Scenery Scale?

[Anonymous]

I want to model the Alaskan railroad and the Grand Canyon Railroad in HO scale. In the layouts I want to depict Mt. McKinley and of course the Grand Canyon. I have the method and techniques I will use to model these great wonders but I do not know how large to build the actual mountain or canyon without overwhelming my layout. Any suggestions? Perhaps someone knows a formula for figuring scale? Any help will help!

[SPFan]

HO is 1/87 scale so if you assume the Grand Canyon is 1 mile deep it would work out to over 60 feet in HO. Modeling real life generally requires compressing it. You could consider modeling the canyon to the floor and painting the floor in perspective to look like its much deeper.

Pete