Wyndigo said:
Hi everyone
I'm new to the hobby and was wondering, in HO scale what is the approximate size of a mountain compared to the trains, I've seen pictures where they used 2" thick foam stacked up around 5 or 6 layers high then thinned down with knives/scrapers/etc. Also I built a sawmill (Atlas model) and compared to the locomotive (Athearn Diesel HO) it looks small.
Wyndigo
I've spent quite a lot of time working with buildings and trying to get them to scale, and you're quite right in that it's not actually very easy to work out how big or small a place needs to be.
Where you're going wrong is comparing it to a locomotive. Remember that locomotives are HUGE machines compared to human beings, especially American locomotives (compare them to British ones and they seem like giants!). The best way that I have found to work out scale sizes is to use an HO scale man standing up - he needs to be average height, about six foot. Compare him to doorways, stand him next to buildings and see how big they are compared to him, see if you think that's about "right".
As for mountains, most mountains are 1000 + foot tall, which on a model layout would be about 35 meters high!
Whoever said "it's a small world" was so damn wrong he might as well have been telling us that the moon was made of cheese.
sign1
Just as a "guide" (because you'll probably suprise yourself at how small "big" buildings actually are!) the walls of a one storey high building are usually 9 foot, doors are 7 foot, and windows tend to be about 2 foot by 3 foot.