Backscene - how big?

[ianp]

I am making a small French narrow gauge layout in HOm scale. It will be a circle of track on a circular piece of plywood 80cm in diameter. I plan to put a back scene across the middle of the baseboard to divide the layout in two: one half will be a completely rural scene; the other will be a village square. My question is this: is there any "golden rule" or rule of thumb that indicates how high the back scene should be, and what shape? My initial idea (which I have tried out with bits of cardboard) is that it should be 30cm high, reducing with a gentle curve to 20 cm at the outer edges. Any thoughts?

[Robin Brasher]

 I think between 23cm and 30cm is ok for H0 gauge.

 

Edited February 18, 2022 by Robin Brasher
Revised figures

[BR60103]

I think it should go up higher than you (or some other interested person) which makes it dependant on the table height, your height, and whether you sit down to operate.

 It should be enough so that you don't see the far side.

[Michael Hodgson]

I have a circular glass-topped low coffee table in which I have often through I might one day build a N gauge or 009 circular line.  It would simply be a single train travelling in one direction all the time, and therefore "operating" would amount to using an on/off switch.  In my case therefore any scenic break would obviously be the full depth below the glass.  In practice I doubt that would be effective because of the angle from which it is viewed.

 

In most other situations, I would use a scenic break to hide a fiddle yard, or to separate two different scenic sections.  The height would be detemined by that objective - enough to hide one part from the other, which would be the same regardless of scale.  That would however vary according to physical charcteristics such as the height of the layout as seen by the viewer, angles and distance from which it is seen, any need for the operator (standing or seated?) to see (and reach) both parts from his position for maintenance as well as for operating.  This is more of any issue if you are shunting, coupling/uncoupling.

 

Assuming your baseboard is the typical three to four feet above the ground, I think your measurements are about right or perhaps slightly on the low side.  If the height is nearer five feet, you might want less, but it will depend on such things as whether, as many exhibiton layouts, you operate from one side and need to see it all, but it is viewed only from the other side.

Edited February 19, 2022 by Michael Hodgson

[GWR57xx]

Your dimensions sound about right to me.

I think having the top as an arc sounds much more attractive and interesting than a simple rectangle.

Unless you intend to have two operators, one each side, from a practical point of view you will need to be able to see both sides at times, so it doesn’t want to be too tall so as to make that difficult.

I can’t recall where or when I saw it but I’ve seen a smallish circular layout where the whole baseboard was able to rotate (slowly!), so from a standing viewpoint the viewer eventually saw all 360 degrees of the layout. As with any scenic break there needs to be a suspension of disbelief on the viewer’s part so the edge of the backscene became “invisible”.

Sounds like an interesting project. 

[john new]

if you have access to the back editions of Railway Modeller a good explanation is on  p 108 R Mod May 1957.  In essence the narrower the baseboard the higher the backscene needs to be (There is a high low angle diagram to help show why). As others have said practical issues arise though, not least is it a static layout to be front/central well operated, i.e. your viewpoint is what matters, or a potentially exhibitable/rear operated layout where what matters is the public facing side -v- your ability to operate with it in place?

[ianp]

Thanks for these opinions. I intend to place the baseboard on a lazy susan bearing so that I can manually move the layout round in a circle.  I think that hoping to obscure every possible view of the rear half of the layout, when viewed from the front, will be impossible and would look very ugly too. So yes, plenty of disbelief will have to be suspended.

[ERIC ALLTORQUE]

3 minutes ago, ianp said:

 I intend to place the baseboard on a lazy susan

Good man,that should get her to sharpen her ideas up and do some graft.......i know a few Susans but could not afford the plasters if i told them they were lazy.

[ianp]

4 hours ago, john new said:

if you have access to the back editions of Railway Modeller a good explanation is on  p 108 R Mod May 1957.  In essence the narrower the baseboard the higher the backscene needs to be (There is a high low angle diagram to help show why). As others have said practical issues arise though, not least is it a static layout to be front/central well operated, i.e. your viewpoint is what matters, or a potentially exhibitable/rear operated layout where what matters is the public facing side -v- your ability to operate with it in place?

 

Would you be kind enough to scan that page and email it to me? If you can, many thanks.

[john new]

1 hour ago, ianp said:

 

Would you be kind enough to scan that page and email it to me? If you can, many thanks.

 

PM sent. I believe that is OK within copyright rules for personal use, but it isn't for onward copying/public posting.

[ianp]

Thank you very much.

[Pacific231G]

On 18/02/2022 at 14:31, ianp said:

I am making a small French narrow gauge layout in HOm scale. It will be a circle of track on a circular piece of plywood 80cm in diameter. I plan to put a back scene across the middle of the baseboard to divide the layout in two: one half will be a completely rural scene; the other will be a village square. My question is this: is there any "golden rule" or rule of thumb that indicates how high the back scene should be, and what shape? My initial idea (which I have tried out with bits of cardboard) is that it should be 30cm high, reducing with a gentle curve to 20 cm at the outer edges. Any thoughts?

Hi Ian

That sounds good. There are no rules so if it looks right to you then it is right.

Though it has only one scene, you may find this of some use.

https://trains.lrpresse.com/A-19297-train-in-box-voie-etroite-sans-materiel-roulant.aspx

They have of course used H0e, which in France is the appropriate gauge for one obscure 11.5 km long 750mm gauge railway in the Landes, rather than the metre gauge used by about 20 000kms of other local railways.

H0e is often used to represent 600mm gauge railways but they amounted to a grand total of 400kms and certainly didn't have Billard CFD autorails. 

 

I'm glad you're sticking to H0m and do look forward to seeing the finished results

 

Edited February 19, 2022 by Pacific231G