Morning,
A question that came up and I wanted to ask. With having more space on outdoor layouts, how much space do some of you put between your towns on your railroad?
Just a general question I wanted to throw out and see what you guys have done to show distance between one town and the next on your pikes.
mt
Actually I find that I have less space to put between towns. The main reason is the size of the trains. I work in 1:20 and those models are pretty big. If you compare that to my HO layout, I have a lot more space between town on my HO indoor layout.
It all depnds on size of the layout. You can have them fairly close but make sure you put something in-between to break it up. Like some shrubs etc… In one spot I have a small hill with rocks to break up an area.
I’m thinking of going 1:24 on my buildings just to be able to fit them in my rather tight quarters. With a couple of R1 curves and a narrow plateau as the base loop, I am pretty pinched. Not sure how that will look with my Bachmann 1:22 locos tho.
As much as is possible given the space available, in every other case I use visual breaks just like on an indoor layout.
On our layout we have three 180º turnback loops, the first one will have a curved stone viaduct - yet to be built - and then goes into a tunnel that exits almost parallel to the line but at a lower level. The justification for the second one is a lake which prevents a straight line to that town - line skirts the lake, enters a tunnel, on exit it swings around by 180º and the station is at the other lake shore.
The third one is in the building stage, but will use the same tricks.
How that works on the layout is shown in this video
[vimeo]http://www.vimeo.com/6629888[/vimeo]
Disclosure: Part of our business is layout planning.
Every 10-15- 20 feet or so…
Michael T said:
Morning,A question that came up and I wanted to ask. With having more space on outdoor layouts, how much space do some of you put between your towns on your railroad?
Just a general question I wanted to throw out and see what you guys have done to show distance between one town and the next on your pikes.
mt
I mention what you already know to emphasize the futility of concerning yourself with distance between points. As some have already mentioned the use of scenic breaks is the most effective way of defining different locations on the railroad. A tunnel, a bridged gap or canyon, a group of strategically placed plantings or even a scenicked curve will suffice to separate in most cases. The most important thing is to isolate each town/area visually so that when you are switching an industry or stopping at a depot your attention is drawn to your present location and not elsewhere.
Originally on the POC I had desired to have 5 towns or places along the railroad. After laying out the first town/track/switching area I determined that having fewer more prototypically stretched out locations would be more satisfying than a larger number of squished together locations. It is the switching of industries that makes for good operation not an extra 10 seconds between towns. Thus five locations became only three.
Of course if space is severely limited you might have to squeeze things together a bit. All is not lost however because many a Colorado narrow gauge trackage and its destination town had to be shoehorned into a very narrow and confined canyon or river edge. Either way its the trackage at each location that’s the joy, not the distance between them.[/b]
Whatever the landscape will allow. On my indoor section there is less than 3 inches separating the two yards which are the origin and terminus of most trains. You normally traverse the entire layout after leaving one before arriving at the other, but they do have a rather close connection if wanted.
Richard Smith said:Michael T said:
Morning,A question that came up and I wanted to ask. With having more space on outdoor layouts, how much space do some of you put between your towns on your railroad?
Just a general question I wanted to throw out and see what you guys have done to show distance between one town and the next on your pikes.
mt
[b]No matter what you do you will never have a “realistic” space between towns on a model railroad whether indoor or outdoor. It simply isn’t practical. With 5,280 feet to the real mile an actual scale mile in 1:20 would be 264 feet. So even a modest 10 mile length would be 2,640 feet…an actual half mile!I mention what you already know to emphasize the futility of concerning yourself with distance between points. As some have already mentioned the use of scenic breaks is the most effective way of defining different locations on the railroad. A tunnel, a bridged gap or canyon, a group of strategically placed plantings or even a scenicked curve will suffice to separate in most cases. The most important thing is to isolate each town/area visually so that when you are switching an industry or stopping at a depot your attention is drawn to your present location and not elsewhere.
Originally on the POC I had desired to have 5 towns or places along the railroad. After laying out the first town/track/switching area I determined that having fewer more prototypically stretched out locations would be more satisfying than a larger number of squished together locations. It is the switching of industries that makes for good operation not an extra 10 seconds between towns. Thus five locations became only three.
Of course if space is severely limited you might have to squeeze things together a bit. All is not lost however because many a Colorado narrow gauge trackage and its destination town had to be shoehorned into a very narrow and confined canyon or river edge. Either way its the trackage at each location that’s the joy, not the distance between them.[/b]
My layout is like it is because , there are xx number of miles of track in towns , compared to mmm miles of track between towns , so considering the ratio of town tracks to mileage between towns , its mostly country running between towns that I usually see the real trains doing . And so I have mostly country track running , and rwo really small towns . Industry switching tracks are not always in towns . And not 3 miles from here , on the NS , there was a team track in the middle of nowhere , just a road crossing , that had been there since the 1873 era ., there may have been a small station there at one time , farmers and coal mine use I suppose . But everyones point of interest is different .
On a funny note , while researching the local interurban line thru here , there was a named switch out in the middle of nowhere , not near anything ? And talking to some 80+year old ladies that had ridden the interurbans , when I asked if they knew what that named switch was for out between towns , one of them said …well silly , they had to have that switch for the cars going in opposite directions to pass one another , I figured you would know that ! Yes , silly me years and years later . :- )
My 2 largest industries are seperated by literaly 12 feet by the crow flies and about 30 feet of track. Inbetween the 2 sites are 2 tunnels, a bridge, and a large Hydrangea bush. To give an actuall distance to be travelled between the 2 sites my trains travel the long way around.
Seperating your towns can be done like others have said with soem type of sight block like trees, bushes, a mountain. A canyon might be a good idea as a natural block and a good excuse to build a bridge.
Put up some type of sight block then have your trains take the long way around to get from one point to another and that will add the illusion of distance.