N scale question

Only if one models in the 1:160 N scale and not British (or Japanese or ...) N scale. :-)

Perhaps rather than reproducing the entire railway (BR?) to scale you might think in terms of train length scenes:

- Station scene.

- Suburbs scene.

- Industrial area.

- open country scene.

- bridge and surrounds.

- etc. Breaks between scenes can be as minimal as a group of large trees, an overbridge or a factory or two in front of the tracks. A layout broken up in such a way will seem longer than a straight flat

Scenes on model layouts generally are foreshortened, usually to suit one's longest train, whereas for example a prototype station platform might be long enough for two maximum length trains.

Regards, Greg.P.

You do 'selective' compression. Most *prototype* railroads include miles and miles and miles of track going through miles and miles and miles of undeveloped (eg no buildings, etc.) land. On a model railroad, you replace these streches with a 'scenery break' of some sort, such as a clump of trees or a *short* tunnel (that is representing the ends of two distant tunnels maybe). And there are other tricks, including games with double-sided 'backdrops' and over and under tricks with multiple-levels. And tricks with staging yards (behind or under the main layout).

You think N scale is bad? How about all those poor H0, 0, S or other larger gauges layout owners trying to deal with "scale distances". It is all up to the layout builder's imagination.

Peteski

It's up to you, entirely. It's _your_ layout, after all.

I recommend John Armstrong's Trackplanning for Realistic Operation, and his Creative Layout Design, both publ. by Kalmbach Publishing. They will answer this question, and a whole host of others you haven't even stumbled across yet. And very good writing, too. :-)