Z Scale Airport

Anybody done a full airport with tower, 747s, etc?

 

I don't think it makes much sense, personally. Most large airports I've been through only have trains running inside the perimeter if they are served by a passenger-rail system (eg BWI near Baltimore has light rail into the terminal, Atlanta Hartsfield also does).

The point being that if you're attempting to model a rail/airport interface, your options are limited, typically because of space constraints. If you're modeling the terminal where trains come in, the planes are usually a ways away (if you model the facilities to scale or even half-scale).

So, as far as trying to model an airport, I have two suggestions.

First, model the passenger train interface, and have the rest of the airport facilities as a photo-backdrop on a skyboard, to let people know they're there and create the illusion of the larger scene.

Second, model a freight facility outside the airport perimeter, and maybe have the fence, perimeter road, and part of a runway or taxiiway modeled, with the rest of the airport being represented by backdrop.

The biggest problem I've seen where people have tried to create an airport scene is lack of space to do it right. Keep in mind that even small airports tend to have runways about a mile long (if they have small jet service it has to be a mile or more) and that's 24 feet in Z scale!

I'm kinda of a stickler for details... but this isn't exactly counting rivets, if you get my drift.

Adam

 

Hello Brad

Here's a link to a website with a 1/500 Airport

http://www.ludger-rodermond.de/13435.html?*session*id*key*=*session*id*val*

and this is in english:

http://www.modell-flughafen.de/eng/gallery.html

Regards
Jürg

 

As Adam said, a "Full Airport" would take up a lot of space, even in Z, but it could be done if you had the space.

Rob Allbritton's original layout (pre-Gotthard Line modules) had a section of an airport ramp with a 1/200 747 on it (might have been 1/250). He also had a station for the airport train and that was the primary focus of the scene.

I would like to do part of a smaller regional airport some time with some hangers, maybe a tower and some Air National Guard aircraft like you will see at some regional airports. I would not be doing the whole airport, just part of it. Not sure how the trains would fit in, but it would likely be just along the perimeter. I remember watching the SP from the parking lot at an airport in CA as a kid.

Even in my plans to do part of an airport, it would still be pretty good size in the 8' range. May be have a container terminal next to it as well, to take advantage of the length available.

Randy

 

Adam Amrick suggested "model the passenger train interface, and have the rest of the airport facilities as a photo-backdrop on a skyboard, to let people know they're there and create the illusion of the larger scene."

That is sort of what I did to model the one-base rail spur servicing a US Navy blimp base.


I don't think you could a realistic representation of a commercial airport INSIDE the loop/oval of any medium size home layout. I think it would be unlikely to model any airplane hanger, airplane type facilities, or an airliner itself inside a layout loop with the runways, etc. on the outside. It would be rare for a railroad to be built across a taxiway used by planes. I know at the Corpus Christi Naval Air Station, there is a runway crossed by a major traffic road, with railroad crossing type lights that flash when an airplane is going to cross the street. Airplanes have right of way!

One solution would be a dogbopne shaped layout loop with the track schrunched together toward the front of the layout, with two feet or so of area between the track and a painted or photo background in which to model an airliner, hangar, tower, etc.