General Discussion (Model Railroader)

I am building a small 2-1/2 by 5 foot n-scale layout. How far apart can I place two towns on this board and make it look real? How do you run a train between them and make that look like it should. New at this hobby after 40 years in R/C planes. Why two towns? So I can have more industries to leave cars at and have a varity rather than service just one city. This is a 1050's scene featuring the Great Northern in Minn and N. D.   Thanks.

Hi Louie,

I have a 30"x48" layout, Unfortunitly in n scale which is what I model in  as well I think you are going to have to put a diagonal scene diveder to make it look correct. I am running into the problem with my layout of trying to put to much into the scene. To be honest with you I think to look realistic you are only going to be able to do 1 town with the size of layout we are modeling in. take a look at my fotki account to see what I am doing.

www.http://public.fotki.com/curtw944/my_n_scale_layout/

Let me know what you think.

Curt

louie1 wrote:

I am building a small 2-1/2 by 5 foot n-scale layout. How far apart can I place two towns on this board and make it look real? How do you run a train between them and make that look like it should. New at this hobby after 40 years in R/C planes. Why two towns? So I can have more industries to leave cars at and have a varity rather than service just one city. This is a 1050's scene featuring the Great Northern in Minn and N. D.   Thanks.

A divider or backdrop would work the best. I don't know if your layout is accessable from front only, 3 sides or all around.

Another possibility is to separate the towns by a hillside or major industry at the layout's edge. The hill alone could work and just run around through a cut or tunnel. The landform divider(hill/ mountain) would at least put some scenery between towns. This would eat up more real estate, though. Passing through a scenery divider or backdrop gives you the availability of utilizing all the area up to the backdrop. By using some clever structure/ scenery placement, you could hide the hole in the backdrop.

louie1 wrote:

This is a 1050's scene featuring the Great Northern in Minn and N. D.

I am wonder what type railroad ran in MN and ND during the 1050's.  :)

I would NOT have two towns on an N scale layout 2 1/2 by 5 feet UNLESS the layout was divided by a viewblock or double-sided backdrop down the middle.  It just would not be visually convincing enough to my taste.  (If it works for you, okay....)

For me to believe two town scenes are actually two towns, I think there should be at least one train length between them UNLESS they are separated with viewblock.  Depending on the size of the layout, one train length might be a foot and a half on a layout that runs 4-car trains, or it might be ten feet on a layout with 35 car trains pulled by multi-unit lashups. 

I HAVE built an even smaller layout than the one you describe, 2 x 4 feet with the scenic divided down the middle, with two "towns".  It was the Norton Brothers Connecting Railroad, "NBC", featured in Model Railroader Sept 1981 p.94.  One side was Grainball Junction, an agricultural town where the shortline connecting railroad had an interchange with the Grand Funk Trunk.  One turnout for the interchange track and a second turnout for a pair of local grain elevators.  The other side was a condensed prototype scene from the Port of Corpus Christi with a shipside export terminal grain elevator and a dock.  One turnout there allowed acces to a 6-car spur for the elevator, plus a switchback off that spur to a short spur at dockside for loading and unloading flatcar-type loads.  Machinery, etc.  A 15" long ship, actually a medium- to large-size large ocean-going fishing trawler, served as a very small ship.  Entire port scene in 4 feet long by 1 foot deep.

One trick about the double sided layout is that if the end of a train extends through the viewblock to the other side during switching, it is out of sight and the space for the end of the train requires no extra space in the visible scene. 

Just my two cents worth.  Or since I am promoting the viewblock down the center idea, maybe I should say my one inch worth.

One other idea for two "towns" on a 2 1/2 by 5 foot layout.  I don't think they can realistically appear as two separate "towns" as such.  However, they could be made to appear as two different OPERATIONAL AREAS.

Imagine there is a mainline railroad running through a town.  It has one or two local industry switching spots and a general setout track.  Perhaps an interchange with a foreign railroad.  Now imagine in that same town there is an industrial district which for some reason is not part of the mainline railroad.  Perhaps it might be an industry that has its own in-plant trackage and switcher.  Perhaps it is an industrial district switched by a belt or switching shortline for reasons of ownership, labor union rules, some kind of bureaucratic regulation. 

Mainline railroad switches its own industrial spurs and leaves cars on a setout track for the "switching line".  Switching line's loco has to come over to the setout track, pick up cars, deliver them to its side of town, switch them and then leave outgoing cars back at the "setout" track.  Appearance of one built-up town, but the operation of two interconnected areas.  Plus the complication of different but related jobs having to be done by different crews/loco.  A hidden or inconspicuous track where the mainline could disappear when it left town would add to the feeling of the scheme.  I don't what kind of setup would be prototypical to your part of the country...

My present layout is a bit larger than yours.... 3 feet wide by 7 feet long, divided visually by an 80-scale-foot-tall tree line two thirds of the way back from the main town scene.  A Santa Fe secondary main has through trains through my town scene, services 5 industries in the town plus a freight station spur and a setout spur for a logging shortline.  The logging shortline runs all of four feet through the woods to a five-foot-long sawmill scene on the side of the layout away from the town.  The logging shortline picks up fuel oil and other supplies from the mainline, and sets out finished lumber.  And the loggin shortline also runs TO town, THRU town via "trackage rights" over the Sante Fe line to a logging reload spur just on the far outskirts of the town scene.  So there is only one actual "town", but an additional main operational area, the sawmill complex which is not exactly a "town", plus one logging spur just beyond the town proper.

