I was about to construct a road on my N scale layout and i was wondering if anyone knew how wide the road should be? Any information would help.
Thanx
Benjamin R.
It depends (of course) on how wide a road you are modeling. An average two lane road probably has about 10 feet for each lane. Twenty feet would convert to about 1-1/2 inches in N scale.
[:)]
I did a Google search a while back and found a standard lane (these days) is 11 feet wide. That is a tad more than 13/16" for each lane. It may have been less years back, and it is probably a number that lends itself to some selective compression.
The “standard” lane in California is 12 feet, but many roads have narrower lanes. 9 foot lanes (18 feet) is the minimum width for a 2-lane road with centerline stripe. 10 foot lanes are common and make a nice model road (thats 3/4 inch in N Scale) Don’t forget the shoulders. Paved shoulders may be anywhere from 0-foot to 8 feet or more. In addition there are unpaved (gravel) shoulders, minimum would be 1 foot but many are much wider. There is often an inverse relationship between the width of paved shoulder and the width of unpaved shoulder. On poorly maintained roads the shoulder may be hard to recognize. There are still a lot of rural roads with 22 feet of pavement, 1-2 feet of gravel shoulder and ditches immediately outside the shoulders.
For city streets with curb, gutter and sidewalk 40-foot of pavement is common although some are narrower. 40-foot allows 2 travel lanes and 2 parking lanes. Much narrower than 40 feet ans things get a little tight, particuarly if there are trucks
Oh, and for realism, depending on where your road is, don’t forget the potholes. Here in the DC area, about 18" diameter (1/8" N-scale) seems to be the norm. Depth varies.[(-D]
For major hiways (non interstate, 2 lane) I make each lane a scale 10-12 feet with 8 foot shoulders of either gravel or black pavement.
Ron
Roads and streets can be deceptive and a lot of people underestimate how wide they really are.
In most cities, a standard traffic lane is usually 12 feet wide, meaning a two-way street would be at least 24 feet wide, curb-to-curb, with no parking. That’s about 1.8 inches in N scale. Sometimes, on heavily traveled multi-lane streets, the lanes will be narrowed to 10 feet wide, to squeeze out an extra lane.
A typical city street with parallel parking on both sides would be 40 feet wide or 3 inches in N scale. This allows for 8-foot-wide parking spaces (trucks can be 8 feet wide).
Highway lanes are usually 12-14 feet wide depending on the use. Shoulders should be about 8 feet wide. You should be able to place a scale vehicle on the shoulder without touching either the road or ground cover.
There are many cases in which narrower lanes, down to about 10 feet, are okay, but those are generally in residential neighborhoods.
While you probably don’t want to build a superhighway, it’s best to stick to the 12-foot width as it keeps your vehicles a more prototypical distance apart.
Don’t forget a modern trailer or commercial body can be 102" wide - that’s 8.5 feet - plus mirrors on the tractor or cab. Fire trucks will often be 96 inches, or 8 feet, wide.
I disagree with bcawthon’s recomendation to stick to 12 foot lanes.
He is correct about the width of prototype roads, but those dimensions are “standards”. Here in California, for instance, there are many roads with narrower lanes. There are even a few streches of freeway with 10 foot lanes and a few two lane State highways with 9-foot lanes and 1-foot paved shoulders.
On a model railroad it is better to make the roads a little narrow. Just as buildings and other scenic elements are often selectively compressed, roads should be too. Otherwise they appear too wide and take space from other scenic features.
As bcawthon said:
“Roads and streets can be deceptive and a lot of people underestimate how wide they really are.”
Paved roads can have travel lanes anywhere from 8-feet in width on up. It all depends on when your road was constructed and what time frame (era) you are modeling.
Model road materials I have measured avereage out to about 10-feet, which would be about right for any road constructed after World War II.
The congressionally mandated (1956) Interstate Highway System Standard is 12-feet. However, many urban areas have been given a variance (by the Federal Highway Adminisration -FHWA- which has charge of the IHS) to 11-feet in order to add a traffic lane in congested areas, over the past 20 years.
Pavement markings have been federally standardized since 1971 by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). Before 1966, every state had its own “standards”. Some were pretty bizarre.
Same goes for signs. Calif. was known for its white-on-black (background) signs before the 1971 Federal Standard, which reversed the color appications. Colorado rarely employed the yellow “banner” type ‘No Passing Zone’ sign routinely posted on the left side of two-lane roads across much of the country.
