What is the typical length of mainline that modeler’s attempt to recreate on their layouts (I know the answers will be all over the board) – trying to get a sense of how much compression in terms of distance is typically attempted.
Current layout (about to be rebuilt) 80 ft of main representing 30 miles of prototype.
Future layout 125 ft of main representing 60 miles of prototype.
Dave H.
jw:
Whatever feels right in the time you usually run trains. My layout is a 4 x 8 oval with 3 “stations”, one reused as two interchanges, and I usually repeat 2 circuits between each station, so that would be about 150 feet for the one-way run, 2 1/2 scale miles. I figure this represents about 25 miles of railroad, so the smile theory seems pretty accurate.
“Smiles” and scale miles are different things, at least in the way the terms have traditionally been used. Smiles are usually thought to include a fast clock rate as well for additional compression.
But just speaking to scale miles, this is variable depending on the purpose of the layout. For giving a general impression of an area and a prototype, a larger compression ratio can be used. For Timetable and Train Order operations, one needs to leave enough length between stations for writing and reading orders, for example. In some cases, one needs to include a large design element that does not compress as well, like a large classification yard. Other times, we can represent that large element with staging.
I’ve done quite a few prototype-inspired designs for folks and the ratios are all over the map. Here are some comparisons of recent projects, considering visible trackage length:
- Large visible classification yard plus mountain crossing. 180 real miles, 11 scale miles, ratio 16:1
- Heavy duty mainline, classification yards represented by staging. 290 real miles, 21 scale miles, ratio 14:1
- Interurban/freight line, visible yards. 18 real miles, 5 scale miles, ratio 3.6:1
- Urban terminal, visible yard. 13 real miles, 6 scale miles, ratio 2.2:1
I’ve developed or seen successful designs ranging from near 2:1 to over 25:1. The choice of the ratio of real miles to scale miles is an important one in prototype-based (or freelanced) design and is definitely not “one size fits all”.
Byron
Model RR Blog
Thanks (everybody) for the responses–
That’s definitely good information, and I’d like to hear still what other people have done, but I think its safe to say, from the response, that it isn’t “thousands” of miles, but typically between “tens” to a “few hundred” miles depending on other factors and the goals of the modeler.
I approached the situation from the opposite direction - and I’m not really there yet.
My layout is based on an actual prototype, and there was an actual, listed in the timetable, distance between stations. Now, due to the limitations I placed on myself with givens and druthers, only two of those stations will actually be modeled. Once the track has been laid all the way through both stations, the actual distance from the center of one siding to the center of the other will be measured, then divided by 7.5 to give me the length of a skill, the metric equivalent of a smile. (The prototype stations are 7.5 kilometers apart.) That length will be divided into 12.5 meters (the length of a scale kilometer in HOj) and the result will determine how I’ll have to jigger a clock to produce the same ratio for ‘scale time.’
Construction is snailing along, so I might actually be able to measure that distance somewhere around Christmas - of 2009…
Chuck (modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
I am modeling a section of the old Clinchfield Railroad in n-scale from Elkhorn City, KY (milepost 0) to Speers Ferry, VA (milepost 80). I have 132 feet of mainline, or about 4 scale miles, to represent the 80 prototype miles. Jamie
I am free-lancing my RR and I have decided to use smiles, even though I won’t be using a fast clock. The modeled mile posts are mainly for the scenery effects, but you have to set some length or distance to place them at, so my smile distance is one average train length.
I try to get as much mainline distance as I can, and I like twice around track plans because of that. The size of the space I have dictates the size of the trains (length and number of cars). This in turn dictates how long the passing sidings are. Usually one train length. This in turn determines the distance of my smiles, typically, one average train length.
The grades also determine train length. I am not stuck on grades less than 2.5% as most modelers seem to be. I tend to use whatever grade I need to in order to get the track up to a certain height, within what I feel is reasonable. (Now this isn’t saying that I am looking for steep grades. It all depends on the space available.) At the same time, my weakest locomotive has to be able to pull an average train up that grade on the mainline. Sometimes a helper is called for, and that just makes operating more interesting. However, the mainline should be helper free, otherwise it’s a drag all the time.
My railroad currently being built has about 1 scale mile of track to represent 3.4 actual miles and grades that are slightly less than the prototype (4.1% real vs 3.5 % as modeled).
Charles
My layout is going to be a bit different, for the mainline part I’m taking a partly real / partly free-lance mainline of about 350 miles and doing selected scenes from along the route…sort of like modules of different scenes. They’ll be in the proper order but I’m not trying to squeeze it down to so many miles per actual foot or anything like that.
I don’t know why you couldn’t do something like that with “thousands of miles”…
Let’s say you have a medium-to-large layout with three main “scenes”: A port city at one end, an in-land milling and agricultural city at the other end, and a mountain range in between. It would work as a model railroad I would think. But let’s say you decide you’re modelling Great Northern Ry, and the port city is Seattle, the in-land city is Minneapolis, and the mountains are the Rockies. It would still work as a model railroad. Rather than trying to squeeze down the whole line, you’re just doing selected chunks…kind of a “greatest hits” package of the railroad.
I use a 6:1 fast clock ratio on the layout, and set my ‘smile posts’ to every 10 ft(60/10) to match the fast clock. It seems to work out good(I have a 98’ main line). Now, since it is about a scale 1.6 miles long, it takes about 5 ‘real’ minutes to lap the layout at 20 scale mph. Because of the ‘smiles’ it takes about 30 scale minutes to cover that distance schedule-wise. This seems to work out fine with switching vs running.
One of the problems with fast clocks can be the issue of switching(takes ‘real time’) vs just running. The ‘smile posts’ come into play when you develop a schedule. Each layout will have different issues that need to be addressed. The late Frank Ellison championed the idea of ‘smiles’ to make his Delta Lines appear to be longer for the ‘on-stage’ part.
Jim