Concrete Roadway

[jland31]

Finally ready to put a concrete 2 lane road thru a small town with small businesses on ea. side.

I'ts taking place in the 1950's & is a U S Highway [not Interstate] in Montana.

In N Scale how wide in inches should it be?

Thanx for your input.

 

[billk]

Why not go out and measure a road you like? (Just watch out for trafffic! ) Seriously, I would try putting down some strips of cardboard, or something, to represent the road, and changing the width until it "looks right."

 

[Drew1125]

1 1/2 inch = about 20ft in N scale...I think that would be an acceptable width for a 2-lane U.S. highway.

 

[jkristia]

I made mine 2" wide.

 

[Clerk]

I made mine 2 1/4 " wide which left room for curbside parking.

 

[Russ Bellinis]

I think each lane should be typically 12' wide. I don't know your era, but modern trucks are 110" wide. If they are wider than 110", then they need special oversize load signs and permits. I model in ho so I don't know what n scale measures out per foot. One trick to use is to make your roads slightly narrower than scale to save real estate for buildings, scenery, etc. If you are doing a city street with parking on the street, don't forget to allow an extra 8' on each side of the street for parking spaces.

 

[TomPM]

Most concrete roads that were around in the 1950s would have been 20 to 24 feet wide (lane width 10 feet to 12 feet each), depending on when it was built. The older the road the narrower. If the road had a shoulder the shoulder would have been between 8 to 10 feet wide and made of either dirt or dirt sprayed with asphalt. If it had parking figure on a parking lane that was 8 to 10 feet wide for parallel parking and about 12 to 15 feet for angle parking.

Don’t forget the expansion joints. Concrete slabs would have been one lane wide (10 to 12 feet) by 40 feet I think. When I get to work on Monday I can verify the slab length.

 

[Drew1125]

One more thing, jland...if you include sidewalks in front of the businesses, the bases if the structures will need to be at the same level as the sidewalks.
This can be done by simply extending the material you use for the sidewalk back, to form a base for the structure(s).

 

[jland31]

Good input from everyone & thanx

 

[Bill Pontin]

Might also want to point out that I believe the center lines were white back in the early fifties and we went to the yellow center lines starting in the late sixties.