2026 Forest River Nightfall270N

The Nightfall 270N leaves Forest River's factory at 9,459 lbs dry, with a published GVWR of 14,759 lbs and 5,300 lbs of cargo capacity between the two. Cargo capacity is 36% of the loaded rating, and Forest River's own definition is worth reading before you plan against it: cargo capacity is what remains for fresh water, gear, food, batteries and every dealer-installed accessory. Fresh water alone is 8.3 lb per gallon, so filling this trailer's 150-gallon fresh tank spends 1,245 lbs of that 5,300 lbs before anything else is loaded.

Dry pin weight is 2,165 lbs, which is 23% of the dry weight. That figure lands on the truck's rear axle and comes straight off its payload rating - not its towing rating, which is the number most often quoted and the wrong one for this decision. Pin weight rises as the trailer is loaded, and a fifth wheel loaded toward its cargo capacity will put substantially more than 2,165 lbs over the bed. Read the payload figure on your own door sticker rather than a brochure maximum for the model.

Tank capacities are 150 gallons fresh, 97 grey and 40 black, 137 gallons of waste capacity against 150 gallons of supply. The ratio is what governs how long the trailer can sit off hookups: waste and fresh are close to matched, so both fill at roughly the same rate. Forest River publishes these three figures per floorplan, and they are the factory's numbers rather than a segment average.

Against the rest of the Nightfall roster this is the 9th of 14 floorplans by dry weight, in a line that runs from 6,368 lbs to 15,679 lbs. It sits in the middle of the line by weight. Comparing floorplans inside one line is more reliable than comparing across brands, because every figure here comes from the same factory channel on the same day.

A useful way to read the pair of weights is to stop planning against the dry figure. Nobody tows a trailer at 9,459 lbs: that is the weight before water, batteries, propane, bedding, food, tools and anything the dealer bolted on. Load half the published cargo capacity, which is modest for a family trip, and this plan is already near 12,109 lbs on the road. Compare that number against the tow vehicle, not the dry weight, and leave margin on top of it - the published GVWR of 14,759 lbs is a limit rather than a target.

Every number above was captured twice from Forest River and checked against itself before it was published. The line roster block and the individual floorplan page are two separate factory renderings of the same trailer, and this plan's 4 shared figures agree exactly on both. Dry weight plus cargo capacity also equals the published GVWR exactly, which is the arithmetic check this site runs on every profiled floorplan. Where a figure is missing from this page it is because Forest River does not publish it in this channel, not because it was hard to find - and the row says so rather than being quietly dropped.

Forest River publishes no floorplan description for this plan in the channel this page is built from - only the numeric specification block. Rather than describe a layout from the floorplan code, which would be a guess dressed as a fact, this page carries what the factory publishes and says where it stops. 270N is a Nightfall designation and this site does not decode it into a layout claim.

Nightfall is published as one roster that spans two different towing propositions, and the split is the first thing to understand about it. Forest River files fourteen floorplans under the name in three groupings - travel-trailer toy haulers, fifth-wheel toy haulers and HD fifth-wheel toy haulers - plus four more sold dealer-stock only. The bumper-pull plans run 6,758 to 9,383 lb dry with 1,175 to 1,500 lb on the tongue. The fifth wheels run 9,459 to 15,679 lb dry with 2,165 to 3,765 lb on the pin. Those are not two ends of one range; they are two vehicle classes sharing a badge, and the grouping a plan belongs to tells you which truck you need far better than its floorplan number does. Both are in the table below.

This floorplan carries its water comfortably. A full 150-gallon fresh tank is roughly 24% of the 5,300-pound cargo capacity, leaving the 270N with a usable gear budget even when you tow full.

The published dry pin weight of 2,165 pounds is 23% of this floorplan’s 9,459-pound dry weight. Fifth-wheel pin weight rides in the bed of the truck, so it comes off payload rather than off tow rating — and it rises with the trailer as you load it, not in proportion to what you put over the axles.

Nothing above changes the ceiling. Loaded to its 14,759-pound GVWR the 270N is towing 5,300 pounds more than its 9,459-pound dry figure, and that is the number your vehicle has to be rated for — not the brochure weight.

Tank balance is worth a look before a long boondocking trip: 150 gallons of fresh against 97 grey and 40 black. Waste capacity is smaller than supply, so on this floorplan the grey tank fills before the fresh tank empties — the drain schedule, not the fill, is what ends the stay.

Ranked by GVWR, the 270N sits 5 of 9 in the Nightfall line: 14,759 pounds against a line that runs from 11,375 to 21,000 pounds. That position is the useful thing to know, because the plans immediately either side of it are the real alternatives.

Either side of it in the same line: Nightfall 28N is 1,259 pounds lighter at 13,500 lb GVWR; and Nightfall 350N is 2,031 pounds heavier at 16,790 lb GVWR.

Against the 270N: the Wildcat 402BEDS is 41 lb heavier and 10 ft longer; the Sabre 33RLP is 64 lb lighter and 7 ft longer. Those are differences in the published numbers only — what they cost, how they are built and how they live are separate questions each of those pages answers on its own terms.

Those are the nearest fifth wheels from other lines by weight — one per line, picked by proximity on that figure and nothing else. They are listed so the same tow vehicle can be checked against real alternatives, not because they are equivalent inside; layout, build and price diverge sharply across that group.

For scale, the Nightfall floorplans profiled here run 6,758 to 15,679 pounds dry and 28 to 45 feet of exterior length across 9 plans. Where a floorplan falls in that spread usually says more about which vehicle can tow it, and which site it fits, than the layout name does.

Every profiled floorplan in this line, with the full weight table, is on the Nightfall line hub.

This catalog tracks 18 specification fields per floorplan. Named sources publish 11 of them for the 270N. The rest are not shown, because the alternative is reading a figure across from a sibling floorplan or from what the segment usually does — and a number nobody published is worth less than an admitted gap.

Not published for this floorplan: interior height, sleeps, slide count, axle count, tire specification, refrigerator, air conditioning. If you find one of these in a manufacturer document for this plan, it belongs on this page.

The completeness figure at the foot of this page (85%) measures the same thing on the full field set: it is a measurement of how much this floorplan’s manufacturer publishes, not of how much research went into the page.

How every figure here was sourced and checked is set out on the methodology page.