I think the minimum length is 3 times the length of your train. That allows for a run with a passing siding in the middle so two trains can operate at once. I think the old standard abbreviated train was a locomotive and dummy or tender, ten cars, and the caboose. New era, three locomotives, ten cars, no caboose.
Based on the responses, there really isn't a set standard for the mainline. A lot depends on type of cars used, era, location of country, etc. Given these and many other variables, I would go with what looks somewhat realistic without creating derailments or appearing that a consist goes forever.
Just because a moden-era consist has 80+ cars doesn't mean you need to do likewise. For instance, since I model the 1980s, many of my cars are 7.5" (coupler to coupler). If I ran a 30 car consist I would need a 18.75 ft mainline. While I have that space, I much prefer a slightly smaller consist so the train can spend time going point-to-point.
Hi Big Boy Forever
There is not really a minimum as such there are far to many variables especialy
When you concider your prototype can be any where from 1813 to the present day and any nation in the world that has railroads and the gauge variation that there is.
concider a train of stage coaches takes a lot less room than modern streamline coaches and you see what I mean.
You are going to have to have hidden parts for realism not many of us have the kind of space needed not to have them.
There is an old rule I have seen and even that doesn't work all the time the old space constraint thing again.
The rule states you need a minimum of three train lengths between stations to create the illusion of distance.
Works well with an 0-6-0 loco 4wh box car, 4wh caboose and balcony coach as a train on a 4'6" square railroad, but could be an issuie with a modern 4-6-0 and thirteen cars and caboose.
Even with the kind of space needed for a train that size being avalable to look right you may well still run into space issuies.
One solution and its not for every one
Is a mountain railroad where you can twist and fold the line around and over it's self without loosing believabilaty, and have the corresponding shortening of trains.
While still being able to keep loco's from the larger end of the spectrum with out loosing believabilaty.
regards John
OnewolfI model the UP so approx 186,574 ft of HO mainline would be realistic. With a 50x100 ft building this would require 630 'laps' around the room. With 18" between decks his would require a 945 ft tall room. Sounds feasible....
That sounds like the "Maximum" Extreme to the Nth degree HO mainline.
I was asking about the "minimum" length.
The how long question is probably answered in practical terms - a model train which has a fairly reasonable long appearance. Obviously that means different think to different people but I'll take a stab at it ... I'd say an HO model train which is some where around 25 to 30 cars, give or take, has a reasonably long appearance for a home model railroad. For clubs with large layouts, of course you can get away with significantly longer trains. Sure, I was a the Timonium train show and a guy put a prototypical 100 car D&RGW unit train with 4 tunnel motors up front and 4 tunnel motors in the midddle as helpers. Pretty cool, it ran, but it was a very large modular layout. For home layouts, half to a third of that is somewhere closer to doable - depending on sizable layout.
Rio Grande. The Action Road - Focus 1977-1983
This is a, "How long is a string?" question . Since I run 'long' trains that will fit a siding with 8 feet between clearance points I can have a convincing mainline shorter than somebody's accurately-modeled Powder River coal unit train . OTOH, my theoretical modeler with a 100+ car freight needs at least 600 feet of first main track to give it breathing room .
Some time back Sheldon and I agreed that one day's run, selectively compressed, is a practical limit for model mainline length . That being the case, we have one contributor who must plan to run his UP trains at maglev speeds .
Chuck (Modeling about 10km of visible Central Japan mainline in September, 1964)
Easy answer - be able to run a long train that doesn't look like it's chasing its tail. A "long train" is one that you can't see both ends of without turning your head.
Not quite as easy - you are never going to be able to model a mainline - only a segment of a main line. Never mind "long enough" it's about creating the illusion that the train came from someplace far away and after it passed, it went someplace far away in the other direction.
We don't model it - we fake it.
I have the right to remain silent. By posting here I have given up that right and accept that anything I say can and will be used as evidence to critique me.
The UP is one thing. But sometimes it pays to choose your prototype with a more parctical approach. If it's a 4-mile long shortline instead, then it's going to be a lot easier to selectively compress, to say the least.
But if you are talking some form of bigtime, Class 1 RRing, it's probably more useful to think in terms of the number of locations/stations you can depict than a certain length/distance. Assuming you don't even have space for a yard, but can squeeze in a few staging tracks, then I'd say the minimum number is 2. That way you pick up load/MTs in one place and take them somewhere else, the next town or whatever.
The British and other often space-limited folks would say the numer is just 1, with a fiddle track or two. All the track elsewhere is in your head.
