Ratios, Realty, and Running - Longer Trains and Bigger Buildings

As you design and develop your layout do you try to keep visual proportions within reason? Yes, you can build a three foot tall mountain but would it look right on your hollow core door layout? Maybe. yes, you can run a train with 40 modern grain cars and 3 large locos but would that really 'fit'? You have dreams of a 3 foot long bridge over a deep canyon but are you sure that is going to work?

I have designed a 'hyper-modern' city with sky scrapers that almost reach the ceiling. Thta's not gonna happen. Even with a layout that is 40+ feet long it just wouldn't look right. I have a large freight yard and lots of locos but in I'm fairly certain that 25 modern grain cars and 2 locs is the longest I'll be running.

What are your 'parameters' for selecting sized of scenery, trains, and such?

 

A favorite topic of mine.

Taking your Hallow Core Door example, you're still looking at the door. Which is a perfectly acceptable way to examine the scenery, especially if the Mountain, rather than the train, is the subject.

But what if you looked at the scene​?

How long is this train? Two cars? Ten Cars? Twenty? How about the scene? Is it four feet long? Or is it part of a much larger layout?


Here's a hint:


How about 78 cars, plus two Bigh Boys and a Challenger and one Kato business car in HO scale. 50' of train

Its the same train, different locale on the same layout. On the second photo, the train looks massive, and is clearly visible as it snakes down one side of the penninsula and back up another. We don't normally run trains like this at the club, this was a special deal when no one else was around. but the first photo (which is only slightly cropped) you can't really tell. Now, obviously, the room you have for a layout is going to constrict train size, in any scale, but what are you actually looking at? the layout, or a slice of the ayout? Its why I love layout photography, because it scales the viewpoint as well as the layout. But its not the only way. In Model Railroad Planning 2014 they showcased a 5ft diameter donut layout that folded over itself. the train that ran inside of it only barely cleared its own caboose at the crossover point, but because it was modularlybuilt and showed the complete layout in windows, you only got a 15 inch slice of the train at any one time.



Now, in that 15" slice, imagine that is you, in a car, at a railroad crossing. Maybe its the mountains, or maybe you're downtown and have buildings making a viewblock. How many ten car trains do you see?

 

I'm thoroughly 'stuck' in a prototype modeling situation, but even that doesn't get you entirely out of the problem.

In modeling downtown Flagstaff, I was relatively 'fat and happy' until Google Earth came out and I could do a couple things I never imagined would be possible - measure buildings without actually being there, and also use Photoshop to take a picture, square it up, reprint it to scale size, and do a rendering right on the layout of an actual building.

So you immediately find out that doing things to 'the right size' still can look horribly wrong. A 'full size' Hotel Monte Vista just towered over everything else, and while it's a big building, it's still back a ways from the tracks, so do you deliberately make it a bit smaller to invoke forced perspective? End answer, yes....

And when you measure one of the blocks you've already done, and find out they are all 10' TOO HIGH....??? Whoa... how did that happen. Correct it, print it out, and suddenly it looks completely undersized, yet it's right..... yeah, time to redo that one.

Yeah, look at the smokestack in Morgan's second shot.... left side. Exactly. Nice.

To me, the ultimate 'judge' is to use mock-ups and start doing photography and see how it looks. That's the ultimate judge. It's pretty unblinking and very focused, what may look 'OK' firsthand looks like a POS in the picture, and sometimes what just doesn't seem right actually looks quite good.

To me, that's the catch - is the actual scale vs. forced perspective, because even if you are correct in the dimensions nearly all layouts don't have the horizontal distance in equal scale, and it's difficult to figure out what that needs to be. It can be very subtle and still work great.

So bottom line, do mockups, do the camera, make compromises as necessary....

As far as for train length, on my 'big' layout just about 25-30 cars makes it so that the locomotives and the caboose are not visible in the same scene block area. When you can't see either the caboose, or the locomotives at once the train seems MUCH longer and anything longer than that is pretty pointless. It's just LONG.

 

I have a question that is slightly off-topic, but here goes. I want to start a 36" x 80" HCD layout. It will use Kato Unitrack and take up as much space as possible at least for a mainline around the door. I will be using the concrete tie double track. The question is this; how long should a train be on this size layout? Half of the perimeter? One fourth of the perimeter? Are there any 'unwritten rules'? Just wondering.

