I know we have to compress our layouts, because a prototypical square mile would not be very interesting. But am I missing something, or mis-calculating somehow? A 4X8 ft. section of my N-scale layout calculates out to only about 1/8 mi. X 1/4 mi. prototype size. Nevertheless, I seem to have an awful lot of scenery in what would only be about the size of one city block. My local actual mini-mall is almost that big.
N scale is 160 to one. Your calculations look correct. Don’t you hate reality.l
Rich
It’s your layout; you don’t need to have 1/4 mile. YOU are the layout god
FWIW, 1/8 mi x 1/4 mi is a lot more than a city block in most places. On the other hand, perhaps that’s not what you meant.
My layout is about the same size as yours, and I’ve managed to squeeze in a mountain with tunnels and a small community with all of the staple businesses that you might find in a small town as well as a rail yard and side track. If I put in so much as one more stop sign the legs of the table would probably give way under the weight of it all… Yeah. Well. I like it and that’s all that matters.
Tracklayer
If I remember correctly, in HO scale, 60 feet approximates one mile of actual track. My mainline is about 120 ‘actual’ feet. In that distance, I ‘rise’ from a fictional 2500 foot elevation to the crest of the Sierra Nevadas at 6200 fictional feet, go from rolling foothills to full-blown granite-peaked mountains, through forests, across canyons, hug the sides of deep gorges–the works. You name it as far as mountain railroading, it’s there. I do it like everyone else–by selective compression. A new scene every three or four feet, just enough for the eye to take it in and then work to the next scene. And I do it on grades of no more than 2.4%.
We have to deal with a MINIATURE world. Compressing is the way to do it. My layout is about 24x24" in HO. Frankly, if I were in N scale, I could do a lot more. Heck, if I were in Z-scale, I could open up and do the entire Sierra, LOL!
It boils down to what you want to do with what you’ve got.
Tom [:D]
The other trick is that we compress width to gain length. We don’t need 640 foot deep scenes, usually, so we use the length more than once. It’s all an illusion!
Real prototype distances are pretty irrelevant when it comes to model railroads…
I think of it this way…real railroads are comprised of small compressed areas of “interesting scenes”…the scenes we model…small yards, engine terminals, stations, water towers, coaling towers, diesel shops…etc…
On the real railroads, those “interesting scenes” are seperated by ENDLESS MILES of really boring stretches of track! 
We dont need to model those endless miles of really boring stretches of track…
instead we model the “interesting scenes” and cut down the endless miles to only a few feet…then after a few feet we come to the next interesting scene…
99% of real railroads you wouldnt even want to model anyway…so real distances on real railroads are pretty irrelevant…
Scot
I wouldn’t mind having a scale model of the North East Corridor. The only downsides would be the cost and needing a segway/ golf cart to follow trains.
Dave
The wonderful 4 x 8:
In HO, it’s not quite 5.7 acres. Just about big enough to build a block of 24 ‘crammed in with a shoehorn’ tract houses.[8D]
In N, it’s 18.8 acres. A really inventive low-end developer could build 72 minihouses and a corner gas station/shopping center.[
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And then we try to cram facilities that cry out for 1000 acres, or towns that should be miles apart, onto one - and just can’t understand why there seems to be a certain lack of believability…[:-^][(-D]
Chuck (modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)