I tried to model the town, by the way, with a sense of the things a real town should have--- courthouse, high school, movie theater, filling station, restaurant, post office, bank, church, drugstore, grocery store, furniture store, jewelry store, ice cream parlor, clothing store, barbershop, residential district with 6 homes, etc. besides the railroad and industry related features such as station, peanut butter plant, bulk oil dealer, farm implelement dealer, and a cresote treating/ wood preservation plant with its own 2-foot-guage tramway rail system.  But then I have 1 more foot of width and two more of length than your planned layout...

 

I too, am returning after years, and am building an N scale 2 1/2 X 5 foot layout.  It will be seen all around. I would not try for more than one town or use a divider as suggested.

 mine packs a lot in the space. 3 outside loops with a reversing loop bisecting the center. on one side of it I have a small town, a few spurs for industry.

On the other side of the reversing (divider) track I have a round-table based yard with 2 tracks for steam service, 2 for diesel service, two bay engine repair shop, and two tracks for equip storage, and two empty tracks for reg car storage/RIP. Thats a lot! there will be a coal yard, a lumber yard, industry is grain supply, manufacturing, recycling. downtown business has 4 business buildings, and a few houses

extra houses/"town" are at the 4 corners of the layout.

Good luck!

 

I have a 3X7, and I spaced my two towns far enough apart so that the caboose isn't in one while the loco is in another.  Figure out your desired train length and work from there.  In 2.5x5, you'll pretty much have to put your towns exactly halfway around the run to maximize seperation.  Use of a tunnel on one end may help break up the appearance of a train occupying two towns at once.

GOOD QUESTION. PROBABLY HORSE AND WAGON. BUT THEN AGAIN THE SIOUX WERE STILL CHASING BUFFALO AND OTHER TRIBES AT THAT TIME. MUST HAVE BEEN THE MOUNTAIN MEN. DO YOU THINK?

louie1 wrote:

I am building a small 2-1/2 by 5 foot n-scale layout. How far apart can I place two towns on this board and make it look real? How do you run a train between them and make that look like it should. New at this hobby after 40 years in R/C planes. Why two towns? So I can have more industries to leave cars at and have a varity rather than service just one city. This is a 1050's scene featuring the Great Northern in Minn and N. D.   Thanks.

You might try a lake, mountain range or forest as a divider. I'm also an N scaler and my layout is three and a half feet wide by six and a half feet long, and I have problems with making just one small community look right... 

Tracklayer

It is possible to do two towns, or neighborhoods, in N Scale with the dimensions of 2.5'x5'.

I am adapting an HO layout plan originally published in the December 1996 MRR called "The Chippewa Central, with Sectional Track" => later found in "Basic Model Railroad Track Plans" and "5 Compact Track Plans" to an N Scale traction layout to be called Conemaugh Road & Traction.

There are two depots on the Chippewa Central layout plan. The first depot is elevated in a small town population center, and the second depot is in the lower elevation serving industrial workers at industrial sidings.

With layout resizing from HO Scale to N Scale: The layout is on a 2'x2' section, connected to another 2'x2' section, by a 1'x2' section. The inner corners of each 2'x2' section (6"x6" 45-degree triangle) are also repositioned to smoothly connect each 2'x2' section to the 1'x2' section => This total of one repositioned square foot makes all the difference in going from a higher to a lower elevation with both the track curves and the scenery.

Depot #1 is located in the elevated town in one 2'x2' section, and Depot #2 is actually located on the connecting 1'x2' section and not the other 2'x2' section. So, the industrial section is in a small pocketed-valley on the other 2'x2' section.

What will make this work is the combination of three elements: The elevation difference as subtle scenery view-blocks (note the plural), the use of traction instead of longer trains for the smaller track radius, and these will two depots will either be considered as two neighborhoods or two small towns.

The CR&T will eventually be extended to other industries/neighborhoods and a passenger station interchange with a two-decker Pennsy mainline. Thus, the CR&T will be in a valley with gently rolling hills surrounded by the Pennsy that will touchdown briefly in the valley.

The starting basis of a core trackplan like The Chippewa Central provides options for continuous running, industrial switching, and small town passenger and/or freight depots. The only "shortfall" in this layout starter is no visible staging, but can be remedied in a few years with layout expansion in many possible  ways.

I overlooked mentioning on The Chippewa Central published HO track plan that there are actually three depots with one on each 4'x4' section, and one on the connecting 2'x4' section.

The real point here is the ability to have three depots whether they be freight or passenger in a compact layout.

The cover of the "5 Compact Track Plans" shows an artist's rendering of the valley section with bridges as the built-in view block. I would have missed the multiple-scenic possibilities in such a small space if this diagram had not been on the cover. This layout will have a ton of DPM and/or Cornerstone type of structures that will also add to the view blocking.

In my case, I'll be modeling this as an N Scale interurban traction setting without much concern for street trackage while later modeling more extensive street trackage in the city expansion on layout extensions. Regardless of any later planned layout extension, the first focus when walking into the layout area, the core visual part of the layout will always be The Chippewa Central track plan beginnings.