Tight squeeze??

[steamingspud]

Aye, how ye doing,
I live in New Hampshire, and I was wondering if I could fit a shortline in 7.25" scale on little more than an acer of land? Dumb question, but I figured it'll be interesting...
Thanks
Steamingspud

[Harlock]

I think it's easily possible, just don't put anything on it that requires a huge turn radius.
I've seen a 7.5" gauge railroad in Northern California that runs around a house on what looks like an ordinary 1/4 acre lot.

Grab a cad program or a pencil and start working out some of the tight spots and see what the radius ends up as...that will determine what you can run on it.

[Harlock]

Did a little digging...here's an example of a railroad around a house with I'm guessing no more than 1 acre of land: www.sscom.org/rap.html

It mostly depends on how far in you can cut the curves - i.e. larger curve radius will cut into the property further, and if you have to avoid something like a swimming pool or a house that's tucked in one corner of the lot, you could have problems.

because I wanted to play around with track design in solidworks anyway...here's a quick circular layout on a 1 acre square property. This uses 50' radius curves and there's room to spare. You could go up to 75' radius and still be fairly comfortable, you'll just cut deeper swaths into the property. With 50' radius curves you could handle any smaller wheelbase loco, with 75' radius probably any loco in 7.5" gauge.



If you were flexible on where the track goes and willing to go smaller radii, you could have a figure eight of sorts that crosses over itself with a bridge in the backyard.

--Mike, killing time