 

Dave - your question is spot on topic. The answer, however, is subjective. My own suggestion would be one loco and maybe 10 ta 15 cars. Basically the max length in my opinion should be no more than 40"s. Still, that depends partially on scenery and era. If there is sufficient view block of the rear a longer train might be ok since it would reduce / remove the "dog chasing-its-tale" effect. I feel you really don't want the train to fill one entire half circle - unless it is at least partially blocked from view.
The final consideration would be the angle at which the layout is viewed.
Clear as mud? Sorry.

 

Dave, that's actually I think the topic here. I believe it all comes down to how much intervening terrain there is. If I can see the whole train at once and it snakes around to kiss its own rear end, I'm not really going to be able to suspend disbelief of what I'm seeing. If I have a typical figure 8 track that the train is long enough that the rear is just leaving the crossing when the loco is getting to it BUT there are buildings or mountains blocking enough of the view, then I get the impression that it's two trains crossing. Conversely, I don't need a massive train to convey a massive impression if I'm running a lower speed and the view to that spot is limited.

Generally speaking, if it's a continuous loop track, I don't want to see the rear ahead of the front unless there's enough blocking the view to hide the fact. You also want to keep the trains short enough so that they can clear crossings and sidings. For an oval, I'd keep the length down to the length of the outer end curves (1/2 the circumference, easily approximated by adding a 1 (short) car length to 3 x radius) so that it doesn't appear to be both coming and going. The main exception to that would be when it's modeled to represent sinuous track such as in mountain terrain. If you can hide the entry and exit from the curves behind scenery, you get more length to play with. That's just my taste and I'm sure others will loudly disagree.

 

I am a believer in the forced perspective too. If done right, the scenery should dwarf the trains. I saw a layout once where the single track went through a section where it meandered about the middle of an 8 foot wide section of benchwork in a desert scene. It sure was interesting to see the rock croppings and such dwarf the train some what and show how isolated running across the desert really was.

 

It could work with a scene such as this:

 

My usual process is to draw a quite detailed track plan, eliminate a few tracks, lay it out on plywood, taking out a few more tracks in lieu of scenery and building.

I have a bunch of structures left over from previous urban layouts, and I place them around several locations over a year or so before deciding (and my year is about up....) I have never had the ability to think MR design in the 3D and ratio realm, and have to do it by eye. It is still, IMHO, the best way.

As to train length, it is so changeable, why worry? Put cars on until the engine touches the caboose and work back from there to a train length that suits your eye, and doesn't derail constantly due to weight and volume on your track.

 

I'm determined that the scenery will not overwhelm the trains. Perhaps said another way to cause the trains to disappear into the scenery. Instead, the trains will be the star of the show and the scenery will at all times point to the trains. If I wanted a static display then the trains would just be a part of the scenery. I have no delight in trains that sit on the shelf or in yards looking pretty.

The scenery should always play the part of giving the trains a purpose. Coal trains either running from a coal mine or arriving at a destination such as a dock to load ships or a electric generating plant. If you have a large enough space you could have both incorporated into one layout. Passenger trains can pass through I.e., Eastbound and later return going Westbound. Did I say with station stops?

I'm not a great one for everything being absolutely prototype. After all these are toy trains we are operating. Uhhh...errr....playing with. Now I know I better duck, run and take cover. I do want my trains to be made up of prototype train equipment but despite my favorite local critic's I'm not a nuts, bolts and/or rivet counter.

The idea is to have fun, interpret your layout by the standards you set for it and not be my judge and jury as I'm not yours. Usually, not always... a word to the wise is sufficient.

 

A scene such as that deserves a layout at least 20 to 30 feet long. Even that short the scene would steel the show. Still, I am sure that many have produced a scene of that magnitude in less space.

 

If YOU can see the whole train ... but then, if you're looking at the TRAIN, how come you're seeing the gap between caboose and loco? If you blink just as the loco/caboose is passing through your field of view, won't it seem you're watching a endless passing train?
This topic is way more complex than just a scene being "realistic" or "fakey" -- in fact, layout design is way way more mentally complex than any of us realize. It took me many years to realize this, and many discussions (arguments?) with others about layout plans.
The overriding theme that drives all of our layout planning is our aesthetic sense -- what looks artistic to us. This applies all the way from the Lionel Xmas tree layout builder to the super nitpicker LDE craftsman. It guides what we think is "prototypical", what "fits", what's "plausible", and whats "wrong" when we plan, build, and look at our layouts. "I built the hotel to exact size, placed it exactly in relationship to the tracks as the real one and it looked terribly wrong" is a perfect example of how our sense of art dominates our perceptions of layout building. If that scene had been an architectural model, it would have been "real".
I was planning to write a thread about this soon, and I'm amazed to see the opportunity to discuss this just popped up by itself. No time tonight, but will add to this thread if it's around tomorrow or start my own.

