Clearances, Between Buildings

Not sure on the side clearances for adjacent structures, but modern practice is minimum 14 feet center to center track spacing (3.5" center to center for O-scale).  "Back in the day" when 40 foot boxcars were the norm, the minimum was 13 feet center to center.

If your tracks are strictly straight and parallel, you can get as close as 3 1/4" from center to center, which is 13'.

Set a car on the track and move your loading dock or building with loading doors up to the track. You only need 1/4" or less between the side of the car and the building which is 4'. You can go less than 1/4" if you only want a couple scale feet between the building and the car door.

For a building on straight track and a car width of 10 feet, your building needs to be at least six scale feet from the track centerline to give you a scale foot between the building and the car side. So 1.5" from the track center line to the building would do it. Make sure you post warning signs "No room for man on car" so your switch man isn't on the side ladder when moving the car through.

Having seen buildings with "car doors" instead of a dock makes me wonder how these guys were able to correctly spot a car so that the doors line up.

RATS!  Thanks, guys.  It looks like I am going to have to move a building over on this

foam support base.  I am using these old Austrian made Atlas cars to test with since they are probably 1/43rd vs. 1.48th (larger) and they are not clearing the piping down one of the walls.  And that with 3" center to center with Scaletrak.  The cars clear each other on the parallel track, but not the piping or its little one inch valve house against the building.

I am using these old Austrian made Atlas cars to test with since they are probably 1/43rd vs. 1.48th (larger) and they are not clearing the piping down one of the walls.

Those Atlas cars from the 1970's are 1/48 scale models.  The chosen prototypes were fairly large cars (PRR 40-foot X43 boxcar, the 52-foot mill gon, etc.).

You pretty much have to stand in the middle of the doorway, and spot each car individually. The warehouse in Pomona right across from the Metrolink depot has 11 doors on the side of the building, and each car has to be cut away and spotted individually. The the next day, of course the customer wants spot #11 pulled and replaced with a new car.....so all 11 have to come out and respotted. A true PIA

At that particular warehouse, there is BARELY enough room to ride the side of the car all the way back to the bumper. We usually just walk on the other side til we get all 11 in there, and then start spotting cars 1 at a time.

There is a loading dock at Miller Brewing in Irwindale that is so close you can't fit between the dock and the car. Can't even walk between them. We just walk across the loading dock and shove all the way to the bumper.

So make sure all your signs are properly placed, don't want to get anyone squished

Doug:

I was going to ask you off-list if you had switched that job. I saw them spot the cars at that warehouse late one morning and was amazed.

The "Patch" between the LA River and Alameda had a couple of buildings that had tracks running between them with warning signs. The SP "Rat Hole" also had a couple of them. If I had the room and the time, that would be an area to model.