My main loop is about 60’; at 1:48 scale that’s about 1/2 mile. To run a freight at a scale speed of 30 mph, one circumnavigation of my loop should take about one minute (30mph = 2 min/mile), I haven’t timed it (though I plan to), but I think I can do that, although it will be at the slow end of what’s possible for a single postwar engine (dual motor F3) with a 20 car freight (semi realistic).
SCALE DISTANCE:
This is where it get difficult. 110 feet is a scale mile. Any even modestly realistic ‘run’ would have to be say 20 to 40 miles ?? That’s 2200 to 4400 feet of ‘0’ Gage track! DOES ANYONE, OR ANY CLUB HAVEW THAT?
My house is 60’ long. If I could have a 50’x15’ layoutr loop = 130’ (which I can’t) I would have to have a layout with 17 sequential loops to have a ‘realistic’ main line. Achieving scale operating conditions therefore seems nearly hopeless.
Should I sell (or merely display) my collection and start over in ‘HO’ or perhaps ‘N’ guage??
There’s another problem: Gravity is not to scale. In the prototype world, the acceleration of gravity is about 9.8 meters per second per second. But on our layouts, it appears to the O-scale folks that gravity is 470 meters per second per second. Everything falls too fast, the logs and fake coal and milk cans and even derailing trains. Short of moving to the appropriate moon of Jupiter or a suitable minor planet, the only way to fix this is to scale time as well as distance. The appropriate change for O scale is to make the scale second 1/6.93 of the prototype second. This will then require that our trains run about 7 times faster than they do now. Those who already exceed what they thought was “prototypical” speed won’t have to make quite as big an adjustment. However, I’m not sure that even magnetraction is up to the task.
This problem is even worse in the smaller scales. In Z scale, trains will have to be speeded up by a factor of about 15. I think I will stay with O scale.
Somehow I knew you would provide some thoughtful input here.[:D]
But, without too much deep thought, while I get the idea that we cannot really scale back gravity, I don’t buy the idea that we should scale up the speed to match the scaled up gravity. We don’t see gravity, but we do see distance (ie scale) and speed (distance /time). So a scale 30mph still seems to be around 110 ft/min. And to my second point, creating a linearly realistic main line run still seems to be an overwhelming challenge within most people’s homes, or wven most club spaces.
Grasshopper, Think “outside the loop”, folded dogbone or even a form of muliple folds (kinda like the letterE*). Besides, normally you would only see really long straight runs west of the Mississippi. [swg]*
You could use Bob’s idea about speeding things up to correct for ‘scale gravity’, video tape the action, then replay at slower speed to ‘re-scale’ back to normal:)
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. This is a hobby. Your layout is your world. Run it in a way that makes you happy!
I really appreciate the calculations provided in your post. My layout is about 46 feet, so your estimate gives me some sense of where my trains have gove…
I think you share the sense of precision that is very much present in the hobby. I also think this is why there are so many more model railroaders involved in HO, an N scale, for these reasons.
In the O-gauge ranks there are the cohorts who acquire the near scale rolling stock, and build fantastic high-rail layouts. Yet, these suffer from the scale dilemma that seems to only be satisifed if the layout morphs into a garden type layout, and in that case most elope to G-scale.
So what’s in it for O-scale? For me there is a simple answer that is very much connected to the original intent of the Lionel product: play value. The magic for children that the Lionel Line possesses is the inherent suggestion of rail road operations. The trains were maufactured as a toys and it is the toy like quality that sets Lionel apart from all others.
What I have seen in scenic development on CTT layouts is, with skillful camera work, the suggestion of railroad operations. Some folks put extraordinary attention into the scenery with spectaluar results. An example is the recent CTT article that featured Trinidad, Colorado. The moment I saw this brought back memories of my trip to Grand Canyon on the Southwest Chief, and the impressionist connection between mental image and this layout. It is fun.
This takes me back to your question. What will make this most fun for you? If it is to create an authentic, accurate to scale authentic world, you can best achieve this in another scale. I won’t challenge you to consider where the greater fun and play value will be realized. That is entirely up to you.
Thanks Prairietype. Your comments expand on the issues I was thinking about.
I’m in Lionel postwar ‘O’ gage because of the half dozen trains I still had from my childhood. I then added to these because?(…didn’t seem like enough?..just because they’re out there?..wanted to relive the experience of getting a new train?..they’re just so nice in their many variations?)
Then the basic layout becomes too small. Hence the ruminations about scale. Even the most extensive layout I can envision for my home, seems short of the running length I would like. This is probably partly due to the fact that in my youth we had a seasonal floor layout that ran from a spare bedroom at one end of our home, down the hallway and through the kitchen to the living room at the other end. I suppose I’m still trying to equal or surpass that experience. I suppose that’s why some people have these extensive, room to room, multi-track ceiling layouts that I’ve seen pics of.
But Bob, scale time, as a calculated from scale gravity, that’s something I hadn’t anticipated. While I suppose it’s theoretically correct ( and I figured out that 1/6.93 is probably the sq root of 1/48), the concept of scale time doesn’t seem very useful in any scale of model railroading application. It still seems we want to see our trains, or other operating accessories move at speeds proportional to the scale distances, as judged from our non-scale time perspective…but thinking about this does raise some interesting notions what is time. Next stop…quantum physics,where there are more questions than answers.
You can still model in 1/48 scale without reducing everything to precise scale replication. It’s called selective compression. 2 rail scale modelers have been using it for years.
No one - even the biggest clubs - have enough space to really replicate scale distances like between division points etc. The best we can hope for is to accurately model a “slice” of a real railroad (or a free-lance but realistic railroad). Think of your favorite railfanning spot - you probably can only see part of the train line, maybe only a half mile or less of it…in an urban area, it might only be a block in either direction. You can’t reproduce the whole line in your basement, but doing a little of it is possible.
For speed, I like to run trains pretty slow. In part it’s because it makes the distance travelled seem longer - a passenger train that should be going 60 scale MPH being run at 30 scale MPH will take twice as long to go around the layout than one run at full speed. Plus our trains are usually shorter than the real ones, going slower helps there too. A 12 car passenger train going 60 will take the same amount of time to pass a point (like a grade crossing) as a 6 car train going 30. Because it takes the same time to go by, it seems like the train is longer than it really is.
Stix, I like your thinking; scale gravity be damned!
Was just running a 20 car train headed by my favorite F3 (2344 NYC ABA) at an unclocked (didn’t think of it) "visually comfortable’ speed around my one and only main loop - just enjoying the sounds and the motion.
Somewhat off topic - it continues to amaze me that the ‘right’ combination and sequence of 20 postwar freight cars ('49 through '6?) will run together flawlessly seemingly forever, while a couple of more cars, or a change in sequence will result in a decoupling somewhere after a couple of laps! - It’s such a delicate balance, without resorting to the types of modifications mentioned at various times on the forum.