Reality

[NC&StL]

My "smarty pants" granson just informed me that I need 62 feet or so to equal a mile in HO guage. (Buzz killer).

[MGWSY]

Thats 60.62' for every mile, LOL. So not as much as you thought, LOL As long as you dont plan to run mile long trains you can fudge it here and there.

[NC&StL]

My typo, 60.62. Still a BIG room.

[MGWSY]

LOL thats ok I want to model a 30 mile stretch of line in my area which is only a a little over 1818' of mainline not counting yards and branch line, lol. I just dont see that happening any time soon. Some of it is double track and some single so it will only take 10 cases of flex track. 300' per case, lol.

[NC&StL]

Well, we can (at least) have our dreams. I will try to deal with half of an 11 by 14 room with an L shaped dog bone.

[MGWSY]

I have done a lot of research for my dream layout, now to make it fit in a average size basement,lol. When I buy a home I will def be looking at basement size and what I can fit in it. Or at the rate I am going I might need to build a large building for it. I would guess 120ft x 60ft would do it, LOL. This should give you an idea of what I want in my layout. http://mgwsy.smugmug.com/ModelTrains...e-Layout-Plans

[NC&StL]

I like it Mark - great research, you gotta dream big.

[Beachbum]

Well, you could almost do Westfield to scale. ;-)

[John P]

But think of it this way. Watching a train pass through the territory between yards and stations is actually quite boring. It might take a real train half an hour to get from one town to the next, but would you want to walk around a room very very slowly for that long watching a model crawl along? How many times would you do it without being paid (as the real train crew is)?

We're forced to shorten railroads, but it's actually a benefit. So build the towns and yards and shorten the track in between. That way you keep the interesting parts and cut out the boredom.