Nah, couldn't be! Well, at the Coors brewery complex in Golden, CO, there is a turnout that is so sharp.....well I think a #4 turnout in any scale is tight, but this one takes the cake!
Industrial sidings are notorous for having, shall we say, tight switches. In most cases, the stub beyond the turnout is short enough that a locomotive rarely takes the turnout - it usually is still on the "main" while pushing the freight cars across it. It's one of the reasons I chose to use Peco Setrack switches on my industry spurs. Interestingly enough, my six axle locos all cross those much easier than I would have thought.
In my tests, Peco small radius turnouts would not accomodate the mainstay of my fleet--SD40-2's! So I sold them all to a buddy who put them to good use.
Believe it or not, I have an SD45 and SD40-2 that go through them just fine, although in the normal course of business I only use smaller engines. And in most cases the locos rarely make the turns - it's only cars that get pushed over...
When I was a kid, there were street cars running in Wichita, Kansas, that we rode often. I remember several times seeing the green center cab electric "wrecker cars" pulling a "dead" trolley out of the snow, or off to the shops to be repaired. There were two tracks running down West Douglas street with sharp curves going off to the side streets. What I told this for is: I remember seeing an 0-4-0 steam engine pushing a box car around one of these curves slowly, with a couple of guys walking along watching a fairly long wooden pole between the engine and box car. Dad said the couplers would not swing far enough for that short curve, so they had to "pole" the car around, then they would couple up again. The flanges were squealing like banshees! I have often wondered what radius those curves were because some of the single tracks were curving from one two lane street onto another two lane street. That impressed me, but I have only seen "poling" once since then when the engine was on one track, and the car being moved was on the next siding over.
Wayne, Was that the Arkansas Valley Interurban that you are talking about? If so, I have this book http://www.southplattepress.com/current/interurb.html and it is a good one. Charlie
I can hear the wheel flanges squealing, loudly! The first thing that came into my mind, was interurban trackage. Boxcab E50
when i worked the ns line from decatur to peoria we had a industry called general cable in monticello il. that was notorious for sending cars off the rail and forget even trying to spot that place with a dash 9. spent a few hours there waiting oncar dept and m.o.w. to show up at 2 am. to help get cars rerailed.
Yeah Charlie, my Aunt and Uncle lived way up north on Arkansas Ave north of the flour mills. The AVI was just across the street from their house. Zimmerman's sand pit was directly across, and we had to look both ways, because you could not hear the Interurban coming at all! Those were tuscan red going north and south. The ones down town were an orange color, probably a different company. I wasn't aware of the book, but I'll bet it is interesting reading.
Here in Detroit one of the industries served out of my yard ships autoparts in 50 & 60' box cars, the switch & curve are so sharp that hycubes cannot be used and if a 60' box is coupled to the eng then it will derail in the curve, thus the crew must make sure the 50' box is next to the eng or use a gondola as an idler if 60' cars are the only boxes being placed or pulled out of that industry- sounds like something that would only occur on a model railroad but this just proves that ther is a prototype for everything!
Fred, have you ever used extended couplers to solve that problem? Might help, especially with the 60 footers. Bill
