After planning my whole layout and having all my roads , streets, track crossings and intersections in place I took the time to place a sign every where they would be in a real town that would have a rail road in it, I did my reasearch by visiting a near by NH town that shared its area with a rail road system.
Once I stepped back it looked like I had too many signs on my layout but they would all be nessassary for a real functioning area of that size and configuration.
I have the street signs and the signs and track lights and switching lights for the safe operation of a rail road going through the town but now it looks like sign pollution what am I to do?
I could cut some of them out but that would put the population of my town at great risk, has anyone encountered this problem and what was the fix for this?
I’m loving the fact that I’ve gotten into the smaller details of layout planning and building and have never really noticed how many signs it takes to have a town working smoothly, on a recent reasearch trip around a near by town with a rail road running through it I took notice of all the signs and although it didn’t seem like a lot, “probably because I can’t see the whole town at once” , on my layout I feel there are too many.
I’m so confused, what do I sacrifice, the realisium I’m attempting to capture or the beauty of an uncluttered layout???
Any insight as too how this delemma is handled will be much valued by me.
Happy Rails!
Jess Red Horse of the “Sign Polluted town of Indian Township, NH”.
If the signs you added are prototypical, and not too large, etc., I would be tempted to leave them all, but weather them so they blend into the surrounding buildings and are less obvious. Grey or tan tones, depending on the background, could make most signs seem more a part of the scene, rather than bright and overbearing. Just a thought - it seems like a shame to waste all the effort you spent making and installing them.
Are the signs the right size? If the signs are larger than the prototype they will look out of scale and dominate the layout. Some of your work has been a little out of scale (typical of somebody starting to scratchbuild). If you make the signs in scale that will help "hide’ them.
Are the signs too close together? Granted they may be where the real signs are, but the real signs may be 1000 ft apart and on the layout they are only a scale 100 ft apart. Look at pictures of the signage and maybe you need to remove some of the “less critical” signage so that there is more distance between the signs and the density of signage is closer to prototype.
Just a thought, but in my experience signs generally look better if they are dwarfed by something, say a large tree. This often makes them less prominent, so they seem more reasonable.
Well lets see, I didn’t scratch build the signs and the packaging claimed they were HO scale???
I will have to look at removing the less critical ones as suggested here and I will add some taller items , these are some great suggestions and I think they may do the trick here.
I couldn’t salvage any of the scratch built stuff from the 1st layout because they took the brunt of the ceiling coming down but they saved the store bought stuff that was lower in profile so in a way the “over sized” scratch built stuff saved most of the layout by giving there lives so that the nicer stuff could live…LOL!
The only peice that survived was a “van show” bill board (one of my other passions) and since it is at the edge of the layout it don’t look out of scale too much.
Well I’m off to work but can check this site from work, I work 24 hours on and 48 off so it gives me time to work on my layout a lot.
I’ve always thought that “scale” signs seemed to be too big. Take a look at this photo:
The railroad crossing signs are all “according to Hoyle” (that is, according to D&RGW standards) but they appear to be too large. I think it’s because we tend to build everything else a little too small. The larger scales (like O, in this picture) tend to exaggerate that “smallness” even more.
My own rule about signs is “put up just enought to make it believable but not cluttered.” Anyway, as any number of people have said, “it’s your railroad and built for your enjoyment.” Have fun!
After reading your reply too my post I went back and looked at the signage real close and I have some that do look too big for HO and these are indeed the RR crossing ones.
After much thought I’ve come to the conclusion that my layout is lacking vegitation, I need to add some taller trees, hedges, bushes and stuff that is live and green then I think it will look more balanced, right now everything looks flat, like a city without tall buildings would look.
I’ve added some details that really make it look real, simple things like a young lady sitting on a car hood that her boyfriend is working on, tiny details that seem to bring some life to the layout.
If I have learned anything from this site is that it is all practise, to strive for a realistic balance in the over all look.
I ran into the same problem when I started putting signs on the layout (mainly RR signs), even though they were “HO” scale, they just looked oversized to me. What helped a lot was by adding scenery and vegetation–for some reason it tends to ‘diminish’ the ‘bulky look’ of the signs.
There’s also a company called JL Innovative Design that is putting out highly detailed signs that LOOK correct to scale, however they’re not cheap by a long shot. I’ve bought a few of them for installation along my right of way (haven’t put them in yet), but I think they’re going to work really well.
But I think you’ll find that as you scenick your layout, the noticeable size of the signs will diminish.
there’s a program called modeler’s toolkit. It isn;t great, but one of the things it includes are accurate size signs of various types and scale sized templates for making your own in multiple scales. This icludes street warning signs for deer, moose, construction, as well as town signs, hospital signs, etc. All you needis some styrene to glue them to.
Have you ever really seen how many signs are around? Try really looking for road signs next time you drive somewhere, there are TONS of them everywhere. Heaven forbid you should add a construction scene where you would have even more. I think adding all the signs make it more realistic.
I think in “real life” we’ve come to take lots of signs for granted, and barely notice them. However, on our layouts, our mind doesn’t filter them the same way. I have been astounded when looking at photos of locations I’m well familiar with that I will notice signs much more in the photos–never realised there were so many at that location. We do live in a world of lots of signs.
I use a lot of signs on my layout (where they would be in a typical real life situation). I make many of them myself to get an accurate scale. But I keep lots of other details around them, so they do not become overpowering.
