Hello, I am currently ready to work on the scenery portion of my 4’x8’ layout. I was wandering about how wide the roads should be on an HO layout. Any tips on building roads would be appreciated as well. Thanks
Pretty much depends on the road you are trying to represent. IE the road in front of my house and the dirt road down the street are two different sizes. Same goes with a busy parkway or a back alley all are roads but you really didn’t specify.
Whatever the case its 1/87th the size of a the prototype. My street in HO is about 4.5" wide. Typical driving lanes are as follows;
-U.S. Interstate Highway System uses 12-foot lanes.
-Federal Highway Administration uses 11-foot lane.
-Many residential streets will have 10-foot lanes plus a parking lane.
-Rural low traffic areas typically have 9-foot lanes.
Here is a post which details widths of various kinds of 2-lane road in inches for HO and N:
http://cs.trains.com/trccs/forums/p/59407/739830.aspx#739830
Try it. You may be surprised about just how much space roads really take.
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964 - with goat path roads)
Here in Anderson Indiana, each lane was about 12 feet wide. It was dependent upon the type of roadway (main street, residential or back country road, etc) but most business streets and highways were built at about 12 feet per lane. Earlier, in the twenties, roads were only about 20 feet wide total, so, if the portion of the town you wish to model was built in that era, a 20 foot roadway is fine.
If each lane were 10 feet wide, that would be 1 and 3/8s inch. So a two lane street would be 2 and 3/4 inches. 10 feet is what I use for the lanes of my city streets. Modern hiway lanes would be wider. Parking lanes would have been more narrow in the 50s, say 8 or 8 1/2 feet.
As a guide in HO:
8’ = 1 1/8
10’ = 1 3/8
This urban street is 3 inches wide. As always, I was constrained for space, but I also wanted the narrow roads to enhance the image of the “brick canyons” of a city.
This is the cross street. Here, even more squeezed for space, I made the road only 2 1/2 inches. I also cut the sidewalks down to a half-inch. The result is an even more “claustrophobic” feeling, even though the buildings are only 2-4 stories.
Away from the hustle and bustle of downtown, this RIX bridge is also 3 inches wide, so I kept the roads the same:
