A question was asked of me tonight and I didn’t think there was any one correct answer. A friend asked me how much distance should track be placed from the backdrop on an HO model railroad. For the placement of buildings and scenery etc. My answer was it all depends on what structures your planning on using, do you want to use full or back round buildings, what type of area is it, industrial, agricultural etc.
I read some place where one molder has all or most of his structures with the back side of the building facing the tracks as this is whats most prototypical which sounds liek a pretty fair stement but I never even considered doing that before. So what do you guys think?
I would say that it definitely depends on what his backdrop and rear scenery is all about. If it sticks out then that would certainly be a consideration.
But my advice would be to get an NMRA gauge and use it to determine clearance. If you don’t have a gauge, you can go to their site or else to LDSig to look in the clearance charts. In any case, both web sites are chock full of useful resources, and information about standards, clearances, turning radii, etc. Well worth checking out.
NMRA - National Model Railroaders Association Web Site
http://www.nmra.org
LDSig - Layout Design Special Interest Group Web Site
http://www.ldsig.org
Hope this helps!
John
Yup got an NMRA gage and thats a pretty good idea thanks John
If the backdrop is a flat, vertical masonry wall, the NMRA gauge will give minimum clearance.
If the backdrop is anything else, even building flats, the additional thickness of the ‘modeled backdrop’ has to be factored in.
If the painted (or photo-mural) backdrop represents something distant (the fruited plains, with the purple mountain majesties beyond) then the lighting has to be taken into effect. There’s only a very small window of time when a train casts a shadow hundreds of meters long.
IMHO, the minimum that should be allowed is about three inches from the centerline of visible track to the vertical surface beyond - space enough for low-profile buildings, overgrown (or not) fencelines and other sharp corner hiders. The only place where my own modeling can’t meet that standard, the adjacent surface will be a vertical rock face - modeled shot holes and all.
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
I studied this alot in planning my modules and found 3" centered to be the closest you would want to come, leaves just enough room for flats with a little depth and clearance for the trains. Now remember this is on the straight.
quote from TomitawaTT:
“There’s only a very small window of time when a train casts a shadow hundreds of meters long.”
I thought about that shadow thing when putting my shrimpboat harbor right up against the background. I couldn’t have buildings up against the background casting shadows across trhe channel 600 feet away. However, I could have those shadows fall on a nearby verical surface, so I glued some building cutouts ontp the background right where any shadows would fall. (Didn’t happen to have the shadows this particular day when I set my photo light real high in a aisle…)
Harbor approximately 1 foot wide by 6 inches front-to-back.
LOL - never noticed your sign back there before.
Ghoti seafood, eh? Sounds a little fishy to me … [:D]
On the original subject - how far away from the wall - Gerald Fitzgerald had some musings on the depth of shelf layouts and how far tracks should be from the wall to leave enough room for scenery between the track and the wall in Layout Design Journal issue 39 - he ended up thinking that about 20 scale feet should do it in most cases - ie a little under 3" from the wall.
In the editorial in Model Railroad Planning 2010, Tony Koester philosophized a bit about narrow shelves as well. He shows a great looking picture of an 8" wide shelf section on Bill Darnaby’s Maumee Route layout where the single track also is about 3" from the wall.
In Model Railroad Planning 2001 Bernie Kempinski discusses modeling wide open prairie landscapes on fairly narrow shelves, with tips and tricks for making things look good on fairly narrow layouts (e.g. putting the railroad on a raised embankment with a road climbing up to cross the rail line and falling away behind the railroad, making the foreground more interesting, with culverts or fences or whatever).
In Model Railroad Planning 1998 Paul Dolkos discussed some tricks for making the layout/backdrop interface less noticeable.
Anyways - might be some tips to pick up there - especially in the MRP 98 issue. I can’t find my copy right now - I probably have left it somewhere about the house after re-reading it for the umpteenth time 
Grin,
Stein
Actually most of the Walthers ‘Background Buildings’ (which, BTW, are not much cheaper than their full-size counterparts although being 1/2 the parts) are like this - the backside loading doors/docks/ramps are the main focus, and what would logically be the front of the building faces the backdrop and away from the viewer. This makes great sense for these type of ‘close-in’ background buildings, but other buildings (say photos pasted on the backdrop) representing buildings blocks further away, they can face any direction as long as it seems logical.
Maybe something like (in order from the viewer toward the backdrop) background industries (backside); apartments/commercial structures (backside); distant city buildings (any logical direction)