Using selective compression, how much room would you put between each milepost marker on a medium size layout? I’m looking at three to four feet as a mile. Also, I don’t think it’ll stay constant. I’m going to cheat in tunnels and on bridges and shorten the mile.
What would or do you use? Your thoughts on the matter? [?]
If your going to cheat, than why not put them where they will look good or where you need an extra detail or two. If you have pre-determind spots to take photos from,make sure theres a marker there for your pictures. I don’t adhear to stricked prototype rules though.
Hmmm… Intriguing thought!
I think if you put them too close together, it won’t look right. It seems your goal is to add detail and impart a sense of place and distance along your pike, but to try to meter it precisely in compressed fashion with short mile intervals on the average home-sized layout may do more to dispel that illusion. You don’t specify what scale you model in, but I think (for HO) I would allow at least 8 feet or so or more if possible between mileposts, and probably the same distance in N. Think of it this way: If your railroad is running [what represents] “one mile long” trains, how would that compare to your compressed mileage? I think you’d be best off to keep that in mind, and perhaps have only one milepost per “scene” on your layout, or no more than two, with one near each end of the scene. Also, like you mentioned earlier, I would use natural breaks to stretch the implied mileage between scenes so that from scene to scene the mileage changes in accordance with the implied distance between the locations. I wouldn’t worry about spacing them exactly at some fixed metered intervals from one another; I think that would only work well in a huge warehouse-sized club layout with extremely long unbroken expanses of mainline trackage. (Food for thought: how often when railfanning do you see more than one milepost from the same vantage point?)
Well, that’s just my [2c]. I hope in the responses you find some helpful guidance. I’m sure you’ll hear a number of opinions, and I, too, am interested to hear what other folks have to say. Please let us all know what you conclude!
-Dave
Loathar is right on here. Depending on the size of you’re layout a mile marker every scale mile will, in my opinion, detract from it. Unless you have on sup0er gigantic basement or warehouse to house your model railroad, you can’t actually scale down distance. Infact most of the time we are striving to give the illusion of distance we can’t actually have. Lets say you are modeling a line that runs from Kansas City to Chicago. Thats apbout 500 miles between those two cities, but on our model rail road they could be as little as a couple of feet apart or maybe up to fifty feet or so apart. Now try to put 500 mile markers in that little distance. See what I mean??? Best to ya, Ken
Put the mile posts kinda close to important spots such as where the yard lead starts.
Maybe sneak a mile post somewhere in a “Quiet” area.
I might use 3 or 4 mile posts located so that no more than one can be spotted by one person anywhere on the railroad.
And don’t forget that prototype mile posts are not necessarily a mile apart. In fact, some are just plain not there; i.e., mile post 123 may be a lot less than a mile beyond mile post 120 with mile posts 121 and 122 being among the missing.
Sounds weird but it happens a lot. The culprit is line relocation. And if a railroad has managed to reduce the 1000 miles between point A and point ZZZ by 2 miles, they sure aren’t going to go back and renumber 998 mile posts.
Chuck
This is very interesting as if you get thinking about it I modle in O gauge which is 1/43rd so in other words one mile really would be somewhere around 123 feet man I don’t have room for that size layout [sigh].
But agree with some of the others if you really want mile post put them every so often to make it look real its your layout do it how you feel if someone doesn’t like it you can show them where the door is . I look at a layout and don’t even pay attention to how to scale it is or isn’t I look at all the hours of hard enjoyable (most case’s) work someone put into it and how neat it really looks its a little city or town someone has created and if you really sit and look you almost can see it come to life thanks to there great imagination.
RT
Does the last one read “Burma Shave”?
I tried with
all my might
to put in
mileposts numbered
just right
Burma Shave
By the way, it is HO scale. My intent is to have a realistically scaled shortline with the mile markers showing where you are with your train. I like the thought of putting them where they show and not being so measured. That sounds flexible enough.
cefinkjr has a good point. Ever been driving down the highway in your car looking for the next mile marker? I think the people that put those up are on drugs. Just tell people looking at your your layout that the crew was having an “off” day if they notice. I still say, go with the best camera angles.
P.S. dragenrider-Those are two VERY bright yellow loco’s! I used to have a VW Bug painted that color. Is it 75 Corvette “bright” yellow? The pic looks great! I couldn’t bring myself to weather somthing like that.
loathar, thanks for noticing the paint! As embarrassed as I am to say it, the color came about due to a hodge podge of problems. Namely, I can’t paint worth a durn, don’t like airbrushing, and I could only print decent decals in black. Oh well, several prototype railroads use that scheme, so I guess I’m OK. It’s standard Testors yellow model spray paint in a can. No airbrush cleaning needed! The black roof is done with a black marker. [:D]
Ooooooooo!!! Good point, Chuck! [tup] Hadn’t thought of that possibility, but it sure makes sense. (Why spend the $$$ to change numbering if the RR doesn’t have to; besides, even if changing markers cost nothing, the bookkeeping changeover would be a mess! [xx(]) That scenario would be a good rationalization if one wanted to intentionally model a couple odd-spaced/out of sequence markers in the same area, and/or it could be employed to imply some sense of “history” behind the alignment of the right of way. [8D]
-Dave
Inserting a milepost every scale mile is going to look very cluttered, as people have said before
You have not mentioned how many scale miles your layout is supposed to represent, foresay, maybe 5 miles or 5 hundred miles.
if it was 5 miles in a medium size basement, it might be sensible to put one every scale mile, but if it is 500, you will have to skip a lot
hope that helps
Gee, I can’t imagine modeling from Chicago to Kansas City. I think of modeling PART of a route that represents the area, and probably condensing that some.
My “dream” layout (may I live long enough to have the space to start) would be scenes on the mid-1950s Santa Fe in Houston and scenes of area actually located about 50 miles north and south.
I think of imaginary, condensed or let’s see, what terms do artists use, “Impressionist” scale miles as about long enough to see a scene. A train 25 cars long gives most of the impression of a train 100 cars long. Somewhere between a thousand scale feet and a half an actual scale mile.
To look right to the eye, a train needs to run at actual scale speed. Scale mile in HO is what, around 60 feet? Train needs to take one real minute to run 60 feet, to look like 60mph train.
Timetable speed is a different animal. How long a timetable schedule do you want to run. Do you want to run a 24 hour schedule by some variety of fast clock? How long do you want session to last- 3 actual hours, 4 actual hours.
4 hours is kind of long to run trains. Let’s say 3 hours, and model 18 hours of a day- get a little night running but mostly day. Run fast clock at 6 times, 1 “fast hour” lasts 10 actual minutes. Adjust “impressionist mile” for Timetable/schedule purposes at same 1/6 proportion, 5280 divided by 6- 860 scale feet, about 10 feet in HO, 6+ feet in N, 25 car train. That might make good compromise distances between actually modeled scenes and the timetable.
However, remember that Santa Vaca which is my stand-in for Houston, and Karankawa, “my” Galveston represent towns that are 50 miles apart on prototype. How much actually running am I going to have between them? With the scenes and trackage I have planned, the most I can imagine as practicable (in N scale) is 50 to 75 feet of running “out in the country” between towns. In a