Dan’s Train Blog

It looks like we’re going to be building an On30 (not On2-1/2!) micro layout and the typical question has come up.

When you say “micro,” how micro do you really mean?

We want to run trains round-and-round so we need a loop. The size of a small layout is dominated by its turn radius. The size of the turns will be decided by the size of the motive power. I have a bunch of Bachmann Porter 0-4-0s in On30 around so we’ll use these to rule the design.

I love the Internet. A quick Google of “minimum radius porter 0-4-0” returned a link to a pdf:

On30 Commercial Loco and Car Minimum Radius Guide written by the infamous “Professor Klyzlr” [BTW, Professor Klyzlr, I would link into your site but it has no home page.]

And the data the Internet On30 community has given is that Bachmann says 18″ radius but people find that 12″ is a practical minimum and 6″ is absolute minimum. I’m going to shoot for 10″ radius — but I’m going to test that.