Width of two lane road in ho

[Anonymous]

Hello everyone i dont have a scale ruler yet it is on my list, does anyone know what the width of a two lane road would be in ho scale in inches? Thank You in advance.

[simon1966]

Below is snipped from the following web site

http://www.ndrr.com/rmr_faq/Scenery/Roads.htm


Modern city freeways have 12' lanes, with 10' auxiliary lanes on each side to let traffic get past any obstructions (accidents, spilled loads, railfans gawking at railroad yard overpasses, what have you). The earliest national highways (the first pieces of Route 66, for example) were built to 10' lane widths, which quickly changed to standard 11' lanes.
I don't have exact data handy, but in the late 40's you'd probably be looking at 11.5' or 12.0' lanes if you wanted to be to scale; though using a narrower width than that can give your roads a "longer" feel and help compress the scenery.

In he 40s, country lanes would be narrow (8 feet or so) with a city street about 12 foot wide. 10 and 12 foot lanes were common then. Here are actual inches for HO width.

8' = 1 1/8
10' = 1 3/8
12' = 1 5/8
15' = 2 1/16
20' = 2 3/4
25' = 3 7/16

[CrossTrack Trains]

20 feet would = 2 3/4"

[Anonymous]

Thank You Simon1966 Very helpful.

[CrossTrack Trains]

To Calculate or Convert feet to HO inches,
Take the number of real-life feet multiply by 12, take that total and the divide by 87
Example: 20'-0" x 12 = 240"
240" / 87= 2.76 INCHES

[tatans]

Isn't a road (road allowance) 66 feet? so 33 feet each side if center line, now the exact width of the pavement(gravel) wiill vary.

[Tracklayer]

QUOTE: Originally posted by bruce stephens

Hello everyone i dont have a scale ruler yet it is on my list, does anyone know what the width of a two lane road would be in ho scale in inches? Thank You in advance.

I did a two lane HO county road for a friend of mine a while back and made it two inches wide. It worked out real well, and he was well pleased with it.

Tracklayer

[edkowal]

Things can also be different than what you expect. For instance, in older towns and cities, the main streets in the town may be a lot wider than you'd expect from the above discussion. They can be sixty, eighty feet wide, or wider from curb to curb. This is because when the downtown was built, automobiles were not the primary means of transportation. Horse-drawn wagons and buggies were. Streets were wider because the horses, with attached buggies were tied to hitching posts, so they tended to project out into the street, rather than be "parked" parallel to the walks, as you see more often now. Also, in order to make a U-turn, you had to leave sufficient room to turn around while going forward: horses in a hitch don't really reverse very well.

I was really surprised when I saw photos of some of the towns and citites in Maine, until I began to realize this. Those streets were a lot wider than I would have expected.

For examples of this phenomenon, go to the Maine Memory Network site, and search for images with MMN numbers 5276, 5272, and 12182. These show the width of some streets in the cities of Portland, and Brunswick , Maine. When the thumbnails pop up, click on the "info" button. Then, when the page refreshes, click on the "full page" button to get a large image to study. The Maine Memory Network is at: http://www.mainememory.net/home.shtml

-Ed

[loathar]

The two lane country road in front of my house is 24' wide.(2 12' lanes) I just measured it the other day. That works out to 3.3" in HO. This looked WAY too wide on a scene I was doing so I cut it back to 2.25". That turned out pretty good.(remember, I'm talking country road) The stripes are 6" wide which works out to .068" which is a bit over 1\16"
You got to fudge these things sometimes to make them look right.
Hope this helps.

[Anonymous]

Thanks everyone for your responses very helpfull i'll start mapping out my roads. Again thanks.

[DSchmitt]

QUOTE: Originally posted by edkowal

Things can also be different than what you expect. For instance, in older towns and cities, the main streets in the town may be a lot wider than you'd expect from the above discussion. They can be sixty, eighty feet wide, or wider from curb to curb. This is because when the downtown was built, automobiles were not the primary means of transportation. Horse-drawn wagons and buggies were. Streets were wider because the horses, with attached buggies were tied to hitching posts, so they tended to project out into the street, rather than be "parked" parallel to the walks, as you see more often now. Also, in order to make a U-turn, you had to leave sufficient room to turn around while going forward: horses in a hitch don't really reverse very well.

I was really surprised when I saw photos of some of the towns and citites in Maine, until I began to realize this. Those streets were a lot wider than I would have expected.

For examples of this phenomenon, go to the Maine Memory Network site, and search for images with MMN numbers 5276, 5272, and 12182. These show the width of some streets in the cities of Portland, and Brunswick , Maine. When the thumbnails pop up, click on the "info" button. Then, when the page refreshes, click on the "full page" button to get a large image to study. The Maine Memory Network is at: http://www.mainememory.net/home.shtml

-Ed

I read on a wed site about Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps that 80 foot minimim width right of way was common so that horse drawn fire aparatus could make a U turn.

[GAPPLEG]

If your interested, [?] Check out Mini Highways, listed in Walthers, I find it in all the LHS
around here, saves a lot of trouble for stock highways/roads. i used it on my layout, check out pictures on my website.

[Anonymous]

Now to me, those mini highways look awfully wide. I'm sure they're scale and I'm sure if I was floating 100' in the air looking down at the real world, they'd look that wide too. I think it's a case where compression is the best bet and sub-scale roads actually end up looking more "right"

[GAPPLEG]

I understand your point, but they are just wide enough for two vehicles to fit side by side(going opposite directions) They aren't really as wide as they look, I do add shoulders with fine gray sand also.

[Anonymous]

Great looking layout Gappleg i like the roads may have to look into it. Thanks.

[TBat55]

A little wider than the center-to-center distance for double tracks (whatever you're using for that). For 2-1/4" C-C about 2-1/2" looks right in comparison at grade crossings. Add shoulder, drainage ditches, guardrails, etc