What is the best way to model distance between two points?
Ex. A prototype, urban passenger line which has station stops every 1 to 5 miles with 19 total stops.
In N scale on 80ft of point-to-point trackline with a train 2.5ft long equates up to 6 stations stops, assuming the distance between each stop is 5x the train length (2,000 scale feet). Is it possible to make the short scale distance “appear” to be miles in a heavily urban environment (without sectioning each stop as its own scene) or must it always be imagined?
I normally don’t respond to the “what’s the best…” type of threads, but this question has great merit. To model distance, well that is a can of worms. You could do it in actual compressed scale miles as you suggested, OR you can think outside the box and come up with unique solutions. I am modeling an 80 mile short line in about 14ft, I am using a series of connected shadowboxes, each box contains a scene from the prototype, then exits directly to the next box that is 20 or more miles in real life away, but adjacent on the model. I’ve seen scenic dividers of all kinds used (urban buildings or mountains it’s all the same really).Use of theatrical tricks such a selective compression and forced perspectives ( N scale trains running along the back drop on an HO layout for example), use of mirrors, use of special lighting, or as I do with shadowboxes all work well when applied properly. Some use basic scenery tricks such as adding snow to one part of the layout, or radically different flora such as desert on one side and forest on the other.Think around the corner, you don’t need a warehouse to model the run from
T-J Great response, this is a really tough question, distance on a model layout is a very hard question to respond to, what may be 12 miles in reality does not relate to 12 miles on a layout, many factors are involved such as, from what point of view are you looking at the layout? how far are you from it ?? It relates to the telephone wires, at a certain distance you should not be able to see the wires, this is one factor that relates to distance, shadowboxing seems to be a solution to this problem along with other solutions, this is one problem of MR and when you see a layout absolute to distance you will know they got it right, good luck.