Speaking of signs, be aware of practices, historically. My favorite “Gottcha” in ‘period’ movies is the familiar red ‘stop’ sign. Before 1957, all ‘stop’ signs were yellow.
The observant modeler will pick up all kinds of ques from old magazines, newspapers and movies. Even today, standards vary. Colorado has been contsructing two-lane roads with 12-foot lanes and 8 to 10-foot paved shoulders–even in the Rocky Mountains–since the early 1950s. California’s mountain roads, in most cases, have not been improved since 1930. State Highway 138 from I-15 to Summit, on Cajon Pass, is little more than a paved over wagon road, while State Highway 74, Ortega Highway, is the same road it was (with one 1.5-mile ‘S’ curve exception, in Riverside County) during the Great Depression.
Hope all this stuff helps.
DS.
In California the yellow barrier stripe and white edge lines started to to be used in the mid-1960’s. In 1966 or 67 I turned (in heavy fog) left onto a road that had just been restriped and ended up on the wrong side because I mistook the white edge line for the centerline. One county road near where I live now, still has a white centerline, its never been repainted.
Most California mountain highways are not as “bad” as described above.
Before the Federal standards every state went there own way, so if you strive for historic and location accuracy a lot of research is needed.[:D]
Looking up the instructions on the Woodland Scenics Road System paving tape box, it states as follows for N scale:
scale N
City Street 2-1/4"
Country Road 1-3/8"
Highway Lanes 7/8" - 1-3/8"
sidewalk 1/4"
(Note: figures are rounded to the nearest 1/8")
Howard Schroeder
“N” Norfolk Southern Modeler
I prefer the eyeball method, take one of your automobiles, put it on the layout, and design the road around it until it looks right in your situation. Real life construction crews have to build roads in relation to the topography they are working in and minimum width regulations sometimes have to be bent to fit the real world, so build what works in your world.
Gee, I didn’t know how complicated a road could be. All I did was put two scale vehicles side-by-side and then allowed for an average additional space, based on common sense, to let them pass. Of course, if it was in town, then you would have to allow for a parking lane if you neded one. At one time I did attempt to “scale it” but found I was running out of space for my sidewalks, etc. Although I model HO, N would be the same in principal. What the Hay, it’s MY road on MY layout and I can do anything I want with it. That’s the beauty of designing your own “kingdom”. Also, I am modeling an era when road width was determined by the size of the “average” vehicle. In the 40’s and 50’s, vehicles were not as large as they are now and larger roads were relagted to big cities only.
Good Luck.
Actually a number of the cars were just as long ans wide as the largest cars of the 50’s through today. They had less interior room because of the running boards and fender design.
In the 1930’s there were a few trucks on the road, that were wider than todays legal width.
Cars of the 1950s were not all that much smaller. For example, a 1955 Chevrolet Bel Air was 197.5 inches long and 73 inches wide, but a Cadillac Eldorado was 223.4 inches long. By 1957 the base Plymouth was 204.5 inches long and 78.2 inches wide.
Compare those figures to a 2005 Ford Crown Victoria which is 212 inches long and 78.2 inches wide. A 2005 Chevrolet Impala is 200 inches long and 73 inches wide, just slightly longer, and no wider, than the 1955 Chevy.
Cars of the 1940s had simlar discrepancies. A Ford 2-passenger coupe might be small, but a Packard sedan was certainly no midget.
Trucks of the era were generally shorter but still about 8 feet wide.
I don’t know if this forum is still going, but here in Las Vegas just about anything goes for road construction. Even the major arterial lanes vary widely in width, and lanes don’t even have to match up across an intersection. sometimes If you don’t jog over while going thru an intersection you will end up in the oncoming left turn lane or a lane or two over from where you started. Lanes also just disappear without warning so you can have 3 wide in two lanes that are about to jog over to the oncoming lanes, that’s why so many pedestrians are killed just walking on the sidewalks (which often qualify as a another driving lane). [note-automobiles sold in Las Vegas don’t come with turn signals, and green yellow and red all mean “go”]
Is this per lane?
A lane is generally 10’-12’ wide. In N scale 3/4inch = 10 feet. 12 foot lanes are a national standard, but there are many exceptions both wider and narrower in the real world.
On California multilane highways the lanes are usually stripped 12 feet wide (the minimum is 10 feet). Until about 10 years ago the right side edge line was painted 1 foot into the shoulder making the right lane 13 feet wide.