I am trying to plan my new HO layout. It is a modular layout that measures 2 feet by 8 feet. It is comprises of two 2 by 4 modules. I have set my one mainline track at the 12" mark on the 24" width of the two modules. I have a road that parallels that mainline trackage. The road and the railroad trackage parallel each other throughout the entire 8 foot module. Realizing that one would at least needs drainage of some kind off the roadbed and between the parallel highway, how much measurement in HO scale(either HO scale feet or normal measurement in inches) would need to be distance allowed to be realistic between the mainline trackage and the parallel roadway. By the way, the roadway is a two lane road Thanks for the assistance.
Would depend on the era and how rural the scene is, but generally, to my observation, tracks aren’t run really close to adjacent roadway. I think at a minimum, from the edge of pavement, there’s 2 feet shoulder before the drainage ditch, 2 feet of ditch, and 4 feet of roadbed to the rail. So that’s a bit more than an inch real size, from rail to pavement, and that’s really a minimum.
I don’t think there’s any hard and fast rule for this, or any legal requirements that I know of.
Remember, in some places, tracks run right down the middle of a street.
There’s a spot here in my home town of Ocala, FL, where the old ACL main line runs very close to 1st Avenue, one of downtown Ocala’s main streets. The line is not heavily used now (it’s part of the Florida Northern short line, and sees one local train running in each direction roughly every day). But the ACL line used to be fairly heavily traveled, and it has been configured this way in relation to 1st Avenue for many, many decades (more than 50 years).
I’ll get a picture of it and post it here tomorrow, if I can.
Generally, I would say keep as much separation as you can, but don’t worry if you have to squeeze it close in spots. Trust me, someone will be able to find a prototype for whatever you want to do.
You mean like this?
Thank you everyone for great responses.This picture is not exactly what I was thinking. I wanted the mainline track to be placed on a high roadbed, then a drainage ditch and then the highway. I saw Pelle Soeberg layout pictures and some of his pictures have tracks paralleling the highway. That was why I was asking the question. Something like this.
Oooh man. I wish I was alive back when street running was as common as a load of tree’s. I see alot of late 30’s early 40’s cars, when was the photog taken? That a 45 tonner? I can’t see the trucks good enough to tell if they have those connected balance flywheel thingy’s.
That’s a regular, four-motored, no-siderod GE 44-tonner. It was owned by the SP subsidiary Petaluma & Santa Rosa Railroad. The picture was taken on a rainy winter day sometime in the mid-twetieth-century (post WWII) period.
Update: The photo was taken on January 1948 on the Main Street in Sebastopol, CA.
Mark
8 scale feet ought to be enough to give a realistic clearance. As stated earlier, the distance varies depending on the situation (highway, urban, rural, industrial etc), but it should be enough to ensure a minimal margin of safety.
Here is a quick video I shot while moving some equipment to the shop for rebuild. If you notice, the road is maybe 20 ft to the side of the track across a grass median. There are thousands of ways to skin this cat…
http://s423.photobucket.com/albums/pp312/tangerine-jack/?action=view¤t=100_2554.flv
I have no idea what historical standards were but in about 1992, the standards were no potential obstructions (trees, signs, structures, etc.) within 33 1/3 ft from the centerline of a two-lane paved road.
Sorry I didn’t post my followup to this thread yesterday as promised – it was raining too hard here all morning for me to get out and take pictures. It was still pretty drab and drizzly this morning, but I was able to get out and get the promised pictures, as well as pace off some distances between road and rail.
These shots were taken along the old Atlantic Coast Line main line in Ocala, Florida (now used by the Florida Northern short line). Keep in mind that while the tracks look run-down today, this was once the main ACL connection between Jacksonville and St. Petersburg, and saw a lot of both freight and passenger traffic. The road/rail configurations you’ll see here all date back to the time when this was a Class 1 main line.
The first photo shows the line in downtown Ocala, running alongside 1st Avenue. Here, the edge of the road and the edge of the nearest rail are only about 11 feet apart, which would translate to about an inch and a half on an HO layout. It maintains this tight spacing for just over a tenth of a mile, which translates to about six feet in HO scale.
The next two photos were taken from the same spot just north of downtown Ocala, the first looking east and the second looking west. This is the throat of the old ACL Ocala freight yard, where it passes under US 441. The parallel street is SW 14th Street. From the edge of the street to the edge of the ballasted roadbed (not the rail) here is about 23 feet, or roughly three and a quarter inches in HO. Note that while the track remains relatively level, the street rises and dips, rising above track level in the first p