Mike Lehman
Urbana, IL
Only approx 3,100 scale miles eh? Sure, why not? But with your mushroom multidecked layout I think you'll manage to get the "look" of it without having the proverbial aircraft hanger and an extended life span and huge bank acount to build it! Awesome job by the way - your doing something most of us can only dream about.
Modeling an HO gauge freelance version of the Union Pacific Oregon Short Line and the Utah Railway around 1957 in a world where Pirates from the Great Salt Lake founded Ogden, UT.
- Photo album of layout construction -
Big Boy Forever I know you can make a short mainline on a 4' X 4' or 4' X 8' plywood and watch it go round and round (which makes no sense), due to space limits, but REALLY what would be the minimum length of a mainline to give the impression of a real mainline run, if anyone knows? I guess for HO you would have to have a hidden route.
I know you can make a short mainline on a 4' X 4' or 4' X 8' plywood and watch it go round and round (which makes no sense), due to space limits, but REALLY what would be the minimum length of a mainline to give the impression of a real mainline run, if anyone knows?
I guess for HO you would have to have a hidden route.
Of course whats the point if so much is hidden? Minimum length really requires more room than I have right now, thats for sure. Table top layouts are something many have to allow them to practice skills and do stuff while hoping for the day they have a nice basement and a double decked layout. A guy at Atlas Rescue Forum posted a cab ride video which gives a nice reasonable mainline impression:
http://atlasrescueforum.proboards.com/thread/3732/atsf-cab-ride-video
If I win the Powerball tonite, this question will be invalid, since I will buy a house with a very long separate building for the layout, and probably the same goes for you too.
Uh oh, whimsical alert! You won't win - there was a guy on NPR yesterday give a description of it here:
http://www.npr.org/2016/01/12/462754290/powerball-you-cant-win-if-you-dont-play
WASSERSTEIN: You have a 99.9999997 percent chance of losing if you do play. GREENE: That's great. That is Ron Wasserstein. He's director of the American Statistical Association. And he says the bottom line is you are not going to win. STEVE INSKEEP, HOST: If you still need convincing, he has an analogy. Imagine you have a stack of pennies the height of the Empire State Building. WASSERSTEIN: You would need to buy 1,000 lottery tickets to have the same probability of winning the Powerball jackpot as you would have to pick the one penny out of the stack the height of the Empire State Building. INSKEEP: That's a great analogy. Except now I'm hung up on what happens to that stack of pennies when you yank a penny out of the middle. GREENE: Yeah, bad things. Well, in any case, some people try to improve their odds by buying tickets in groups. Wasserstein says even joining a group of 50 people is just not going to help much. WASSERSTEIN: Instead of a 1 in 292 million chance, I now have a 50 in 292 million chance of winning, which is still unimaginably, ridiculously, impossibly small. GREENE: That's the reality. It is likely that your brain already knew it. INSKEEP: But, of course, your instinct says something else. So good luck when you play.
WASSERSTEIN: You have a 99.9999997 percent chance of losing if you do play.
GREENE: That's great. That is Ron Wasserstein. He's director of the American Statistical Association. And he says the bottom line is you are not going to win.
STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
If you still need convincing, he has an analogy. Imagine you have a stack of pennies the height of the Empire State Building.
WASSERSTEIN: You would need to buy 1,000 lottery tickets to have the same probability of winning the Powerball jackpot as you would have to pick the one penny out of the stack the height of the Empire State Building.
INSKEEP: That's a great analogy. Except now I'm hung up on what happens to that stack of pennies when you yank a penny out of the middle.
GREENE: Yeah, bad things. Well, in any case, some people try to improve their odds by buying tickets in groups. Wasserstein says even joining a group of 50 people is just not going to help much.
WASSERSTEIN: Instead of a 1 in 292 million chance, I now have a 50 in 292 million chance of winning, which is still unimaginably, ridiculously, impossibly small.
GREENE: That's the reality. It is likely that your brain already knew it.
INSKEEP: But, of course, your instinct says something else. So good luck when you play.
A 1" thick view block between scenes.
Steve
In the real world the preferred distance for shipping by truck is load out and empty back in one day. Over that if both ends have rail connections that becomes the best method.
Therefore before 1910, probably 40 miles. Today, probably about 200 miles.
Twelve feet, with something to stop viewing both towns at once. This is branchline, mainline longer is better, but space is finite for everyone.
Drive your trains slowly (25 mph) it makes the distance seem longer.
The shorter the train, the longer the distance appears.
You don't want to be dropping in cut of cars in town B with caboose in A and the engine in C.
This is only my ramblings, other will hopefully differ.
Dave