Layout Design Question: What to model and what not to model


jbovinette

Florida Railroads
Hello guys,


Im in the planning stages of a HO Scale layout. I would like to model a certain CSX Subdivision in Florida. How do you know what to model and what not to model? The subdivision is long and would take up tons of space. How do you decide on what to use in the layout?

Thanks,
John Bovinette
 
We model railroaders call it selective compression. First you have to determine your layout space, and size available.

Choose parts of the prototype that are interesting. Like a yard for instance. Then you have to determine how large this yard is that you can effectively fit into your available layout space, without it dominating the scene.
 
Michael got it right. Obviously, unless you own an airplane hangar, you won't fit a perfect 1:87 scale model of an entire prototype subdivision in your space. First you can cross-off 99% of those long-distance main line stretches thru flat rural areas. The hard part is deciding which of your favorite activity scenes to scale-down or eliminate.

If you're modeling an industrial park, for instance, you can show only the faces of the factories/warehouses that adjoin the railroad; the large sprawling part can exist off-layout. Same with parking lots: I some of my city scenes, I have signs on buildings that say "Parking in rear -->" where the "rear" of course is off-layout. [This also spares me from spending a bundle on those Busch HO scale automobiles!]

From my own experience: Since I model the steel industry, I would have needed an area 4x the size of my 24' by 24' garage to model a complete integrated mill. So I settled for my favorite parts of the operation that involve railways, and relegated the remainder [mile-long rolling mills etc.] to somewhere just beyond the benchwork. And I compressed the modeled structures to be small enough to fit, but still large enough to resemble the real thing.

There have been whole books written on this topic, published by Kalmbach and Carstens and others. What I've said just barely scratches the surface.
 
Layout Design

Here is a link to a google map that I have created:

http://maps.google.com/maps/myplace...1258,-81.625528&sspn=0.25253,0.050976&ie=UTF8

This is the area that I want to model. Passenger trains ran these rails years ago and has become non-existent. There are industries served by these rails but they are off the tracks a ways.

My dream would have both passenger and freight on one layout. Do you guys think this is feasible? Possibly making this a large loop? Im thinking this could fit on like a shelf layout style plan and branch out into the main floor for the spurs?

Let me know what you think,

John Bovinette
 



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