Out of an academic curiosity how would I go about selectively compressing two scenes from my prototype info books into a manageable layout?
Scene one is Dunsmuir, CA yard, September 1947, the diagram is 15x4.5 inches at a scale of .75 inches to 120 feet so that works out to 2400x740 feet in real life and 27x8 feet in HO...
Scene two is Norden, CA snowshed complex, 1952, the diagram is 16x4.5 inches at a scale of 1.25 inches to 100 feet that works out to 1280x360 feet in real life and 14x4 in HO...
(All figures are approximate)
How you you guys selectively compress these scenes into a manageable layout?
Please excuse the image quality, I usually go outside in the sunlight to take pictures of papers...
Steve
If everything seems under control, you're not going fast enough!
You'll frustrate yourself if you try to scale everythng down from these drawings. '
This is where the selective part of selective compression comes in. You can't include everything, so selecting key features to retain and others to eliminate is what you want. If you simply try to scale it all down, you'll still end up with too much to fit.
Mike Lehman
Urbana, IL
Both of those areas are going to be heavily dependent upon the space you have, in terms of how far you have to compress and choose elements you want to include.
Combining some features, like one track of the mallet house sharing coal/sand/water with an adjacent track would help.
Eliminating a number of the roundhouse stalls will save your footprint considerably.
Deciding if you truly want (or need) the double main can eliminate numerous switches and the space that runs between them to help compress the linear size of the area.
Depending on your space considerations, the other areas you're modeling, and where/how this falls into the overall plan will influence how things are laid out, which direction you're facing (from the top of the photo towards the bottom or vice versa), as well as which elements simply fall "out of scene".
This space reserved for SpaceMouse's future presidential candidacy advertisements
Basically you have two ways to compress a model of the prototype into your space:
1) Use fewer tracks
2) Use shorter tracks
Granite Railroader makes some good suggestions. The thing is you just have to fiddle with it until you reach compromises you can live with.
Chip
Building the Rock Ridge Railroad with the slowest construction crew west of the Pecos.
Just a suggestion...
Larger photo sizes (e.g. 100KB or >) would allow photos to be zoomed to see details better. Currently all four photos posted are 480px x 270px and in the 24-34KB range. When clicked, they zoom to the exact same size.
https://tstage9.wixsite.com/nyc-modeling
Time...It marches on...without ever turning around to see if anyone is even keeping in step.
Without knowing the space, worrying too much about these details at this stage seems premature. But that's just me.
A couple of approaches to representing Dunsmuir can be seen in John Armstrong's design for Otis McGee Jr.'s layout in Model Railroader April 2005 and Great Model Railroads 2011 and my article in the current Model Railroad Planning 2018.
In any consideration of compressing a prototype scene, my first “yardstick” is to determine the target train length for the model. From this, one can begin to determine how long yard tracks and other elements must be to work on the model.
Byron
Layout Design GalleryLayout Design Special Interest Group
I was thinking it might be a better subject for a diorama type layout allowing for some operations...
Tstage, how do I increase picture size?
Are you using your cellphone or camera to take your photos? You should be able to change the size your cellphone/camera's settings. On my smartphone my picture size is set to 2.0M, or 1600 x 1200. My smallest setting is 0.3M (300KB) or 640 x 480. The info on your photos say you are at 420 x 270.
I'm using a smartphone I can see if I can increase size...
Also if anyone has the Armstrong track plan could you please post it here? I tried going into the archive but couldn't!
I can change it to 4128x3096 (4:3) is that good?
Dunsmuir in the Armstrong plan is about 35 linear feet in HO. Dunsmuir in my plan is about the same. Neither Dunsmuir nor Norden is much of a candidate for a diorama, in my humble opion.
Edit: Unless your definition of diorama extends to something like 10-12 linear feet in HO. Then maybe one could do a compressed Norden snowshed scene just of the turntable and surroundings. There wouldn’t be much in the way of operations unless you had additional staging tracks beyond the modeled scene.
So Dunsmuir in 2x8 is not possible in HO... Norden is the same...
Perhaps only part of the Dunsmuir or Norden facilities could be modeled?
NWP SWPSo Dunsmuir in 2x8 is not possible in HO... Norden is the same...
Math, dude, sorry.
Here's what a 2X8 yard scene looks like in HO. And even this would need some track beyond what's shown to use the runaround.
NWP SWP I can change it to 4128x3096 (4:3) is that good?
Yep, that will work but will eat up more internal or SD card space on your cellphone. Is 1600 x 1200 (4:3) an option, or something similar? Even an increase to 640 x 480 would be 3x the improvement.
Can you post photos here in the thread using the different photo-size options you have on your cellphone to find the optimal setting? I would go with the smallest setting that will yield you the optimal results.
I can go down to about 2000x1000?
You are using pbsrc.com to host your photos? If you can enlarge the photo from the website (double-tap it) then capture the "Copy Image Location" URL from that enlargement, that should remedy the issue for you. If you capture the image URL as it is displayed on a website, that's exactly how it will display on the forum - even when enlarged.
Try it using one of your previously posted photos. You can then go back and edit the rest.
Tom
The way I typically do it is "open image in new tab" and then copy the URL from that tab...
However you do it: If the photo you are capturing is the same exact size in both tabs, that's the size that's going to be posted on the forum. The key is to capture the URL of the larger photo.
Here's an example, Steven: At the bottom right of this page is an image of the Model Railroader magazie to the left of "Subscribe". If I capture that image it comes out like this:
If I click on the image and go to the URL where there's a larger photo of it and I capture that URL, here's what I get:
That may be all you need to do to post larger photos.
[Edit: Well, it doesn't look like it expands any larger when I click on either photo. That's a different result than when I post from my website or from Railimages.com]
I'm about to ditch Photo bucket they're making the service (which is free) impossible to use...
What would be a better photo hosting site that's free?
Rather than discuss it here, use the forum search. The various photohosting site options to Photobucket have been discussed in at least two threads on the General Discussion forum in the past 2-3 months. Check each site out and see which one fits your photo portfolio needs and pocketbook.
cuyama....Math, dude, sorry.....
Byron's right: even imagining that 24 stall roundhouse in HO would tell you that it would eat-up a lot of space all by itself. So, by the time you cut that down to something manageable and affordable, you'd likely realise that the trackwork would require some similar reductions, too.
It's lots of fun to dream big, but try to keep your feet somewhere close to the ground, too.
Wayne
Would just a steam engine terminal fit? 8 stall roundhouse, 4 short stalls, 4 long, 4 track engine house with transfer table, coaling track, etc.. or that's too much for 2x8?
Trying to accomplish that in 2x8 is going to be like shoving small square boxes into a round hole. You'll make it all go in, but there's going to be pieces that are just shoved on top of each other that just don't fit well.
How are those kits you're working on coming out? You haven't shown us anything....
I finished one and I'm working on another... I posted a picture in the diner...
When I built the model of my layout, I was shocked to find I could only get at most 2 inches of the roundhouse roof where it was closest to the wall. This is with a 28" layout width.
.
The roundhouse is over five feet long!
These things eat space like a Langolier going through time!
-Kevin
Living the dream.
Were there nonround "round"houses? Basically a mallet house served by a turntable?