Does anybody know a good trick to make your trains look longer? I have a faily good size N scale layout but my trains just don’t look long enough. I’m averaging 15 cars per train but they still don’t look real enough. Any suggestions???
A lot depends on what era you are running. Your question was one of the reasons I chose to model ‘47-‘50, Great Northern, in my case, but could be any RR. But how I run longer trains is to use all 36’ to 40’ cars. If you are running 50’ cars for evey 4 you run I am running 5 cars. So for your 15car train I am running 19-20. But don’t forget that train length is more a function of how far apart your scenes are. You don’t want to be entering a yard if your caboose is still in the previous town. Also, your passing siding should be slightly less than your longest train (including engine(s) and caboose). It can go by on the main while a shorter train is in the hole. Happy railroading. jc5729
Use the longest rolling stock you can find.
Or the shortest, 'cos that way there are more cars in a train…
The trick is to deceive the eye… one way to do this is to put structures at intervals along the front of the layout between you and the train so that you rarely see all the train at one time except, meybe, head on.
The “magic phrase” in the hobby is “selective compression”… (of length)
assuming that the train length is at a maximum for your layout size, the only other thing that youcan do is to place buildings, trees or other scenery in front of the trains so that the train is broken up as it goes by. this keeps the eye from taking in the entire train in a glance and therefore makes the train look lots longer than it is. the more broken up the scene is in front of the train, the longer the train will appear. the trick is to ensure that the train is still visible for switching and operations and broken up for long runs. it is very rare that you can see the entire train for any length of time, even in the praries.
If you want a trick, raise the layout so you are closer to the train. If it’s close enough that you can’t see both ends, it will seem longer.
Pray tell, what kind of realism do you want with a 15 car train??? Particularly in N-Scale??? With a brisk pace you can walk a 15 car train in about 5 minutes. I used to operate 15 car trains when I was in HO many years ago; part of my reason for converting to N-Scale was to get away from 15 car trains.
Try these three tees!!! TURNS! TREES! and TUNNELS!
I’ll add my vote for hills, buildings and curves to break up the trains. As I’ve slowly added structures, my layout has become a much more interesting place to railfan. The trains don’t seem to be running around in a loop (even though they are) because you keep losing sight of them. Besides making short trains more acceptable, it also hides trains which are really too long (at least for my small 5x12 foot HO layout) and it lets me run 2 trains in tail-chasing mode without looking really silly. (Only slightly silly.)
By stating you have a ‘fairly good sized layout’, I will assume you have the room (trackage) to run longer trains. So is this an issue that one loco won’t pull anymore than 15 cars? That’s about all you are going to get out a single loco in N-scale (and that’s doing pretty good on a level grade).
So why not just add a second and/or third loco and more cars? If running in DC, these locos should be matched for speed (or close). It’s always a good idea to use the same loco from the same manufacturer (like a pair of Atlas GP40’s).
If it’s an issue of perspective (and 15 cars is long enough), then as several have already stated you can make various scenery adjustments.
It may already be too late to make corrections, but Mr. Beasley hit a key point here, long straightaways are a quick way to make even a long train look short. A run with gentle, almost meandering curves, will give the train an appearance of being longer, especially if you place trees, buildings, hills, or even small rises in to break up the visual.
In reality, a 15 car train on Mr. B’s 5x12 foot HO layout is a good size. “Fairly good size” is kind of vague. What size is your layout?
Yes, hills and trees! I have an HO layout which has sidings that hold 10 40’ cars and 2 engines, and even those trains seem so long that I want to add an extra engine! Put an extra five cars on my train, and it is the relative equivalent of a 10 000 foot train…of course, right now I’m running one that is a literal 2000’ long, and I think that’s not a bad solution for you, if you have the room and enough money - They don’t all have to be super fine detailed cars, after all!
…Wow, my 2000’ train is long…it occupies a good half of the blocks on the layout…
Oh, and one mnore thing. Don’t put your coal empties in front of the track cleaning car!! [:p]
