Accessory and Building density on 4'x8' Layout

[Andrew Falconer]

What is needed are some definite facts and opinions on the Accessory and Building density on a 4' x 8' Layout.

Some 4'x 8' Layouts appear to have exceeded their density levels for Accessories and Buildings.

How much is too much on a 4'x8' Layout?

When should an operator start a second or third 4'x8' Layout in another room?

Should each 4'x8' Layout have a consistent theme?

Those are starter questions that are never asked outright in O Gauge books.

Andrew

[csxt30]

Well, I think it should be any way a person wants it. If a person can imagine, then he can build it any way he likes. I just say to myself, I want the train to go over here & then over there & Bingo, I put it there. There doesn't need to be any desity rules as to what  a layout should have or if too much is too much. You have to start somewhere & if you get started, one thing will lead to another, I think. I always say, " Anything goes on a model RR " !! Some want the toy like, some want the scale look.  I think a person will add to his layout when he thinks he wants it bigger. No rules are good sometimes !!  Let's see what others have to say, I may not have understood your topic.

Thanks, John   

[Dr. John]

Interesting question, Andrew. I'm sure there are widely varying opinions. Roland LaVoie, author of Greenberg's Model Railroading with Lionel Trains is a proponent of "more is better." The 4x8 and 5x8 layouts he mentions (and built) were crammed full of accessories and buildings. He believes that greater density gives the illusion of a larger layout by offering so much for the eye to see. I like his approach, but have to admit it gives a toy-like look. Since I like tinplate, Marx, and Lionel postwar, that suits me.

Most scale modelers tend to advocate a less is more philosophy, allowing the scenery to dominate the trains. This is great in theory, but somewhat more difficult (though not impossible) to achieve in a 4x8 space, especially in O gauge.

I think an additional question you must ask concerns your track to accessory/building ration. Do you want more room to run multiple trains? Or do you enjoy switching cars to log bins, milk platforms, coal loaders, etc.

Basically, it comes down to what you like. Rather than start another 4x8 in another room, consider adding a 4x4 addition to make an L shaped layout, or expand to a 5x9 size if possible. If you have room for more than one layout, consider different themes: one in a tin-plate vein, one high-rail. Or have a western themed layout set in the dessert and another an urban industrial area. You are only limited by your imagination. Well, and money, space and time, but I digress!

[Blueberryhill RR]

I guess if I were entering  my layout in a contest, I'd worry about rules. As it is now, it is my fantasy world that I created. I have seen much better and I have seen much better. None were worse, because they were the creation of someone else's fantasy.

I guess what I am saying is.....I have what I can afford. And as time goes on, I will add to it. And I may put it all on a 4 x 8 sheet of plywood. And I do not care what anyone thinks of that. They are MY toys.

Chuck

[jimhaleyscomet]

Packing a layout full of buldings makes for a 'Toy" like layout.  Leaving about 50% or more open looks more realistic.  You take your pick.

Jim H

[msacco]

Pack those operating accessories in and have fun!!!!.

They're toys after all!!!

Realistic? C'mon the real world is rather boring anyway.

 

Mike S.

[riverrailfan]

 If you have the accesories, than use them. It's called adding action to your layout. It gives it something more than watching the trains go around. I think the layout looks better on a 4x8 with more as long they are smartly placed. Your track plan will dictate how much you will fit on your layout. My question is do you have room to expand the layout instead of building in another room. This will allow you to change to a different theme even if it's part of the same layout. It dosn't have to be consistent. Your the one building it. You must be at the point you want to build a layout but uncertain of what you are deciding what you want for a design. I'm sure quite a few of us have gone through it. I know I did. For what I wanted to model was unrealistic for the room I had unless I was doing N scale. 

 Some layouts are built on two levels. The lower level used for accesories and the upper dedicated to realism. These are built larger than 4x8 though. What I'm building is kind of  both. A little bit of accesories for action and a little realistic landscape or what I call a hybrid layout. My inner loop is based on more rail action so it leaves less room for buildings and accesories. 

