of the straight track? I need to factor this in because its going to be tight but I think I can make it work. I understand I can go tighter with different trains but I want the SD70M.
R195 represents a radius in metric millimeters, so to get to inches divide 195 by 25.4=7.67 but this is a bit tight for passenger cars they do better on R220 = 8.66 (.66 or .67 =11/16inches) This radius represents the center line of the track Rokuhan track base is 5/8ths wide.
Silverrush, Welcome to Z. It is a small scale, but the space you have and the equipment you want to run are a challenge even for Z. Look around for posts by Garth Hamilton: he's done a lot of work on Rokuhan and with the smaller curves. He's posted many of his observations. In my experience, 120mm is the smallest radius that will work with Z. Even then, I found that <50ft. rolling stock and the Marklin and MTL F7s are about the only units that work reasonably well. Interestingly, some of the AZL big cars will run down to 95mm, but really look silly. Some of my MTL GPs will run, but don't reliably pull the rolling stock. If you're really limited to a 12" depth, with the rolling stock you want you may want to consider a layout that doesn't depend on curves. Here's an example: With a bit of control electronics you could have a train shuttle back and forth over the various siding and would make for interesting manual switching operations. Rokuhan has a good electrical system for starting out. They have two controllers: RC02 and RC03. The first is a bare bones battery powered throttle with many add-ons: turnout control switches and an AC power line. The RC03 comes with it all. Hope this helps, Mark
While a Micro Trains GP35 or GP9 will work on R120 Even with pilot mounted couplers and Micro Trains 50 ft cars can negotiate R120 curves , but this does not mean that it looks good, and operates well compared to larger radius curves,but if that is all you have, or can manage it will work with a very limited list of American type engines. The only other engines that will work on this radius are Rokuhan's Japanese locos and they all have different couplers to Micro Trains. The two standard radii for Z are R220 and R195 and minimum of 25mm spacing between adjacent parallel tracks. Some engines will work on R170 quite well but things start looking quite cramped to most of us at these smaller radii here is a youtube video of a mtl geep on R 120 ttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JtdX6VnB0xI here is a video of R145 curves with an MTL GeeP https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Up74yn87f1E in my own testing I came up with R170 as minimum radius for industrial track and R195 for main loine track Just my preferences for small layouts
How many inches are needed for a 90 degree turn. I do not want passenger cars nor any other locomotive other than the sd70m, the modern diseal freight locomotive. 195mm wilwork , a little tight but will work. To run AZL, i understand that they need 195mm for turns correct?
Track radius is figured from centerline of the rails. Rokuhan road bed track is approximately 16mm wide. which = 8mm from centerline to out side edge of the road bed 195mm radius = 7-11/16 inches 90* 195mm + 8mm =203mm or 8 inches. So for 180* of 195mm Rokuhan track outside of roadbed to outside of roadbed you would need 1'-4" (16 inches) One thing to keep in mind your desk & file cabinet top is probably about 27 or 28 inches off the floor. And at 15-3/4 inch wide the track will be on the very edge of the file cabinet top should a derailment happen your train will land on the floor. With a fall that far you should expect some damage broken couplers and handrails at a minimum. I would suggest placing a board on the top of the cabinet that extends 1.5 to 2 inches beyond the outside edge of the track on each sides. Some place for the train to land other than the floor should it derail.
Silverrush, Your question "How many inches are needed for a 90 degree turn" is answered with the following: The Track radius Since track radius is the measurement of from the center of the circle (or arc) to the centerline of the track, that's the first part. 195mm = 7.67 inches Roadbed the Rokuhan track roadbed has a width (from Garth) of 5/8 inches. But since that will be centered on the track centerline, we only need half of that. So 5/16 inches (or 0.3125) Train car Overhang I don't have measurements for how much the SD70 overhangs a 195mm curve past the roadbed, so this is a wag. Call it another 5/16 inches (or 0.3125). Total is the sum of all three = 7.67 + .3125 + .3125 = 8.3 inches or say 8 - 1/4" from center of turn to outside edge of layout. James
I took a look at your track plan again, and it looks like you have a total box of 5' x 20" to work with. There was a club member of ours (Justin Liam) who built a totally portable layout that he designed for table top operation. He moved to San Antonio and left it with the club. I kinda sorta borrowed it and im using it as a test track right now. Its a cool little layout, but one of the neat things is that it sits on 12" legs (so the tracks are 12" higher than the desk it sits on) and I still have 8" underneath the whole thing to put junk / papers / whatever. Since it is a dog bone, it also has a big carve out in the middle of it. Now, it is a bit bigger than the space you have - this layout is 6' wide, where I think you have 5' of width, and it is 24" deep, where I think you have 20" to work with. You could easily modify it to be only 5' wide, but I was thinking that because of the legs, you might be able to let it hang a couple of inches over the top of the desk on the depth side. That would let you do 195mm curves no problem. THis layou is built with 195mm curves. Check out the attached pictures. Good luck! -Rob(A) AZL
Thanks for the help so far guys. Its really appreciated. I could only imagine the nightmare of money and time wasted trying to figure this out on my own. So, it looks like we got the track down. The turns at 195mm will work thank goodness. Also the brand to select is Rokuhan. Is their any reason why i should not use rokuhan? AZL Locomotive - Sd70m. Not sure to go with Union Pacific or BNSF heritage 2. - union pacific has the flared look which i love, BNSF does not. -BNSF to me has a little nicer paint scheme but no flared look Im leaning towards union pacific, what do you guys think? AZL Rolling stock: im looking for double and single stack trailers. ItsIt seems to be the most common freight train. Plus the different colors and sizes make it look a little more interesting. What do you guys think or is your recommendation. Im looking cars that are best for staying on the rails, whether it is the type of cars or brand.
