How difficult is it to Change the scale of a plan in the database? (HO to N). I have a small room roughly 9' x 12', 9' x 9' of which is available for a multi deck layout.
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The multiplier to convert HO to N scale is 0.54375
I am not an N-scale guy. Is it that simple, probably not. You would need to start with a 16' track plan to fill your space. The advantage of N scale is that you can have longer runs than HO scale. The N scale guys would be better to answer this question.
Henry
COB Potomac & Northern
Shenandoah Valley
Welcome!
Remember that you and the others operating your layout do not scale down. Your aisles still need to be wide enough for you to work comfortbly.
Have fun,
Richard
A big thing to remember is that you don't scale down directly as far as things like Radius. For a lot of HO scale purposes, a 24"-26" mainline radius is pretty generous - bigger is always better, of course. So you'd expect a 13-16" radius to be pretty decent for N, which is possible, but a lot of N scalers prefer to go to an 18" or wider mainline radius.
If you're using premade turnouts, those have different proportions in N scale than HO scale. While a #5 has the same divergence, and angle on the frog, the point rails, stock rails, etc. May all have different proportions. If you have switch machines, the actual switch motors are the same size regardless of scale, so many yards or switching areas that work well in HO may be hard to get switch machines laid out for in N.
Things like inclines and stuff also matter, if you're doing double deck, as N scale locomotives have much worse pulling power due to their lighter weight, and if you're running a helix between decks that will make a difference in your max grade - the smaller height means you can have slightly shorter clearances, but you still need to fit your hand in for maintenance and if you get a derail, and usually helixes on HO scale get access from the interior. Either you'd need to preserve the radius on the helix to fit in, or separate of the helix so you can have access from the outside.
I strongly suspect that the amount of work it takes to make a rescaled track plan work, you'd be doing more than designing a new one from scratch. That said, using the track plan database for ideas, and adapting specific sections, is a great way to get a feel for how others do track planning and what to watch out for. If you have access to the magazine archives, I'd recommend browsing the articles about the plans you like - get a feeling for what the plan was originally used for, any mentions of changes made, etc., while there's some beautiful layouts from the 70s a lot of them don't particularly meet with modern sensibilities as to what a layout should be. Do you plan on operating, or just watching the trains run? A lot of older layouts didn't have staging yards, which most would consider important these days as well.