another question, layout, a town

Marine, A couple of opening comments.  There are so many ways to do this.  There are some good videos by Rich Batista and several others on the forum. You might be better served by posting this in the Scenery forum.

For me - I had a general idea where I wanted my city and town.  I knew the size of my buildings and the space I had available.  You need roads, sidewalks, lighting, and building locations.  I began with the roads and used 1/8" Masonite.  I cut to fit, sprayed with flat black paint, pinstriped in road lines and crosswalks and stop areas then placed on the location.  The next step was to use !/4" Masonite to place my buildings on and use for my sidewalks.  The 1/8" difference in height allowed a visual distinction between the foundation/sidewalk and the road.  I spray painted with flat sandstone paint and then etched in 2 rows along the road edge of 1 1/2" squares representing sidewalks. I placed those in place.  I took the buildings and located them on the foundation and adjusted spacing.  I removed the buildings and added street lights and other permanent details like trees/shrubbery.  Finally you can place your buildings. 

Now this is a very small nutshell of information.  I am not even close to being finished with my city/towns but I keep plugging away at it...

It all starts with a plan, and a good one. There are many options out there now in O-Gauge for different style buildings that come in all sizes. Obtain the exact size you want to fill and then look for structures of the shape and size to fill it. Sidewalks and roads have been covered nicely in this Forum, so do a search and you will find the information you need.

The photo below shows a big undertaking and it all started with a plan right down to the placement of each of the 160 structures it contains.

Hi MARINE,

  As other have said plan and re plan.  Try it for a few days if you like the look then leave it there.  I say this because of all the wiring that is needed to do after you have buildings, sidewalks, lamp post roadways all in place.  The wiring is the hardest part in setting up your town.  Here are some pics of my little town...

I have had the pleasure of seeing this mega burb...  You could spend an entire day checking out the details of its assorted different venues.  The planning and effort must have been substantial..   Wonderful job Brian.....

add this to the mix

how wide streets 2 lane only with parallel parking (my wife said southern women DON'T parallel park)

then add in 6' sidewalks to scale, but how wide the actual street??? from gutter line to gutter line

regards

Pelago,

I find out that built a town is not easy as it looks.

The total width I defined using the widest truck or bus multiplying it times 4.

Side walks width are 1.5 inch or 2.00 inch in case you will add trees and parking meters.

my 0.02 

Andre.

Pelago,

You asked an interesting question I would recommend a few paths you can take.

1 is to go to the local library or book store and look in the travel section at books that show photos of various towns.

2 is to go to the web site //public.fotki.com/bmrailways/westport-model-works/

They come over to see my trolley layout and did a nice job of photographing some of the layout which reflects all of the elements of a town.

3 is the rule I go by.  All towns are segmented into areas such as Industrial, commercial, residential, and municipal. Where you will have rail tracks is where you should place factories, warehouses ,etc.  In the 'downtown area ' is where taller and older buildings would be placed. Towards the outskirts is where you will find the smaller tax payer stores (generally story on the first floor and residential above.

Les Lewis 

You might get some ideas by studying pictures and layouts here and throughout the forum, and for "how to" construction ideas on how to make sidewalks and all you can look in Streets for O-Gauge Model Railroading.  If you don't want to buy it on Amazon you can download a free copy from my website.  Chapter 7 covers making realistic looking downtowns, and building streets, sidewalks, curb's gutters, etc. and making them look good and even, etc.  It has tables of spacings and pictures of how to compress and such.  The book is specifically about building streets, roads, sidewalks with EZ-Street/Superstreets built in, but the techniques were used before that with fiberboard of 3/16 basswood (my recommendation, but expensive) for the roads, streets, curbs, gutters, sidewalks, etc.,  instead.  

The key ingredient, though, is planning.  I suggest getting a few sheest of paper and pencil and sketching out the profile and a map of the downtown you want to build.  Sidewalks are easy (3/16 or 4 mm panel, basswood, etc., filled and painted and scribbed with lines does it nicely) but you have to allow for the spacing: street at the lowest level, then a sidewalk a scale 9 - 10 inches above that, with enough of a lip for building edges to rest on that, and arrangements for support for them so they are level, etc.  Alot to think through and remember.  So planning is essential. 

It's a display like everything else on the layout. I have several of the MTH operating items that I had to set them up on a table to see how they looked & how I could get access to them. The first picture was laying them out on another table.

i like what you have done,  this small effort on my part is my old layout, trying to reproduce this but on larger scale

I have found that modeling in O is very difficult as one wants to be almost proto as possible but space to work with makes one fudge a lot. It doesn't help when one can't find accessories the right scale and or the room for a complete scene. Big trains and little cars or undersized buildings. Many buildings seem just too small for what they are representing especially as we get to the more to date ones. Highways and just 2 lane roads do take a lot of space especially when considering sidewalks or road shoulders. I am trying to design roads that run the edge of the layout where one examples 1/2 the road lengthwise.and sets the buildings and rails near the walls and in places hope enough space to add a little veg. between the rails adn wall giving some depth. It's not like b4 with HO and room enough to do what one wants to do unless one owns a warehouse for a home. I keep looking on forum at all the post for ideas on space and the management of it. I thank all of you who post layouts and subjects as I can borrow some ideas.