Athletic fields on layout

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M

Maestro

New Member
Hey gang... Does anyone know of athletic field kits that I can order? I'm mostly interested in a community-style baseball diamond and a high school-type football field.

I would be interested it creating a field myself, but I'm struggling with the math. The standard American football field is 120 yards long and 54 yards wide. What is that in HO(1:87) scale? I'm coming up with 4 feet long, which is crazy and means my math is wrong somewhere.

Thanks!
 
Actually, it's 4 feet, 1 inches. You can convert from scale to real feet or vice versa with the calculator at http://www.geocities.com/gsc_rr/scale_calc.html. Football fields, along with the stands, are really big chunks of real estate to model. You can more successfully condense a baseball field but you'll still end up with about 2 feet of the layout given over to the field. If you have enough space, then check at www.walthers.com for lots of things like stands, players, goal posts, and backstops. Depending on your level of modeling skill, you scratch build everything but the players.
 
Maestro said:
Does anyone know of athletic field kits that I can order? I'm mostly interested in a community-style baseball diamond and a high school-type football field.
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That is going to suck up a whole lot of space. I could think of much better uses of layout space.

I would be interested it creating a field myself, but I'm struggling with the math. The standard American football field is 120 yards long and 54 yards wide. What is that in HO(1:87) scale? I'm coming up with 4 feet long, which is crazy and means my math is wrong somewhere.
Click to expand...
Why is it crazy? Sounds about right to me. Lets see 120 yd / 87 in HO/yd = 1.38 in HO * 36 in/yd = 49.6 inches in HO. Yup four feet.
 


I agree that it will take up a lot of space, however I want to have such items on my layout, so I think it is a good use of space.

I still think there's something funny in the math. Looking at a football field, comparing it to the surrounding buildings, and then looking at my layout, it seems like the math is leaving me with a football field that is 2x larger than it should be. Perhaps I can get away with using 2 feet instead of 4. I still feel like my math is off somehow.
 
My football days were spent practicing in a field along the Mopac/Katy joint line in Haltom City, Texas, so I can understand the appeal of a football field on the layout. But, 120 actual yds. x 54 actual yds. = 360 actual ft. x 162 actual ft. = 4 ft. 1 5/8 in. x 1 ft. 10 in. on your HO scale layout. Yep, it's that big. But I think it would look cool.

Have you thought about putting a mirror down the center of the field from end zone to end zone? That could save significant width and allow you to locate the field in a more narrow strip.
 
Thanks, Mark. When you realize that a 4'x8' space is only 5.5 actual acres, it becomes a lot more clear why we have to do selective compression. I live in a neighborhood where the average lot is between a half to one and a half acres. That means I might be able to get six houses and lots on a 4'x8' layout. It's a nice neighborhood but I can't imagine what a railroad would ever do serving such a small area. :) For many of us, we don't have much more than that 4'x8' space so Chip's harping on planning before building really becomes apparent when you think of jamming a whole railroad empire into maybe 7 or 8 actual acres.
 
You know, Little League fields, and softball fields are smaller then regulation baseball fields... So a community style field can be easy, if you set it up for a community softball league. Its not like the whole field has to be modeled either. The end 30 yards of a football field, and they could be on the goal line, ect...

http://www.walthers.com/exec/productinfo/785-1895

Some of the European companies make basketball courts & tennis courts. I've been tempted to buy the street basketball court, but I have not yet seen basketball players! Unless I bought the street one, but that gives me 2 players. :(
http://www.walthers.com/exec/productinfo/189-1057
 
With my mind still reeling from the math, I sat down with our Tech Ed guy and discussed this. He suggested I get a set of players from Woodland Scenes and get them to him. Keeping the scale in mind, he and his tech ed class would build me a compressed field something on the order of 2' x .75'. If I got him a small Woodland Scenes grass mat, he and his kids would cut a thin piece of wood, cut and apply the mat to it, and paint the lines/end zones for me. It wouldn't be the 4' x 1.25' that is to scale, but it would look nice.

My initial thought was to pick up some WS figures and sand and just make a little sandlot-ish baseball field, but golly, a football field would be nice too.
 


Maestro said:
The standard American football field is 120 yards long and 54 yards wide. What is that in HO(1:87) scale? I'm coming up with 4 feet long, which is crazy and means my math is wrong somewhere.
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No, your math is actually quite correct, and you've just done a wonderful job of explaining what's wrong with many model railroads. Most plans try to cram WAY too much stuff in a small space.

My current layout plan is for a 12 x 17 space, but it looks a lot like a typical 4 x 8 layout, basically a big oval.

http://www.modelrailroadphotos.com/photos/showphoto.php?photo=278

Why is that? I realized how much we try to cram into a tiny space. I have a 12 car coal train I like to run. It's a mere shadow of the 100 car coal trains PRR liked to run, but it at least gives a flavor of a long train. 12 cars at roughly 6 inches inches, plus a loco and caboose, and you get a train that's nearly 8 feet long. Suddenly that 11 foot length doesn't seem so big when the coal train is taking up 1/3 of the loop.

Your measurement system is great for picturing this stuff... My layout area is roughly 3 football fields by 4 football fields. Inside that space, I'm trying to put a town, a passenger station, an industry or two, and an enginehouse. NO WONDER IT WON'T ALL FIT!

Unfortunately, many of the layout plans I've seen drawn fall apart when you run a 5 or 6 car train on them, and find out the train fills the entire town area.

If I was working in N scale, I honestly think I'd find an HO scale plan I liked, and build it to the exact same dimensions, only building with N scale track. Think about it, your sidings would be twice as long. Your curves twice as wide radius. The vertical clearances would look much better. It would be sweet.
 
PS - Shrinking down the field will work fine, especially when everything else on the layout is also condensed proportionally. You can go a lot smaller and still get the impression you want.
 
Glad that I as a newbie on the forum could be so helpful. :)

I'm going to get a pack of football players over the weekend and the Tech Ed kiddies are going to make my field for me next week.
 
I had a tennis court on an old layout, and even that I compressed a little to save space. It actually looked better than building it to scale because a full-size scale court would have looked too massive in comparison to everything else.
 
If you place half of a football field with the 50 yard line against a mirror on the edge of your layout it would only take up half the space and still give you the visual impression of the entire field.
Doc
 
Doc Holliday said:
If you place half of a football field with the 50 yard line against a mirror on the edge of your layout it would only take up half the space and still give you the visual impression of the entire field.
Doc
Click to expand...

I originally thought of that too, but if you want players on the field, and I'm guessing he does, then it wouldn't work, since both teams would be the same colors...

However, you might do something lengthwise
 


Well, you could do the mirror lengthwise, especially if you put in some small bleachers to disguise the mirror on the ends. Run it right down the center of the field lengthwise. Cut the QB in half to get the 11th man, and pose the other players on one side of him.

Might just work...
 
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