Ok, I have been doing quite a bit of thinking on the subject of scale, and I have to wonder, just how far do most people go, in the quest for being on ( or is it ‘in’ ) scale?
I have seen talk about model trains moving at scale speed, OK, how do you determin how fast scale speed is? Perhaps a scale radar detector or speedometer?
What about using scale time? Would a trip that prototypicaly takes 8 hours from start to stop, be realistic in 3 minutes real time for N scale ( 480 minutes / 160 for N scale )? If so, then what’s wrong with compresing the distances on a layout, so a mine that supplies raw material to a industry only takes a few minutes at scale speeds ( and such can be done with a 4x8 layout even if it means looping around a few times )?
What’s more important, scale distance or scale speed ( after all they are just 2 sides of the same coin, are they not )?
You can buy scale speedometers for your controller’s. I think scale time would be called a fast clock. People use these for OP’s sections. (I don’t use either)
Operations session. Where people gather at a layout for the purpose of doing realistic operations. Full loads in, empties out. (pretending they are running a real railroad) Most DCC controllers have a built in “fast clock” that marks increased time speed so a 24 hour day can be crunched down into (say) 2 hours. (I think I spelled session wrong in my first post)
This is a variable, with individuals ranging from Alfred E. Newman ("What, me worry?) to Scalerule Harry (who goes into deep depression if the holes in his staybolts aren’t exactly 1/4 scale inch diameter.) Speaking only for myself, I try to have things look right at normal viewing distance. If someone comes into my railroad space with a magnifying glass I confiscate it.
Nothing so fancy; just a plain old clock (or wrist watch) and a series of visible markers to measure speed against. An N scale mile is 33 full scale feet, so an N scale train running 79MPH will cover 43 feet 5 inches in one minute. A key thing to note is that TIME DOES NOT SCALE DOWN. A full size second is the same as a ZZ-scale second, one-sixtieth of a wall clock minute.
Not that way! Assuming that 8 hour trip represents 320 miles at 40mph, covering 320 miles in 3 minutes gives you a speed of 6400mph - not fast enough to achieve orbit, but plenty fast enough to qualify for the X-prize and way too fast to keep flanged wheels on steel rails.
I guess, that I’m equating scale speed, with inches per second - rather than miles per hour, and in that regard, 3 minutes could be quite some distance away layout wise.
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More like two ends of a very long spectrum. If a modeler owned a full-size 747 hangar and a couple of spare megabucks he could build the state of Rhode Island in N scale and have his tralns take a couple of full-scale hours to travel from one border to the other at scale speed. OTOH, any modeler can operate at scale speed, even on a 4 by 8. If my JNR freight covers slightly less than 50 full scale feet in one minute it is running
weight. If you think about it for a minute you can probably figure it out. What is it that makes a mass weigh something?.. gravity. Since we can’t scale gravity our models can’t have their weight scale. Physics in general don’t scale. This is because the models are still made up of full size molecules and atoms. One would have to be able to scale atomic mass in order to scale weight. There was actually a fairly long discussion on this topic a while back. It should be pretty easy to find with the search function.
Something moving at a certain velocity is moving at that velocity period. We can put that into any measures of distance vs. time we want (ferlongs per fortnight), and in any scale we want. Speed itself, other than the force required to move it up to and maintain it against the friction at that speed, has nothing to do with mass. The acceleration to and deceleration from a given speed do deal with mass as anyone with a flywheel equipped loco will have experienced.
Now let all the physicists out there get real technical and show I’ve put my foot in my mouth!
If you want to see what scale speed looks like, take a look at the Weekend Photo Fun that is off the page just today, and see Sue’s video that she posted. There ya go. Perfect, in my opinion…I have videos showing the various big steamers from N&W hauling exactly like that.
As for your second question, not really. Apart from the physics not scaling due to the three dimensions and mass/density problems, the friction or rolling resistance/weight of rolling stock doesn’t come close. So, the result is that your model will not be able to pull what the real railroads do…as a general rule. Some guys do really well by fiddling with their rolling items, adding weight to locos, selling their MRR souls to you-know-who, and such.
You would be correct to a point, but, I also take note that the mass of an item also has to do with the materials that it’s made from and what it’s hauling, and just as there are extreamly few prototypical boxcars are made from styrene or resin, there are very few model boxcars are made from sheet metal - and just as few prototypical boxcars only carry air and very few model boxcars actualy carry any kind of cargo.
What I see, is empty models using fancy power controls to give the illusion of the kenitic energy of
Greg, the weight of these devices would have to include some way of controlling the rolling speed of their host conveyances, and all this would add immensely to the complexity and cost of these items, to say nothing of how difficult it would be to actually make them work and still get enough of them up a grade behind your typical scale locomotive to make it look realistic. Besides, apart from the stuttering boxcar that we experience due to coupler issues and sticky journals, DCC locomotives have both regulated throttle/sound of power capability as well as the two CV’s 3 and 4 for inertia and momentum respectively.
So, not just the fancy gizmo, whatever that might be, but couplers would have to undergo a whole nuther evolution…or three, and I don’t see the market being any keener than they are for sound-equipped $300 locos.
Some how I feel real stupid asking these questions, but, I just don’t do well on things when I don’t under stand the hows and whys.