 

Gonna highlight a perfectly in context word you used there, but we keep looking at a 1:160 (or 1:220, 1:87, 1:64) scale model with a 1:1 eyeball. It may not seem like it should, but it matters. Light, like physics, doesn't scale down

Why? Why not model a postcard sene like this? What is missing that has to be there for this to be a layout?

I wish I had pictures, but I know a guy who built a (slightly compressed for length) Z scale model of Tulip Creek Trestle...


In a Coffee table. the base of the towers were modelled with N scale material to force perspetive, and an HO photographer and his truck were right up against the glass. The train chased its tale around an odd caribeaner shaped loop, there was only enough time for the rear end to get off the bridge before the engine came around again. And yeah, you could call this a working diorama, but it worked, and it worked well. It showcased a unique Indiana railroading landmark and was always fun to watch run. At one time, it was to visit (by invitation of the President and CEO) the offices of the Indiana Railroad... you know, the guys who currently own the 1:1 version of the trestle, But I don't think that happened. After it left the hobby shop's display counter, I think it went to a museum in Terre Haute Indiana somewhere.

 

One of the main benefits of N-scale is the possibility of an excellent scenery-to-track ratio. Another benefit (ironically) is that N-scale is small, so you can get a lot of track into a small space if you want to do that. These two "benefits" seem to be at odds with each other, and require a choice to be made according to the space available to the layout builder. However, I decided that I would build a big layout and use N-scale, not stuffing that space full of track and lots and lots of trains. That philosophy I call "Big Scenery, Little Trains", which more clearly translates into "small scale trains representing large class 1 trains".

That philosophy doesn't mean that the scenery "dwarfs" the trains necessarily, but that it looks "right", which involves a number of givens. The first given is that it is easier to include a decent length than it is to have a decent depth. The reason for that is simply that the adult human arm is only able to reach about 2.5 feet...3 feet at the most. However, humans can walk all day long, so the second given is that long scenes are where it's at for me, with a decent depth too.

I am more concerned with how trains look in photographs than I am how they appear to my naked eye, so I force perspective liberally depth-wise. Most scenes I do are approximately 30" deep, with some being nearly four feet deep, with scenery at the rear and trackwork towards the front. I also don't run track right up to the edge of my layout, but preserve an approximate 10" minimum (most of the time) fascia-to-track-centerline spacing, except for certain sidings and industries.

I'm modeling the UP in a ten year period between 1947 and December 31, 1956, which prototypically included a lot of looooong trains pulled by huge engines, so I needed trains that were long enough to give that impression. However, the layout is operational, so I also needed to control the passing siding length. Since my basic modular section is 6' long (by 3' deep) I could fit a typical UP center siding into two modules which would be 12' long. The actual siding would be 9' 7 1/2" long and would hold a train consisting of 30 40' cars, a single caboose and a Big Boy. At the same time, this also dictated that any operational LDE I would allow would have to be a minimum of 12' long, with some being up to three times that long. Scenic LDE's (with no passing sidings) would be as short as 6', such as my Taggarts LDE, with the often photographed twin Warren Truss Bridges over the Weber River with the double track mainline boring through the rocky cliffs using two parallel tunnels.

In the end, my layout will be a minimum of 36' X 36' and trains that are 9' 7 1/2" long will not appear too long, nor will they be "lost" in the scenery, especially since the base railhead to floor height is 52", which gets the trains closer to the eye, but...the length of the LDE's will allow the entire trains to be seen most of the time from the operator's eye height, but unless photos are taken from near track level, only about two thirds of the trains show up most of the time in photos.

In the meantime, since my layout is modular, and I'm building it essentially one LDE at a time, when I take it to shows, I have two LDE's on one 36' side, a couple of 12' scenic LDE's on either end with another 36' two LDE side that my friend Gregg Cudworth is building. In this temporary setup, there are two passing sidings and two yards, but for "operation" a couple more LDE's need to be included, which are presently under construction and will be included sometimes next year in the show setup. The present setup with 96' of modules, accepts 9' 7 1/2" long trains from a visual standpoint, and looks good from a railfanning aspect with three trains on each mainline running in opposite directions, but if this were the end-size of the layout, these trains would be too long.

