Im wondering how close I can run straight tubular track to scenery? I looked at NMRA and didn’t see that listed. The specific scenery will be a retaining wall of stone or wood. I think I will be just under 3 1/4 inches from center rail.
Are any of you guys running tight to scenery on straights? And if so how close?
I'm not sure why the published NMRA standards aren't relevant...
NMRA Clearance Standards Link
They're expressed by scale...not track type/brand/etc. IOW, for O scale (1:48), the recommended side clearance is 9 feet. In O scale that's 2.25". Ergo, your 3.25" on straight (tangent) track is good to go. For now...maybe.
HOWEVER, in the hobby world, there's a plethora of 'TEHO' caveats. I mean, YOU will learn from your own experience what works on your layout...and what doesn't. IMHO, of course.
One example. I helped construct an O scale layout that had parallel tracks at different levels with not much generosity on center-to-center track spacing...which was about 6" on the closest two tracks. Those ubiquitous retaining walls were about the only 'scenery' that provided some finesse to the view. A few drooping vines/weeds/bushy thingies here and there on the wall gave an adequate mix of hardscape and softscape textures.
Well, about a year later, the walls/flora along the backside of the track closest to the table edge. were severely...how shall we say?...'weathered'? It seems that this was a popular spot to use the 10-fingered manipulators (a.k.a., hands) to remove and replace locomotives and cars...entire trains!...for maintenance, change-out of guest's equipment, checking rolling characteristics of suspect cars, etc., etc.. And the walls were ravaged by PFS, the Pudgy Finger Syndrome! That is to say, the thicker-fingered operators carved some of their own identity in the walls and foliage in the process of grabbing onto the rail equipment.
Now, I suppose a couple of DiNozzo's would 'train' someone better. You know, go do your 10-fingered heavy lifting on a more remote stretch of track elsewhere on the layout...assuming there is one....convenient...for the purpose.
Lineside telephone poles and foreground quality trees/flora are also vulnerable to this sort of human interaction. We finally clipped all of the carefully placed lineside telephone poles off of the LHS HO layout foreground trackage because of too much interaction with the pudgy finger syndrome. You do what you've got to do to accommodate how it's going to interact with homo sapiens.
And that's what you'll need to consider now...but in all probability make adjustments for later...on your own layout. Regardless of any 'standard'...like the NMRA's recommendation...or anyone else's recommendation.
FWIW, of course.
KD
