Has anybody used finescale curved track?

[NeilM]

Just thought that I would check if anyone has used the finescale curved track from tgauge.com?

The reason that I ask is I had seen this as a good way to build a small layout, but when I checked the website properly I can see that it is 60mm radius, where the track with roadbed that I have used before is 120mm.

Therefore, not sure what will go round this radius, hence checking if anyone has any experience of this in use?

I will be using 16m or 19m chassis, nothing longer, and US 40' boxcars (about 28mm long), so nothing overly long.

I know N gauge will work on 9" radius, therefore mathematically T gauge should work on 3" (75mm). Finesscale curves are less than that, and additionally I am not sure how much flexibilty there is in the mechanisms with the bogies being held on by springs.

[dkightley]

From what I remember seeing in comments here and on the Facebook group, I get the impression that only the 16mm power unit is unaffected by such tight a curve. I assume that the same "Binding" issue will be there for rolling stock longer than this power unit size as well.

My personal experience with curves is on the run-arounds on The Bridge. Parts of the curves use 120mm sectional track.....and two separate places on the curves were prone to derailments....particularly the 9-car HST, which tended to pull the 4-coach off the track on the inside of the curve where I think the trailing power car stuttered, snatching the coaches off the track!

[kajovog]

I have used it a lot, and for the 60mm radius nothing beyond the 16M chassis will work. On 70mm I have run 19M chassis..... but its not reliable, so in practice I can not recommend to run anything larger than the 16M chassis.

Here is a very short video I did a while back that shows the 16mm chassis on 60mm Radius, and you can see that even that is tight.

[mattd10]

Yeah I’ve had similar issues with the fine track. It’s a shame really because it looks great and is easy to use...maybe there’s a market for T scale “shorties” like the rokuhan shorties in Z or Bandai B trains in N...(I’ll get my coat...)

[NeilM]

Thanks for all your replies on this.

As am not planning on using anything above a 16m chassis on this track I think what I will do now is to just order a circle - or a circle and a pack of straights - and see how it goes when try to run the train length (short!) that I had in mind.