Are scale locos meant to go up prototypical grades, when they don’t even have a scaled amount of power to do so? Why not match the power that scaled down locos have with scaled down grades and scaled down loads? Why should we expect to haul 50 RR cars on our layout’s, when the prototypical can haul 100+? Are modelers expecting to much scaled proto-typical stuff, like sound, and not enough proto-typical stuff like loco power and couplers ?
Personaly, I doubt that any fancy DCC sound card could even come close to the prototypical half felt rumble of a diesel loco that has increased power when starting up from a stand still, so why try? I would have thought that it would have been easier to wire the entire room for such an expereance rather than one small train - you know, have speakers hidden under the table and in stereo, listen ( and feel ) as the train moves from the left to the right and so on?&nbs
Thirty plus years ago RMC published a cartoon which showed a railroader type - cap, neckerchief, bibbed overalls - leaning across the counter at a hobby shop clutching a rather wimpish clerk by the shirt front. The caption read: What!!! You don’t have a drill bit small enough to bore out the spout on an N Scale oilcan? And you call yourself a ‘hobby shop’!!!
Some how I feel real stupid asking these questions, but, I just don’t do well on things when I don’t under stand the hows and whys.
Are scale locos meant to go up prototypical grades, when they don’t even have a scaled amount of power to do so? Why not match the power that scaled down locos have with scaled down grades and scaled down loads? Why should we expect to haul 50 RR cars on our layout’s, when the prototypical can haul 100+? Are modelers expecting to much scaled proto-typical stuff, like sound, and not enough proto-typical stuff like loco power and couplers ?
Hmmmm…I’ll take a shot…
In general our model locomotives are made about as powerful as they can be, given the constraints of space, weight, and economics. Then, the physics of the cars, the wheels and the rails vary from model to model, and layout to layout, so any real correlation with the prototype is pretty much coincedental. As far as I can see, trying to match model to prototype performance would be firstly, futile, and secondly, a waste of time. As far as pulling power, it isn’t as much of a problem as you might think. Since our layouts almost never come close to the track length of the real thing, we rarely pull trains as long as the real thing. But it usually works out, since we can’t usually see the whole train at once, and so it looks longer than it is. So, we can MU two or three engines in from of thirty cars, and it looks pretty good. It is just another example of selective compression.
Personaly, I doubt that any fancy DCC sound card could even come close to the prototypical half felt rumble of a diesel loco that has increased power when starting up from a stand still, so why try? I would have thought that it would have been easier to wire the enti
Greg, weight really does scale (especially when setting up a model ship hull for a test tank run.) For perfect scale weight, divide the prototype weight by the cube of the scale factor. In N scale, that’s 160 cubed, or 4,096,000. Given a car weighing 100 tons (3,200,000 ounces), its N scale equivalent would be a little bit over 3/4 ounce.
RTPoteet, I’d think you would be able to make good use of an N scale Mosquito. Of course, I’m referring to the plywood one with the two Merlin engines…[:-^]
Indeed, one of the truly great airplanes of all time.
Your response here brings up one singular fact usually overlooked: our model rolling stock - and locomotives too, for that matter - actually scale to a heavier weight than the prototype. I use the (N Scale) Big Boy as an example; 1.2M lbs; 19.2M ounces; 19.2÷160÷160÷160=4.6875 ounces and that is a very light weight locomotive. Our locomotives weigh less than a prototypical locomotive and our cars weigh more than prototypical cars; is it any wonder that our locomotives will only pull 50 cars instead of 100 cars???
Ahhh, the philosophical side of model railroading.
A rather esoteric discussion going on here…I love it!
For me, fast clocks and “smiles” are cool and they can be useful, but on my RR the trip takes as long as it takes and not a moment longer. Nothing enigmatic about it!
I’m somewhat flexible, although some of my over-scale choices are starting to bug me.
I’m in N scale. Most things I use are in scale, but my three biggie out-of-scale things are Code 80 track, oversized signals (great deal on eBay!), and oversized (“pizza-cutter”) flanges on some of my rolling stock.
Here are the first two issues (oversized rail and signals):
In person the scale conflicts are much less noticeable. Photographs, however, have no mercy. Next time I plan to use Atlas Code 55 track and scale signal heads. The Code 55 will necessitate NMRA-compliant low-profile wheelsets.
Dave: Your code 80 N-gauge track looks great the way you have ballasted it, especially the way you have fine enough ballast rather than the boulders many people use and you have to prototypically up to the tops of the ties. I don’t know if the oversized rail is that noticable in that case.
In HO I have been going with code 83 track for the less toy-train look, but I am thinking the code 83 track is more to do with the ties and tie-rail connectors than the rail height. A lot of modular model railroaders are staying with code 100 track for compatibility with module standards, and the Micro Engineering code 100 has to better proportioned ties and lower profile “tie plates and spikes”, and it looks as good as the code 83.
As to the signals, at least you have signals. A lot of us are doing dark territory-yard limits-let’s pretend we are using cab signals instead. Great looking model railroad.
Because a layout is as much art as modeling (the parts may be more model than art) perspective and seleted exageration and reduction are important to get the feel right. I use wormholes and time warps to deal with space issues and am expermenting with forced perspective to get the feel of distance. Because I dod not do prototype operations, I do not have to deal with time issues.
I suggest you consider what you are trying to say with your artistic image, and warp the unessencial parts to make the central idea work.
