A Question about Autoracks

Agatheron

Member
Despite leaning towards doing a non-auto related industry for my first layout, autoracks and extended length boxcars still parade by my house almost every day. The reason for not using them is simply that they do not perform well on tight radius turns, and they do not look good on anything tighter than about 18" radius turns. I've also seen that they even look funny when going over peco medium radius turnouts (thanks SD90!)... It means they use more space, realistically than I have.

More recently, however, the parade of autoracks has started to include the articulated autorack cars. Atlas now produces these, and I was wondering if anyone is making use of them or can share their thoughts as to how well they perform in tighter spaces.

One possibility that has recently come up is that I may be moving into a larger space than what I currently have... which could solve the above problem. However... I would still appreciate input and advice!
 

MagicMan_841

New Member
I just saw my first articulated racks today, 2 of them sitting in QGRY's Allenby yard here in Quebec City. I had never seen any before, so I guess they just started showing up on the rails here.

I own a single one, looks extremely good, Atlas did a #1 job on these. Each section is actually 70', it's not two normal autoracks welded together. If you run RC centerbeams(75' or so), the racks will run too. I like the massive look of them. The only problem with the Atlas model is that it's empty and that amplifies vibrations. You can fill it up with the stuff women use to remove makeup...you know those fluffy balls of material... I don't know how it's called in english but in french we call it "ouate". They are also a bit on the light side so some weight around the center helps tracking. It seems the model is able to run on 9¾" radius curves (that's what the box says) but I plan to have 15" minimum.
 
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