[Joe Hohmann]

My layout is 5x8, and with only 2 loops and one siding, I've chosen the "less tracks, more scenics" approach. I also have a half city/urban, half circus/carnival setting...which makes crowding look a bit more natural. It seems that almost every small layout shown in track plans has every square inch covered with tracks. This is not what I wanted, since I enjoy both scenics and animation. I also like passenger trains best, so "switching operations" was not a "must have" for me. Joe

[Kooljock1]

On a typical 4'x8' layout there's plenty of "wasted space" caused by the curves on either end, where accessories will not fit, or be able to be placed. In these areas you can create a mountain or a scond level. On my layout, I've created a plateau where a nice Plasticville residential area resides. Along the back of the layout I've placed green mountains, which are from 0" to 14" tall, but only 1/4" thick.

This gives the "impression" of open spaces, without specifically taking up any!

"1/4" Mountain":

<img src="http://im1.shutterfly.com/procserv/47b6d737b3127cce8cbc26e44cd800000026100Qct2Tho0Yse" border="0" />

Plasticville "plateau" in the foreground, accessory laden area with "mountains" in the background:

<img src="http://im1.shutterfly.com/procserv/47b6da08b3127cce88ed2116a50b00000016100Qct2Tho0Yse" border="0" />

Jon

[Anonymous]

As others have noted or implied:  There is no "right" or "wrong."  Whatever lights your fire is perfectly okay because it's YOUR hobby to enjoy, and not someone else's.

Some folks enjoy layouts jam-packed with track and accessories.  That's great!  Other enjoy layouts with just enough track to afford reasonable operations, and with the rest of the layout--in whatever size--devoted to scenery and enough accessories to make it a credible scene.  That's also great!

Personally, I enjoy layouts that have a theme.  It may be a particular railroad, era, geographic location, or season of the year, or a combination of all those considerations.  Themes tend to tie everything together and give the railroad a purpose for being and a realistic setting for conducting its operations.  It also helps to keep the hobby budget under control if you're buying only items appropriate for the B&O (for example) rather than for the B&O, Pennsy, NYC, Santa Fe, Milwaukee Road, C&NW, UP, GN, BN, NS, and dozens of other lines, not to mention the full range of equipment eras available.

But the bottom line is that it is YOUR hobby and YOUR railroad, and nobody can ever tell you that one thing or another is "right" or "best."

[Anonymous]

I seem to have subscribed to the 50 percent method. In an effort to make the layout seem larger, I concentrated most of the buildings in a single area (much like a real town) and left quite a bit of tree-covered hills. I'm working on some revisions now that will consolidate the town even further.
Photos can be viewed here of the existing version:
http://home.comcast.net/~graz6/wsb/html/view.cgi-home.html-.html

[Anonymous]

My layout is all city all the time. That means putting something in every avaialble nook and cranny I can. I don't feel that makes it toylike at all. The city is jammed.

I like it this way as it gives you lots to look at and build.

 

[jimhaleyscomet]

I agree with the last two posts.  In the cities pack it in, every detail you can fit.  But I do tend to group buildings into cities with one road, tracks and fields in between.  Many people put the mountain on the back corner with a tunnel.  I love tunnels and I like seeing a train leave in one direction and come out in a new direction.  However, on my current layout I left off the mountain because I felt it "imposed" to much, it dominated the space and led the eye away from the train action.

Probably the best thing to do is look at all the layouts you can in person.  Many folks in train clubs have a layout. 

Good Luck

Jim H

[brianel027]

Interesting observations. To add to some of the above thoughts, remember it has only been in the past decade that 3-rail trains moved well beyond the arena of TOYS and into the arena of scale model replicas. In the past, 3-rail trains were marketed to boys first and then their dads secondary. Although the toys were marketed back then as "realistic" there wasn't the manufacturing technology then that there is now. It was the animated and operating accessories that gave 3-rail trains (and even 2-rail Flyer) the fun and play elements that HO lacked.

Then as now, most guys with small layouts might wish they could have a bigger one, but are limited by either space and/or finances. I don't think that should preclude not having a layout at all. Buidling a smaller layout does have limitations, so you just have to work within and be happy with those limitations - which I believe most of us with small layouts do.

