Roads on Layouts

[rogerhensley]

The first photo shows both an on-layout street and a off-layout street. The gas station in front is on-layout and the gas dealer bahind and up is an off-layout street on the front of the layout.

The small town is an example of on on-layout street.

 

[mlehman]

BRAKIE

Modelers tend to get sloppy in some scenery areas like roads their road is either doesn't exists, to toy like or not wide enough for two Ford model As to past safely

Yeah, things can be done sloppily, when they could be done better. But model railroading is often the art of working within constraints of space. In fact, before the topic came up I was sizing up a spot for just such an illogical road...but it works for me.

I finished up a structure recently I'll be calling Maguire's (a bar) with a pharmacy next door. Between them, they got what it takes to kill the pain The building has a basement, so I needed a spot where I could bury most of it and leave that corner exposed. The one good spot left in Red Mountain (it's a model of an restaurant that was located there) was on a small rise as the tracks enter town. I needed to cut that away partly to expose the side of the cellar the kit builds.

And it just looked like a road going down to the tracks.

Problem is, there's a stairway just past the tracks, so nowhere for the road to really go. I was thinking all this through in my earlier comment, but now have a good illustration of how a road crossing to nowhere actully can be pretty useful. Sure, you may have to limit camaera angles a little to make it convincing, but if it's faded into the background, it's what's more detailed and foregrounded that the viewer takes in as the scene.

Here's a pic of a road running right into the cliff.

Kind of lame, I'll admit.

But then consider the difference a slight difference in composition makes...

That works for me. Standing there, your eye follows the detail in the foreground (still under construction, so will eventually be even better) and ignores that cliff across the tracks.

Yes, watch the details in order to make it work, but my philosophy is don't get too hung up on everything connecting, either, as this is model railroading and at best a depiction of real life. Do a little thinking about how to design such a crossing and maybe even make a mock-up. Your eye will tell you whether it works at the particular location or not.

[Burlington Northern #24]

Wait, you guys are telling me there's more to a model railroad than track and trains 

joking aside, the SP&S and the Highway parallel to it for most of it's journey between Vancouver and the Gorge, on my future dream layout there'll be a section devoted to this awesome trackage. primarily where the tunnels are. On my modules maybe, dpenends on what I can squeeze into 8 sq. ft.