Layout ideas & suggestions

[NorthBrit]

Right now I'm considering an oval with the HO and incorporate N gauge somehow in suburban and oral scenery. How hard is it to mesh HO scale with N scale buildings, etc.?

Think outside of the box.
One foot away in HO is 87 feet away.
Look outside at something 87 feet away and see the difference from something close up.
See a building 174 feet away. Transfer that on a layout and it is two feet away.

Then do selective compression. You are doing that already. What is actually on your layout? Stations and Yards are in reality much further away than on the layout and larger.

The placing of N scale buildings has to be carefully done. Have a reason for the building to be there in the first place. Hide the building in plain sight. Do that with placing trees and rises in the ground. Do that right and it is easy.

Just do not 'plonk' a building down in the distance. It does not work.

 

[Iron Horseman]

Think outside of the box.
One foot away in HO is 87 feet away.
Look outside at something 87 feet away and see the difference from something close up.
See a building 174 feet away. Transfer that on a layout and it is two feet away.

Then do selective compression. You are doing that already. What is actually on your layout? Stations and Yards are in reality much further away than on the layout and larger.

The placing of N scale buildings has to be carefully done. Have a reason for the building to be there in the first place. Hide the building in plain sight. Do that with placing trees and rises in the ground. Do that right and it is easy.

Just do not 'plonk' a building down in the distance. It does not work.

And provide some sort of "break" in the "ground". That is one can't just have a flat plane or plain view from one building to the another. A slight rise so that the eye cannot trace a direct line. Or a line of trees, telephone line, fence line, or even the buildings themselves.

I am thinking of looking at a road end on. It goes over one hill x wide and disappears over the top, comes up the next hill further away so it is only x/2 wide, then the next hill it reappears only x/3 wide.

 

[NorthBrit]

And provide some sort of "break" in the "ground". That is one can't just have a flat plane or plain view from one building to the another. A slight rise so that the eye cannot trace a direct line. Or a line of trees, telephone line, fence line, or even the buildings themselves.

I am thinking of looking at a road end on. It goes over one hill x wide and disappears over the top, comes up the next hill further away so it is only x/2 wide, then the next hill it reappears only x/3 wide.

Each time it appears over the hill have the road slightly to the left or right and narrower.
A good way is also to curve the road away in the distance and is easy to 'hide' as it disappears.