Scale conversion

Model Railroader Prototype information for the modeler
1

Hi everyone ive been getting on well with the cement plant and now moving onto building a preheater tower but im strugling with the results ive come up with regarding size.I used a conversion on google typed in 70m in 1/1 converted to 1/87 and got a result around 800mm does that seem right.

2

Yes, 70 meters is 70,000 millimeters. 70000 divided by 87 equals 804.6 mm

3

Sorry for not replying sooner been away for two days.Thanks for your reply.Not going to be cheap then the amount of stairs they have and railings but it keeps me busy. thanks again.

4

Andy,

FWIW, 1:87.1 is a slightly more accurate ratio for calculating HO-scale…

Tom

5

Actually 1:87.0857142 is the correct ratio, but for most modeling purposes it doesn’t make a discernible difference…

6

Shucks, I bought the Handy Convertor from Stan’s Trains, it’s got a calculator for every possible model railroad question. I’m lazy and the program is quick and accurate.

I have no affiliation with Stan’s Trains, I’m lazy and it works.

Mel

Modeling the early to mid 1950s SP in HO scale since 1951

My Model Railroad
http://melvineperry.blogspot.com/

Bakersfield, California

I’m beginning to realize that aging is not for wimps.

7

Now you begin to see why even many highly detailed and respected structures are selectively compressed. Especially huge industries like steel and cement.

–Randy

8

Thanks everyone ive been using this conversion site for my measurments,scroll to the bottom you will find the chart i used this sometime ago to build a 1/9th F-16

http://www.scalemodelersworld.com/online-scale-converter-tool.html

9

When you say compressed is that not going to make the model smaller than Ho scale.

10

The scale remains the same. Doors, windows, handrails stairways all scale to proper size. Randy means that a steel mill that may occupy 200 acres or more would never fit in most of our layout rooms.

https://www.loc.gov/item/pa2948/

I looked at the rolling mill in Homestead, PA some years ago and it runs about twenty city blocks about 220 feet in HO). With selective compression you could make that merely ten city blocks and fit it inside a big arena [:-^]

The actual Walthers HO blast furnace is selectively compressed to a much smaller size, 75 feet. There were smaller blast furnaces in the 1900s but most modern ones ran about 110 to 120 feet. Selective compression.

Cheers, Ed

11

I see what you are saying now, scale remains correct but the structures are smaller than the real thing.

12

Yes, selective compression doesn’t mean changing the scale,. it means leaving out select bits to make the sctructure smaller while retaining the basic form. Say a building that has 3 sections, each 10 windows wide, with a two towers, so you have a wing with 10 windows, a tower, another wing with 10 windows, another tower, and then the third wing with 10 windows. Even if it would fit on your layout exactly, it would overwhelm most everything else, unless your layout is extremely huge. So you cut each wing down to say 3 windows. The basic form is still there - 3 wings, 2 towers, but now the building is a whole lot shorter.

–Randy