How much room to allow for on HO scale?


K

kencunningham

Member
How much space should i leave between a centerline track drawing and the wall behind it to allow for HO scale structures and road running in front of those buildings? I kinda need a general guideline for industry and residential. Thanks for any help you can give. Ken
 
I'm not sure if there's actually a guide line that anyone has that's official. Usually guys use scenery then track then their buildings and things behind it all and cut buildings to fit of they're too deep. You don't wanna put the track too far back so it's hard to reach. Id say its all personal preference.


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That's a rather complex question. It depends on the size of the buildings, roads, and additional scenery. You want everything to be in reach, and you want to be able to get your fingers around the train cars in case they derail. You'll have to go through the process of figuring out what you want in all spaces and add up the individual depths.
 
To a trackside platform, such as at a depot where passengers board, I have 7/8" exactly. It allows my larger steamers, such as the Allegheny, to roar past.

Caveat - this is on tangent track, NOT on a curve!

Once you have your trains on a curve, particularly steamers, especially large ones, the cab walls, roof rearward extensions, injector downspout overflows on either side under the cab, smoke lifters, and pilot beams will begin to snag, and it gets worse as the curvature sharpens. You would be fine on curves in excess of 40" radius typically, but anything under that, you will possibly have heartache. So, the best insurance is to mock it up and see what passes by the closer you get when you configure the setup the way you hope to have it on your layout.
 
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I agree with both mock up and personal preference. Determine what you plan on putting on the layout, and if you don't have the actual industry, you can make it out of cardboard or cardstock and you can also use the same thing to layout your track and move things around as you see fit and to get a idea of how its going to look. Good luck to ya.
 
Ken -

If I understand your question, you are asking how far from the back wall your track must be in order to leave room for structures to be added later. Your first decision must be whether your background buildings will be full-depth buildings or flats.

If you use low-relief buildings ("flats"), your track can be much closer to the back wall than if you use full-depth buildings. A flat represents just the front portion of the building. When placed along your backdrop, a flat is far enough from an observer that it is not immediately obvious that most of the building is missing.

Flats are typically 1.5 to 3.5 inches deep in HO scale. An example is Walthers Arrowhead Ale flat, which is 2-1/8 inches deep:
http://www.walthers.com/exec/productinfo/933-3193

You can purchase flats such as the one above, or you can make your own flats by starting with a full-depth building and cutting away all but the front couple of inches.

Some vendors of both full-depth buildings and flats list the dimensions of their buildings so you can know ahead of time how much space they will require. Or if you have some specific structures already in mind, it may be worthwhile to purchase them before you lay the track so you will know how much space to allow.

- Jeff
 
Thanks. What i was doing was trying to map out a layout on graph paper. I outlined the walls and on another piece of graph paper i had drawn 24r curves and cut them out to place onto the room drawing. Thinking by doing this i could easily make changes when needed. Well no sooner than i had drawn a line to connect two turns, i realized that i hadn"t left any room to put scenery behind the track so that the train would pass in front of it. I looked around on the internet and figured 6 inches would allow enough room for residential without haveing to refigure the track layout later (not including the road). My room size is really cramping my style as far as laying the track as i would want to with 24r curves. I may end up taking over part of the living room space.
 
Have you given any thought to just using bulding flats directly on the wall/backdrop? That way you give the illusion of buildings w/o them taking up any depth.
 
I'm a visual learner, so I built my bench work then laid track in a way that it could easily be taken out and put buildings and mock ups down. That allowed me to fine tune things and move em without much effort. You can see exactly how things will sit and have a better idea of what types of buildings you'll need, flats or whole ones. My plan was to have scenery in the front few inches of the layout then track then my town. It worked out well for my taste but it may not be exactly what you want


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TwrOpr 87 said:
I'm a visual learner, so I built my bench work then laid track in a way that it could easily be taken out and put buildings and mock ups down. That allowed me to fine tune things and move em without much effort. You can see exactly how things will sit and have a better idea of what types of buildings you'll need, flats or whole ones. My plan was to have scenery in the front few inches of the layout then track then my town. It worked out well for my taste but it may not be exactly what you want


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- Sent from my phone
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Bingo!! Thats me to a tee. Ive been struggling with a design that will best utilize the space and not be too small. While i was reading your post a idea popped in my head for a layout that im pretty sure will work. Well of the the track laying program to find out.
 
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