Any Idea on where/way to find dimensions for a sports arena/stadium? This could become a potentialy overwhelming scratchbuiliding project
If we are talking much of anything above an arena/stadium for basketball, tennis, or the local high school football team, then the model becomes huge…an absolute minimum of two-and-a-half by four actual feet in HO for any professional stadium to look right, even with selective compression employed. And then you have to figure on a parking lot!
CNJ831
I realize that this may not be an ideal structure on the layout, but I still wi***o investigate scratchbuilding this structure in HO scale. Does anyone no how or where I can obtain full size or scale dimensions of a stadium/arena of a profesional sports team?
Do a Google search on any of the newer stadiums and you might find a site that talks about the dimensions. I’d also try some of the old, classics since they have a following and somebody may have this information on the web.
Otherwise, you might try contacting one of them directly and see if they have the information available.
Might be a good candidate for a photo mural/backdrop behind a major train station.
Sort of like Veteran’s Stadium near the 30th Street Station in Philadelphia.
Okay…keep in mind that a football field is 100 yards long, not counting end zones. That’s roughly four feet long in HO scale–and keep in mind that a stadium is designed to hold thousands, or tens of thousands, of people! My offhand guess would be that you would need two 4x8 sheets of plywood to provide the base for an HO scale model of a relatively small stadium.
Unless you’re modeling an empty stadium, that will mean you’ll also need thousands of miniatures to fill seats.
Just for an idea, the new Philadelphia Eagles stadium, Lincoln Financial Field has a footprint of 790’ x 825’ - 15 acres. That’s 9.07’ x 9.47’ in HO. Yes FEET. In N scale, that would be 4.94’ x 5.16’. The old round Veteran’s Stadium was 750’ x 755’ – 14.5 Acres.
I must say… Good luck.
I remember decades ago a story about a guy in Chicago who had a nearly perfect model of Wrigley Field. Looked like O scale or HO. Took up most of an average sized bedroom. Had taken him years to build. Excruciating details. I would say you would be better off making a freelanced stadium, if at all, and chewie is right…it’s going to be a space eater, not to mention the building time.
The only professional, i.e. paid, modelling I’ve done was a model of Lambeau Field I built for a friend of my sister’s to give as a gift to her husband. Packers fans are among the most dedicated around.
The trick was to think outside the box, err, stadium. The trains aren’t going to run through it, but by it. I modeled a section of the outside of Lambeau, working from photos that were provided. The model came out about three feet long overall. It represented several sections of the distinctive green outside form of the stadium. Fortunately, Lambeau appears to be covered with some sort of metal sheathing, which was easy to simulate with Evergreen plastic sheeting. Slap enough green paint on and it looked good.
Of course, if you want to model one of the newer high tech stadiums, this won’t be so easy. And if you want to model the inside of the stadium, that isa heck of a lot of bleacher seats, no matter how you slice it.
It is my understanding that the recipient was happy with his gift and installed it on his layout as a backdrop.
The key is to model just enough to give you the flavor of the stadium. A tailgate scene in the parking lot would be cool, but you may want to do one where it’s just the early arrivers, otherwise that will cost you an arm and a leg for figures and vehicles. In any case, to do it any other way than by selective compression would mean that you would be modeling a stadium, around which a RR runs, with the limited space many people have available.
Mike Lehman
Urbana, IL
If you model an open top stadium Both Woodland Scenics and Preiser make various Football, baseball, and socker teams to have playing inside it.
Personally I was going to put a local little leage field on my layout and call it good.
James
I think you mean Franklin Field on the Penn campus. When I was a student I used to take the walkway that went behind the east side of the stadium. Great place to watch all the action below!
My old High School (Richfield MN) has a rail line running thru campus, separating the school building from the football stadium. It would be pretty easy to model as a flat against a backdrop, as the side facing the tracks is the back of the main bleacher section so you can’t really see thru it. Add non-working lights on top (facing away from the tracks) and the big “Home of the Richfield Spartans” lettering on it and it would be pretty convincing. Doing an actual HO model of it would be awfully big…maybe in Z??
The Alamo Dome sits right next to the Sunset station in San Antonio. That would definately be an interesting one to scratchbuild.
The last http://www.dunhamstudios.com/ job I worked was the S-scale layout for Cincinatti In Motion, a 7000sq ft display dipicting the evolution of transportation in the city of Cincinatti. One of the huge models was of the baseball stadium (I believe it was about 6x6 feet):
Angels stadium is right by the Anaheim Amtrak depot. So that would be a neat one to do…but it’s large and so is the parking lot…along with the freeway and the Anaheim Pond (Where the NHL Mighty Ducks play). Not much room for trains, and then no one makes HO scale Surfliner cars (other than way overpriced brass), so maybe not the best of ideas.
Thanks for the ideas. I’m thinking about freelancing something based on a real venue. Hopefully I will have just enough room to get a train by. Angels stadium and the arena sounds like way too much though. Maybe something small like tigers stadium in Detroit or the old foxborough stadium in MA. Thoughts or Opinions.