I’ve often read about modelers using structures from different scales to create force perspecitve but wondered if any has seen that approach taken a step further and actual laid track and run trains in a smaller scale in the background to create forced perspective. I considered it for my current layout but talked myself out of it. That was probably a good thing.
One of the model railroad magazines covered a layout that did just that. From the pictures is looked pretty good. Sorry I don’t remember the issue.
Enjoy
Paul
I once built a layout that used HO Scale and N Scale. It had two trains that were identical except one was HO and the other was N. Visitors would watch the HO train running near the front of the layout until it disappeared into a tunnel. After a suitable amount of time the N Scale train emerged from a tunnel at the back of the layout, making the layout appear to be much bigger than it actually was. The two trains were actually just running on loops of track. When one went into it’s tunnel the operator would stop it and start the other one.
There was - maybe still is - a multi-scale club layout - O-Scale, S-Scale, and HO-Scale - somewhere in Silicon Valley. I visited this layout while attending the national convention in San Mateo in '81. From the viewer’s standpoint O-Scale was always the farthest away with HO-Scale the closest and S-Scale in between. The club, of course, had modelers in all three of these scales which accounts for this very innovative approach; as opposed to adding depth to the scene it was supposed to bring the background closer to the viewer.
This layout had been featured in MR some years before with some very impressive photography; not meaning to be derogatory but I have to admit that I was less impressed in-person but, nevertheless, the modeling concept was quite interesting.
Multiscale layouts really are in the realm of exhibition or display layouts as prototype operation is next to impossible.
Good for pretty roundy-go-roundy displays but not for a “model railroad”.
I am using N scale at the top of mountains and at the back of long scenes on my HO layout. It works great. Mine are not yet running, but an eye for perspective makes it easy and effective. I used trees to work from one scale to another or in the case of the Superstition mountains, saguaro cactus.
At the risk of sounding elitist, I would tend to agree with this statement. It’s a neat trick, to be sure, but it’s still a trick nonetheless. A more blatant trick than the everyday tricks we use (i.e., not modeling the back wall of structures against the backdrop, using electric motors in our steam engines, etc.)
But depending upon one’s modeling objectives, it’s not impossible. I would suggest, however, that it’s very, very difficult to get away with unless you can carefully restrict the viewing angles.
It’s not something I would do, nor something I’d be “fooled” by on someone else’s layout, but if you want to give it a shot, go for it.
Since some people model a regular line and have a narrow gauge line as part of the same layout, would that qualify for this subject?
No. Typically a layout with standard and narrow gauge is all the same scale, i.e., HO/HOn3. Both sets of tracks are 1:87 scale, but the HO track represents track that’s 4’ 8 1/2" gauge, and the HOn3 represents track that’s 3’ gauge. But it’s all still HO scale.
Unfortunately, sometimes folks incorrectly use “scale” and “gauge” interchangably when talking about model railroading. Scale refers to the size of the model relative to the real thing, whereas gauge represents the distance between the rails.
Thanks, Dave.
It does get confusing sometimes.
Heh, even better: OO ‘Gauge’, which has a track gauge (distance between rails) that’s correct for HO (1:87.1) scale, but the actual locomotives/wagons/vehicles/structures/details etc are more like 1:76 (historical artifact - the model motors at the time (wiki states Bing used clockwork motors to start, electric motors a few years later) would not fit into HO locomotives correctly sized for the (rather restrictive) UK loading gauge, so they made the bodies a bit bigger and hence…OO scale.
I know of one modular club here in the area that uses N scale for a Live Steam Carny type train on the HO layout. It doesn’t go very far.
I for one want to see the scales stacked up. Z guage sharing a rail with N, nestles between HO rails, in a (2 rail) O, stacked in G in an oval. Wouldn’t that be fun?
I have seen many people try it. I have yet to see it accomplish its goal. All the ones I’ve see look exactly like what they are. Often very toyish.
'Taint necessarily so!
If I were to succumb to the pressure of those who want me to add Shinkansen trains to my model world, I would place the distinctive right-of-way across the back of my modeled scene and use N-scale track and models. That way, a Speeding Bullet would rip past every so often, in absolute contrast to the sedate [(-D] operations of the foreground trains with their engine changes, freight car swaps, passenger stops and interchange activities.
All it would take would be one set of 00-series cars (the distinctive Bullet - now long obsolete,) two spring switches and some fancy civil engineering to create a prototypically accurate setting. Of course, if you blinked, you wouldn’t see it as it rocketed by at an actual speed higher than the maximum allowed for the twice-as-big models (as measured in full scale feet/minute.)
Why the [(-D] after, “Sedate?” I’m modeling a prototype that ran well over 100 trains on a slow day!
Chuck (modeling Central Japan in September, 1964 - in one scale, on two track gauges)
Heh, sounds a bit like the old Japanese computer game A-Train III - you fuzt with your local trains, freights carrying material to build up the city, and passenger locals to carry the city citizens around, and eventually the Shinkansen would build across the city, hopefully building a station where you owned some lots (and so would increase your property’s value tremendously) - then the Shinkansen would zip back and forth across the game screen while you countinued to fuzt with your local trains… (Never did figure out the differences in the various commuter EMUs in that game)
As and avid N and HO scaler with no layout yet (I have 4 2’X4’ modules and a Coffetable layout), my N scale and HO scale stuff is constantly fighting over the same real-estate. I’m looking hard at different ways to combine the 2 to conserve space. Double decking looks most promising, but I want my HO build to NMRA standards so I can participate in club events, but the N scale will be used at home more…
Right now the HO has the modules, and the N scale has the coffee table… but that’s a small coffee table!!!
I’m an O-scaler now, and this scale/gauge thing is something that drives me nuts about ebay! When I first got online, back in 2001, ebay had a “Snail Mail” address at the bottom of each page, and I gave thought to writing them a letter about the neophites’ constant use of “O scale” to describe anything with 1-1/4" gauge–usually tinplate stuff. I didn’t and the address is gone now, or I’d write and suggest they get someone knowledgeable to write up; a set of guidelines for sellers who don’t know much, if anything, about model trains. Then, a couple of years ago I started seeing such nonsense as “O, On30, On3 depot (trees, telephone poles–just about everything BUT track, locos, and rolling stock!).” And I’m still seeing listings like “Lot of O scale track,” click on it–and find it’s 3-rail tubular tinplate. To coin a phrase: “Aaargh!”
Dean
To make it even more confusing American OO uses correct track gauge see http://www.nmra.org/national/sig/AmericanOO.html
Enjoy
Paul
Dave is quite correct here. Anyone who understands human vision will appreciate that, as long as the viewer preceives a significant degree of parallax in a scene that is necessarily shallow (like a model railroad), it is not possible to believably create an illusion of excessive depth. While a viewer may appreciate the impression the modeler is attempting to convey, they will not be tricked by it.
Photographically, since one is then dealing only with two dimensions, such scenes can be rendered in a highly believable manner. This is why so many layouts look dramatically more impressive in the pages of MR than when actually viewed in person.
CNJ831
Agreed. The only place it would work would be a VERY large exihibit-type layout, where the smaller scale trains would be placed a considerable distance from the viewrer and the point of view could be controlled.