So, from my point of view, there are a few factors that determine train length. I'll list them in no particular order: (1) Operator's desire: What is your layout's purpose? Operation or railfanning...or both? Railfanning gives you the freedom to run longer trains that don't fit into passing sidings. Operation demands shorter trains to fit your siding size. (2) Layout size: A HCD layout puts limits on train length, the maximum size being smokebox to caboose, with practical and cosmetic train lengths being considerably less (3) Prototype you're modeling: If you're modeling a shortline, or a branchline, then train lengths can be pretty short and look "proper". Major class 1 railroads probably won't look "proper" with short trains, but you can get away with them if you can't see the front and rear of the train at the same time. Even passenger trains that are prototypically consisted are pretty long. My 14 car COLA with an ABB E-9 lashup on the front is about 9' long as is my son's SP Daylight consist.

Here are a few photos that I've posted before, but I'll post them again to illustrate some points dealing with train length and scenery ratio. The first photo shows a Big Boy pulling a 30 car reefer block on the west bound mainline at the Echo Yard shot from eye level. You can see all the train, and it looks impressive enough in length to justify a Big Boy on the front:


Here's a higher photo more from an operator's viewpoint that shows three maximum length trains at Echo Yard, two east bound freights being pulled by Big Boys waiting to be fueled and watered at the Echo Coaling tower (All coal powered east bound freights had to stop at Echo Tower to refuel and re-water). On the west bound mainline a 3700 Class oil fired Challenger pulls an empty reefer block west to Ogden, but must stop at the signal for ten minutes to allow wheels to cool. A new GTEL Superturbine is returning to its train after dropping off cars at the adjacent Park City Yard for the Park City Local to drop off at the Ideal Concrete Plant 20 miles west at Devil's Slide. Notice that the camera can only see about 20 to 24 cars of each train from this viewpoint and angle, but gives the impression of massive long mainline freights:


Here's another photo at the east end of Echo with the Coaling Tower and Station under construction: An east-bound Big Boy is at the tower, with another waiting on the center siding in the distance. A Challenger in helper service is running light back to Ogden from the wye at Wahsatch and is waiting on the GTEL powered west bound freight as it pulls out of the Echo Yard. Two new Alco RSC-2's switch the Park City Yard on their way west to Ogden, dropping off several cars at the Ideal Concrete Plant 20 miles west at Devils Slide and at the trailing point siding at Petersen. Once again, this high camera angle only allows about two thirds of the maximum length trains to be seen, but also gives the impression of the long freights (4,000+ tons) that come through this point on the UP:


Just for your information, the track plan at Echo adheres very closely to the actual track plan (about 1/2 actual length) with the elimination of only one crossover (I couldn't fit it in and retain functional siding length) and prototype width.

Here's another view of the Echo/Park City Yard/Echo Cliffs LDE's which comprise one side of the show setup. This gives an idea of what you'd see when operating with several trains parked at Echo. You can see the high cliffs which, even though they're about a foot above track height, are still smaller than if they were rendered proportionally full-sized:


Not all trains are long on the Wasatch Grade. Here's the Park City Local on the branch fetching an aging wooden reefer to be dropped off at the PFE facility in Ogden:


I'm not sure if any of this will help you out, but it's how I've done it on my layout.

Cheerio!
Bob Gilmore

 

My modeling locale is the Pacific Northwest and more specifically the western end of the Columbia River Basin. The railroad runs along the Columbia River through areas that have 500 to 1500 foot and over, vertical escarpments that level out for a while and then come up against mountains. Modeling challenges because the railroad is a small insignificant little ribbon on steel that runs along the river that is surrounded by all the scenery. The communities are small with a grain elevator or sawmill being the biggest structures along with a fruit packing warehouse. Tunnels are frequent and short, boring through volcanic rock the juts into the river. So the view will be from the river looking at the vertical escarpments and volcanic outthrusts, and above that will be a gently rolling level area that is forested with the big mountain backdrops. The view also incorporates something I tend to like and that is looking through the town to the railroad, thus the backside of structures have to be detailed and are more of a focal point than the fronts on some.

