I am now modeling a 2.5 mile single track, coal hauling shortline. How many square feet would I need if it was built in a around the room square in N scale?
miles = feet?
- Thread starter csxengineer
- Start date
Hi csxengineer:
Sorry to disappoint, but maybe not. 2.5 miles is 82.5 feet in N scale (2.5 x 5280 / 160), but that's track length, not square feet. An 8' x 10' layout square is 36' around the 4 edges once, not 82.5'.
To get 80' around the room square is 20' each wall times 4 walls. That's 400 square feet.
Or if you have a 10' x 30' room you still get 80' around the walls, but only 300 square feet.
Maybe you could build it twice around and get close, or you may have to 'compress' the horizontal scale and model only the major features of the route. There's nothing wrong with doing this, only a fortunate few of us (empty warehouse owners) have any hope of keeping horizontal distance in scale even for shortlines. Even those fantastic wide open basement layouts compress the run between terminals, and devote the available space to the necessary features such as operable yards.
Good luck with this! Post some photos for us.
Sorry to disappoint, but maybe not. 2.5 miles is 82.5 feet in N scale (2.5 x 5280 / 160), but that's track length, not square feet. An 8' x 10' layout square is 36' around the 4 edges once, not 82.5'.
To get 80' around the room square is 20' each wall times 4 walls. That's 400 square feet.
Or if you have a 10' x 30' room you still get 80' around the walls, but only 300 square feet.
Maybe you could build it twice around and get close, or you may have to 'compress' the horizontal scale and model only the major features of the route. There's nothing wrong with doing this, only a fortunate few of us (empty warehouse owners) have any hope of keeping horizontal distance in scale even for shortlines. Even those fantastic wide open basement layouts compress the run between terminals, and devote the available space to the necessary features such as operable yards.
Good luck with this! Post some photos for us.
Are we talking about linear footage of track to replicate the prototype?
I have formulas for HO and with some math it can be converted to whatever scale, but I do not want to confuse this more than it is.
I have formulas for HO and with some math it can be converted to whatever scale, but I do not want to confuse this more than it is.
This "compression" mentioned above may actually be a good thing, if you look at it as "leaving out the boring parts."
Say you wanted to model a RR between two towns that are in real (or imagined) life 60 miles apart. and a train would average 30mph going from one town to the other. That's 2 hrs, most of which would be spent just watching the train go down the track!
Now, I know that most of us would say that we enjoy doing just that, but if we had to do it every time we wanted to operate our layout, then what?
This reminds me of something my grandmother used to say while we watched a western movie on TV - the posse takes off, and the next thing you saw was the posse arriving at where ever they were going. "They couldn't of gotten there that fast!" she would always say. I didn't figure out the perfect reply until she had passed on - that if we had to sit there and watch a bunch of guys riding horses for 2 hrs, we'd change the channel.
Say you wanted to model a RR between two towns that are in real (or imagined) life 60 miles apart. and a train would average 30mph going from one town to the other. That's 2 hrs, most of which would be spent just watching the train go down the track!
Now, I know that most of us would say that we enjoy doing just that, but if we had to do it every time we wanted to operate our layout, then what?
This reminds me of something my grandmother used to say while we watched a western movie on TV - the posse takes off, and the next thing you saw was the posse arriving at where ever they were going. "They couldn't of gotten there that fast!" she would always say. I didn't figure out the perfect reply until she had passed on - that if we had to sit there and watch a bunch of guys riding horses for 2 hrs, we'd change the channel.
Oh man!! Think of every Batman episode - If you had to watch the Batmobile all the way from the batcave to Gotham - it would be 1/3 the episode. LOL (10 Min. compaired to a "cut in the film"
In N-scale, 1 yard of track = 160 yards as N -scale is 1 to 160th USA but in the UK it would be 1 to 148 (British outline) therefore to have a run of a scale mile for the US modelling you would need 11 yards of track. For 2.5 miles -- you need 27 and a half lengths of track.
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Now I wonder what that would work out at in 0n30 Hmmmm.
Shamus
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Now I wonder what that would work out at in 0n30 Hmmmm.
Shamus