Scale mileage of your layout?

Don’t have a permanent layout anymore but my main Christmas layout this year has 4 O gauge and 2 Standard gauge lines. The longest O line is 1.37 scale miles and the other O lines are about half that. I didnt check the standard lines.  

It took one of my Arttista figures about 45 minutes to walk it.

Interesting question.

I have 2.64 scale miles of mainline track (291 feet) and .64 scale miles of Superstreets (71 feet) which will grow to 2.72 scale miles(191 feet) when I complete my country road later this summer. 

My old layout waS 2.3 SCALE MILES ONE LAP AROUND ..My new one is not anwhere near that as I dont have the room any more now that I live in FL.

Before thanksgiving.... Double track main line oval was .9 scale miles on the outer track. Now with the filling in of the center of oval and changing to twisted and folded dog bone pattern one time around is 2.9 scale miles. This is an island layout.

clem 

I've done it for our modular layout.

Outer Loop: just over a half scale mile.

Inner Loop: just under a half scale mile. 

Peter

That looks like a pretty darned nice modular layout. 

.43 miles on the loop.  

Is there any way to check the length other then by using a tape measure or ruler?  I thought of using a string then laying it out & measuring it.

About a quarter mile on a loop.  My "grand tour" from mine branchline through both loops to inside return loop is about 4/5 of a scale mile.  Not counting sidings and spurs.

Puny, but its fun.

A string is not good since it will stretch if you pull it tight.  A tape measure for straight track and a piece of flexible stranded electrical wire for curves is a good method.

...which brings up an interesting question!

I was thinking about "scale" last week. We discussed it at our club.  I'm not sure it all makes sense, here's why:

The outer loop on our club layout is almost exactly 1 scale mile, which equals 110' (5280' / 48 = 110').

So, if I were to put an MTH engine on our outer loop and set the speed at 5 smph, then the engine should circle our loop 12 times in an hour.  (60 minutes / 5 smph = 12 minutes per trip around the loop).

Although we haven't tried it yet, it sure seems like the engine would take a lot less than 12 minutes to complete a loop!  Further experimentation is needed, but...

Picture a length of track 220' long, on a gym floor.  Start an engine at the beginning at 2 smph. (basically crawling, but moving) It seems to me that it will take a lot less than an hour to cover the 220' of track.

What am I missing? 

Ed

ps, my longest loop on my 12' x 12' layout is about just over a half mile.

ps. Putnam Division, do you have a link to your modular group website, or more pictures?  Very interested and currently working on a smaller version (to start)

Ed

We're getting close to having a website.

If you go to my You tube channel, rutlandmilk.......there will be some videos.

Peter

If you have DCS and a PS2 locomotive you can check the length with your locomotive.  

 If you scale down one mile, you should scale back each second the same ratio as the mile.   1:1/4 mile and 1:1/4 second.  So each second is scaled to .25 of a second.  The issue is time really doesn't scale.

.40 miles on the loop

Jdevleerjr,

I don't think that's right.  If car goes 10 mph, and you slow it down to 10 yards per hour, it will go 10 yards in one hour.  Length is scaled down, and speed is scaled down proportionately, so it still takes an hour.

Seems to me that 1 scale mile per hour means that a train will go 1 scale mile (110') in one hour.

If something goes 12 ploggles (distance) per gloppy (time), then if you make a ploggle 1/10 as big, it should go 1/10 the distance per gloppy.

...I think...

Ed

Ed, I just ran my Houstonic with a short freight, at a crawl, on the upper outer loop. It is approximately 100 feet of track. It took sixteen minutes. How does that compute?

Ed, If your train does not take 12 minutes to complete a scale mile going 5scale MPH then either your length measurement is wrong or your speed measurement is wrong.

The way you find out how fast a train is going, is by timing a train over a know distance and then doing the math to calculate the speed.  

Don,

  Your train was moving at 3.37 scale MPH

I have .6 Scale miles of track on the main.

This will expand to 1.745 with the new around the walls layout.

I think that is all the justification needed for going to an around the walls layout.

0.8 miles one way on my point-to-point, or 1.6 miles round trip.

Bruce

Our outer loop was 0.75, inner slightly less and the upper about 0.6miles taken with a PS2 locomotive.

The layout was a "L" 24'x16'.

Hmmm.  Let's see.  I got a 4x10 in the garage.  An O-42 loop and an O-31 loop.  Fortunately, thanks to my imagination, my mileage is infinite depending on how many times I go 'round each loop.

BTW, do you refer only to mainline footage or are yards and sidings included?

Pete

Size of layout: 37' x 20'

Outside loop 1.1 scale miles O-72 curves

Inside loop 1.1 scale miles  O- 63 curves

All track is Atlas "O"

I didn't measure my sidings or 6 track yard........................rogerw.

Using several different MTH engines equipped with DCS, I started my mileage check, using the DOD button of the soft keys, at the very lowest section of my layout, the branch line.  I ran the engine up one level to the main level, then up to the third level and finally all the way to the top where there is just a reversing loop.  I continued to run the engine, all the way back down to that branch line and then took a final reading.  It was 3.74 miles for the complete trip.  Checking with another engine, I got the exact same reading.

However, I have to say I was disappointed.  I thought for sure that my total track was some 5 scale miles, which would have meant a 10 mile round trip.  Pretty small, when you stop to consider that you're trying to replicate a railroad, literally 100's of miles long!  Oh well; time to get to the "need a larger basement" argument, again.

Paul Fischer