The operations will include some longer through trains which can be modeled without ever seeing that the train is only forty cars long since either or both caboose and power could be hidden in tunnels at either end giving the impression of a much longer 100 car train passing through the scene. One town on the line has a tunnel that opens almost in the yard and the other end has bridge and river crossing that immediately pops into another tunnel as does the prototype. Other than the occasional long through freight though the trains are mostly locals of a single steamer or two diesels with maybe 15 to 20 cars at most.

The upper wooded area above the vertical escarpments is the home of the logging branch and that has become my determining factor on how high those escarpments are by the need to keep the grade up the logging area under 4% and thus my one area of compromise in my design.

The hollow core door does feature in the layout design but instead of trying to achieve this with a single or even two doors I have designed for a total of four doors to be used in a letter G configuration. The width of the doors is not a problem since the towns tend to be narrow in width occupying the narrow river valley. Some compromise again must be made with the town since I decided to only model one and stretch out a few of the industries along the track. Distance and height will be achieved by the use of backdrops with one scenic divider that is separating the sawmill and a small staging area.

But my focus is directed toward the scenery and the harbor and logging camps not the railroad. With me the railroad is just a service tool for all the rest that happens to run through it. There is ample room to run some long trains in the design but I won't and a forty of fifty car train will look longer because of the tunnels and outcroppings.

Probably a much different slant on modeling with the narrow yard and townsite, steep vertical escarpments as the first backdrop, and then the big mountains in the distance. Many very short tunnels and short bridges and mostly short trains. Google Earth has been an excellent design tool in that I can get accurate measurements from the river to the first level and some idea of actual width of the shelf along it. And numerous pictures show the rather insignificant little train running below the cliffs along the river before ducking into another tunnel. Rather hard to do with a single hollow care door, however with two or three, and keeping all the track to the front of the layout quite possible.

 

One of the things you're seeing here is more of a focus on how to break up the layout into visible scenes so that you can't see all of it in one shot; that that philosophy (that I share) that if you have a train long enough to bridge two visible scenes where a scene is X cars long, X+1 may as well be 100 cars.

Buying into that means that your scenic design, viewblocks, etc. (and layout height) guide that extensively. If you've got an HCD 3x6 layout at 36" height, with no view block, the entire train route is readily visible, and almost any train can be seen front-to-back. Take that same layout, split it down the middle with a view block (conventional scenery or backdrop), and put it up to 50", and the imagination can take over on where that train is going, where it went, and determining how long it is.

I've had both, the 3x6 HCD and the viewblock layout, and I did raise my 3x6 up to 50", and after I did that, the entire layout philosophy changed. My 'big layout' is 8'x5'6", basically a letter "O" with six modular tables, each with eye-level view blocks. There are five distinct scenes, none of which are easily viewable from the other (either on the other side of the view block or when 'inside' the "O", you have to turn at least 90-degrees or completely around. If you took that same exact space, took out the viewblocks, and dropped it, it would be a highly ineffective illusion.

I think you can do a perfectly doable job on some rather small-spaced layouts if you employ that approach, including some rather dramatic scenery; I'm remembering what I think was Mark Watson's first layout with the double loops and the big canyon with two bridges and the divider in the center.

 

Purple Mountains Majesty, Amber Waves of Grain, these are a few of my favorite things.
So I’m mixing up my songs. . .sue me.

Great and majestic scenery really IS one of my favorite things to have on a model railroad and if I was any good at modeling it I might actually have some ON my model railroad.

Unfortunately I’m not so I don’t. Then there’s the fact that I don’t have a lot of room for much of anything and since switching operations is what I most enjoy doing and since no mountain or river valley ever made a dime for any railroad and offers no opportunities for switching I have tended to limit my scenery to just that which justifies the various industries aligned to those scenic items.

Otherwise the “Scenery” on my layout tends to be the structures which comprises the many and varied businesses and industries which are served by my railroad.

Is it “Realistic” not really, on the other hand is it “Realistic” to park a modern 60’ boxcar next to an industry that is almost as small as it is? No; and yet this occurs quite regularly on many an otherwise great looking model railroad.

I’ve said it here before, that my railroad has as much resemblance to reality as an episode of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” but it offers endless, almost nightmarish, switching puzzles and that’s good enough for me.

 

[FONT=Trebuchet MS, Georgia, Verdana]@sd90ns[/FONT] - It sounds like you are practicing 'selective compression'. It makes total sense just modeling the industries your switching manifest requires. Anyone dissing you for that doesn't get it.

As for Buffy? I always liked her red headed sidekick and infamous quote: "Bored now!".