What's the normal width of an N-scale roadway? I know it can vary from highway to country road. I kinda need a guideline for both. Just to give me an idea so it won't look too big or small : ) Thanks, DJ
i'm not sure what the exact measurements are but what i did was measure my street then divide it by 160 and modelled my roadway to that measurement. I measured my roads at Approx two inches in width
I think the average (standard?) road width in the US (two lane, shoulder) is 30 feet. This boils down to 2.25 inches when taken in N scale. Small side or back roads would be smaller, while some bigger state highways might be slightly larger. Interstates are different, depending on the number of lanes, and if it is divided or not. I'd use an inch per lane, plus a full breakdown lane on the right, and half an inch on the left.
Well, my very first roads for a layout are started and they don't look too bad for a beginner. What a difference roads make on my layout. It looks completely different now, and I mean in a good way : ) I actually used an engineers ruler (one of those triangular looking ones), to mark the roads with a pencil. The roads are either 2 times the width of the ruler or one time the width. This worked out really well for me. Anyway, thanks all for the help. I used Floquil gray for the road and after a trip to look for white paint for the lines, used an old can of white house paint. Don't throw anything away! You never know when you will need it. He he! Now, how do you make cars? Saw it on a website somewhere. DJ
The width of the road can be figured out mathmatically, but there is another consideration. The width of the road will depand on the vehicles you use. If you are going to use only "scale" vehicles (about $10.00 a piece), you can use the correct width. If you are going to use "close" vehicles such as micro-machines, you might want to make the roads bigger, so the vehicles look natural.
<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by MOPAC 1: The width of the road can be figured out mathmatically, but there is another consideration. The width of the road will depand on the vehicles you use. If you are going to use only "scale" vehicles (about $10.00 a piece), you can use the correct width. If you are going to use "close" vehicles such as micro-machines, you might want to make the roads bigger, so the vehicles look natural.<hr></blockquote> How much difference is there with the "scale" cars versus the micro machines. And are these les expensive than "scale" automobiles? Do the micro machines look cool?
The scale cars are made at 1:160 scale, true N scale. Micro Machines and the like are made at 1:144 scale, so will be slightly larger than N scale. I would think this would only really be noticable if you had models of the same vehicle too close together. The good thing about the Micro Machines is that they're already painted, although a lot of them are NASCAR based or close to modern military equipment.
