train car max length

[Snow van Night]

i started designing a moc of the 1926 Orient Express, but i quickly noticed that if i work in minifigure scale (1:42) the train cars are going to be massive

after some math i came to the result of 65x8 studs and a distance of 47 studs between the bogies, i think this is about double the length of any (long) official Lego Train wagon

so i started wondering if this will work with the 9v and current rails and if it will look oversized compared to other train mocs

 

so my question is: how long are your train cars, and what is the maximum length for them to get around the curves?

[Stefaneris]

Hello and welcome to Eurobricks

3 minutes ago, Snow van Night said:

so i started wondering if this will work with the 9v and current rails and if it will look oversized compared to other train mocs

There might be a problem on the switches with the yellow part, which the car might touch due to the overhang. The cars will look oversized if you compare them to standart Lego trains. However there are a lot of people building 8 wide Mocs (including me) and compared to those, your cars would fit well.

If you leave enough space next to your curves, everything should work fine, but it may look strange with such long cars on the tight radius.

4 minutes ago, Snow van Night said:

so my question is: how long are your train cars, and what is the maximum length for them to get around the curves?

My train car I took for reference here is 62 studs long and the boogies are 46 studs apart (measured from the point where the boogie is fixed to the car).

Have a look at the Brick Model Railroader Flickr group and to the discussion OcTRAINber - real life entries. There are a lot of videos of long trains running on standard curves.

OcTRAINber - Real Life Entries

[Snow van Night]

thanks for the information, i thought my scale is way off but seeing you using similar sizes seems to confirm my math

[sed6]

4 hours ago, Snow van Night said:

so my question is: how long are your train cars, and what is the maximum length for them to get around the curves?

My tank cars are 20, my hoppers 24, my unfinished caboose is 24, my unfinished passenger cars are 28 and my BNSF is 50. Each are a little short compared to what they 'should' be but I like the shorter length and as Stefaneris said going too long presents challenges with overhang and switches. Personally I think those 60 plus long ones are too long but to each their own. You need to keep your target audience in mind; if you're building a scale car for yourself make it long, if you're building for play no one will care if you have one 60 stud car or two 30 stud cars.

 

 

Edited April 3, 2018 by sed6
cnat spele

[zephyr1934]

My first long cars were about 54 studs long (no idea what the spacing is between the trucks), as seen in the back of this photo. Using 6 studs wide that was proportionally the correct length for the cars.

They look good when standing still, but the 7 car long train was never happy in normal lego curves, lots of drag. Runs great on R88 or larger curves (which did not exist at the time I built the train). I originally built the locomotives so that they could accommodate 9v motors, but after my experience with PF on this train, I would never use 9v to power it (prior to converting to SBrick I would frequently trip the thermal resistor on the PF IR receiver, it also helps that there is plenty sufficient room to stuff all of the PF in to one of the locos).

So in my second long train I dropped the car length to about 42 studs to improve operation (as seen in the front of the top photo). Runs a lot better on R44 curves, but this train has 8 cars so much of the drag savings is lost to the extra car.

Both trains run fine on R44 curves with 2-3 fewer cars.

 

My advice would be to build test flatcars the right length and quantity that you are contemplating for passenger cars in your train, add roughly the amount of weight to each flatcar that you think the passenger car build would be (random plates, preexisting train cars, or whatever is handy), and see if your design runs to your satisfaction.

[sed6]

1 hour ago, zephyr1934 said:

My first long cars were about 54 studs long (no idea what the spacing is between the trucks), as seen in the back of this photo. Using 6 studs wide that was proportionally the correct length for the cars.

Agree your cars look great! Shorter would do them a disservice. They look great on a large layout like in you pic. The OP should think about where he plans to run them also. On a small layout like mine the long cars could present problems and it probably would not be as enjoyable as running them on a large layout. I definately keep the small size of my layout in mind as I design and build cars. 

[Snow van Night]

after a little bit of rescaling i got the train car down to 55x7 studs, this of course means i have to make the interior even more compact

[LEGO Train 12 Volts]

The wagons of my two Frecciarossa are 54 and 56 studs long...

 

....and my DDA 40X is over 70 studs

All of them run fine on the rail ...but see them on a standard curve looks quite ridiculous

 

[dr_spock]

My PRR Baldwin Centipede is around 58 studs long and the PRR Queen Mary FW1 car is 84 studs long.  You can make them as long as you like if you don't already have a layout with rolling stock size restrictions. You can always design your layout to fit your rolling stock.   

 

[Snow van Night]

wow, all this trains look amazing, i can only hope that my orient express will look that good.