I have found that many larger operating acessories can be reduced in size if you are willing to let go of the so-called collectibility factor. I chopped down my operating banjo signal in height to make it look more at home on my smaller layout. My K-Line diesel fueling station was almost entirely rebuilt by me to end up with a two-thirds smaller footprint. I also chopped down my MTH operating freight platfrom to occupy a much smaller space. I chop down my Lionel 027 switches to literally just the size of the track. New smaller platform bases were made for my K-Line bubbling water and floodlight towers. I took my K-Line operating crossing gates and mounted them into the train board surface so they appear smaller. I modified Lionel's coaling station kit and made it smaller and combined it with my own scratchbuilt additions to become operating. I rebuilt my K-Line operating junction tower with the stairway going towards the building instead of away, thus makiing it occupy a smaller space. Plasticville buildings can easily be modified into other structures: my fire station became a small factory as did my K-Lineville police station.

Small layouts can offer the potential of being moveable, and in these days where the job you had yesterday might not be there tomorrow, a portable layout can be a unexpected blessing. Don't think it can't happen... I'm sure the rank and file at Lionel weren't expecting the US plant to close. K-Line unexpectedly popped the news they were closing their US factory on their employees just a couple weeks before CHRISTmas back in 1988 or 1989 (I forget which).  One woman told me she liked working for K-Line but thought the way they closed their plant was wrong. Would you want to be without a job just before the holidays? In my town, no one excepted the sudden layoffs that were in the thousands and a had a devastating effect on the entire region.

If there's a will, then there's a way. The true reality is that most folks do not and cannot have the larger layout they might dream of... the ones we see so often featured in the train magazines. Most folks with smaller simplier layouts might not feel as proud having their layout in a train magazine, or might feel the magazines wouldn't even be interested. and the train makers themselves have certainly played into the larger layout thinking with trains becoming more scale in proportion and thus larger, and thus requiring larger layouts. Which does kind of fly in the face of some of what Jerry Calabrese said in his OGR interview.

Some of the more innovative ideas lately have been with acessories than can be used as is (smaller) or added on to to make them bigger, like the Lionel oil tank facility. Today's electronics also make smaller (and more scale sized) accessories more of a possibilty.

Really as said above, it's a matter of choice and there is no wrong or right. Just as some real railroads operate their diesel locos short end first, others operate long end first. Some railroads specify locos with verticle headlight arrangements and others horizontal.... which is really right?

[ChooChooMan2]

 I think part of it depends on whether you are modeling an urban scene or country scene.  The more urban, the more density and detail.

[Boyd]

When you take a 4x8 layout and turn it into scale its 192 x 384 feet. A city block if 10 are to a linear mile is 528 feet if you include the street to the center line. If you are using fastrack  like I am,, one one or both sides of the framing under the 4x8 you could use the 2"x4" flat and have half of it sticking out beyond the edge of the plywood and screw down another 6 inches or so, so that 48" fastrack curve can fit. I did the framing for this on mine but have not yet added the 6 inch extentions. Now if Lionel will finally make a 48" fastrack switch I'd be happy.

[Andrew Falconer]

BrianelO27,

That is a very clever way to consolidate accessories. Nobody has put that into the O Gauge Layout books yet. Somebody at Kalmbach has to put your methods into a book. It would be a different perspective than what is out there.

Andrew

[Joe Hohmann]

 

Small layouts can offer the potential of being moveable, and in these days where the job you had yesterday might not be there tomorrow, a portable layout can be a unexpected blessing. Don't think it can't happen

Good point...and one that never seems to be mentioned. My 5x8 has all the scenics built on little modules, and everything, including the unsecured FasTrack, is resting on muted-green, tight-pile carpeting. The layout rests on 4 saw-horses. Since I'm 64, and our 5 kids are all grown & gone, we'll be selling our 6 bedroom home one of these days. I estimate it will take me less than a day to pack my layout up, and 2 days to get it back to normal. Joe

[Sturgeon-Phish]

My layout is 6 1/2 x 9 1/2 feet all S scale.  There is 14 accessories, 110 people 7 plasticville structures 5 switches three operating lines, LOTS of fun and action.
Jim