I have done Google searches and have yet to find out, How many feet is a typical city block in the usa in the 70s?
As a (very) general rule a thumb, “once around the block” is a quarter mile, so for a square block, one side is 1/16 mile, or 330 ft. (about 3’ 9-1/2" in HO scale).
That kind of puts a 4X8 sheet of plywood into perspective. Your model railroad circles 2 city blocks. Talk about a shortline.
I happened to have a fairly large scale street (AND TRACK!!!) map of an urban area on which I was basing a scene, measured so many blocks and divided by the number and the scale and found the blocks were about 300 x 300. And they are square in this particular city. Blocks are often laid out longer than they are deep, and I figure 300 long by 200 deep is a good figure to shoot for. A lot 100 foot deep is big enough for a front yard, house, back yard and garage. Of course, there are a lot of things that can be done with selective compression, forced perspective, etc. But I start at 300 x 200.
What’s a typical city??? It really depends where and how old the city is. I don’t know about the US in the 70’s, but I did work a couple of summers in the late 60’s doing survey work in western Canada - where almost every block had been laid out (where geography and geology permitted) to a standard size of 250 x 500 feet with road allowances of 66 (standard street) and 99 feet (highway or main road), until developers decided (circa late 50’s - early 60’s) rectangular blocks weren’t modern enough. Towns I’ve seen in adjacent parts of the US (e.g. Montana) have blocks about the same size, at least in the older areas.
I have done Google searches and have yet to find out, How many feet is a typical city block in the usa in the 70s?
As a (very) general rule a thumb, “once around the block” is a quarter mile, so for a square block, one side is 1/16 mile, or 330 ft. (about 3’ 9-1/2" in HO scale).
That kind of puts a 4X8 sheet of plywood into perspective. Your model railroad circles 2 city blocks. Talk about a shortline.
I happened to have a fairly large scale street (AND TRACK!!!) map of an urban area on which I was basing a scene, measured so many blocks and divided by the number and the scale and found the blocks were about 300 x 300. And they are square in this particular city. Blocks are often laid out longer than they are deep, and I figure 300 long by 200 deep is a good figure to shoot for. A lot 100 foot deep is big enough for a front yard, house, back yard and garage. Of course, there are a lot of things that can be done with selective compression, forced perspective, etc. But I start at 300 x 200.
What’s a typical city??? It really depends where and how old the city is. I don’t know about the US in the 70’s, but I did work a couple of summers in the late 60’s doing survey work in western Canada - where almost every block had been laid out (where geography and geology permitted) to a standard size of 250 x 500 feet with road allowances of 66 (standard street) and 99 feet (highway or main road), until developers decided (circa late 50’s - early 60’s) rectangular blocks weren’t modern enough. Towns I’ve seen in adjacent parts of the US (e.g. Montana) have blocks about the same size, at least in the older areas.