# HO Scenery Size?



## netgeist (Mar 3, 2015)

I am a new hobbyist starting to plan out my scenery. Though I'm sure there are no hard and fast rules, is there a rough idea of how big my scenery pieces should be? Obviously store-bought HO items like trees will be to scale. But what about scratch-made mountains or hills? I don't want them to look out of proportion.

Thanks in advance for your input. I bought a book about making scenery but size wasn't addressed. So pointing me in the right direction would be great. 

- Netgeist


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## dasB&M2-6-0 (Dec 13, 2014)

HO scale is 1:87 -- 1 inch of scale size equals 87 inches (7'3") of prototype size....
So, for example.....if you wanted a 14' tree on your HO layout....you'd use something just under 2" in height...Good luck!

May your freight ALWAYS roll smoothly...and ON TIME!!


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## MtRR75 (Nov 27, 2013)

Mountains and hills come in all sizes, so you can't really go wrong. But one way to keep them in perspective is to compare your features to scale model people. If you don't have any scale figures yet, you can cut some short pieces of wood to use as stand-ins for figures.

in HO scale, a 3/4" figure would be about 5' 5" tall and a 13/16" figure would be about 5' 11" tall.


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## DonR (Oct 18, 2012)

Netgeist

Do yourself a favor. Find an HO scale 'ruler' at a hobby shop or craft store.

Then you can take the actual real life measurements in feet and
inches of whatever; buildings,
trees, or even vehicles, and using your 'ruler' mark it out in HO feet and inches.

It makes scratch building your own structures so much easier.

Don


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## Chet (Aug 15, 2014)

I would say anything that looks good you you. Instead of building big mountains on my layout, I worked the hardshell scenery into a mountain backdrop. Many many moons ago I started using Walthers Instant Horizon backdrops and after a long time of sitting almost dormant, I completed all of my back drops with them. They are made to be joined together and you can have different types of scenery from mountains to desert to plains. In the first picture instead of build huge mountains, I brought the hardshell to the backdrop and tried to work them together into a scene. 










In the second picture again using the backdrop, raised the hardshell to the backdrop and tried to work the two together into a scene. By doing this you can give the impression of a mountainous area without taking up a lot of precious real estate on your layout. 










When it comes to trees, I do make my own out of sagebrush. Most model railroad trees are smaller trees, maybe 20 to 30 scale feet tall. Mature trees can grow to 60 or more feet tall and I guess I may have gone a bit overboard on them, but this is close to what I see in real life. 



















Just look at the world around you or look at photos of the area you are interested in modeling and I'm sure you'll come up with some ideas.


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## CTValleyRR (Jul 26, 2014)

I think you're proceeding from the false assumption that Mother Nature comes in fixed sizes. Man made items -- people and structures do, but at least initially, you'll be buying those off the shelf.

As you work, simply keep relative proportion in mind. 1:87.1 is HO scale. Your relative fidelity to the prototype will also matter. While you can build a tunnel through a 6" high mountain (55-ish scale feet high), no real railroad would contemplate that. They'd male a cutting through it. Still, if your mountain face above your tunnel appears to dominate your train, then you will have achieved the proper appearance, if not the realism. 

Similarly, the 90 foot oak in my back yard would scale out to a foot high in HO, but a 7-8 inch hhigh tree on my layout has the same towering appearance. The 3' high sapling is represented by a small clump of foliage material. 

Don't get hung up on exact scale. Rather, work on getting it to look right. This will take some experimenting on your part, and probably some do-overs as well. Your eye and brain are easily fooled. If you have a two story house (about 6" high) surrounded by shorter trees, the viewer perceives young saplings not grown to full height. If those same trees are taller than the house, the effect is full grown trees, whether they are the proper scale height or not.

Scenery is the artistic part of model railroading, and exact scale sizing isn't nearly as important as making things look right.


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## netgeist (Mar 3, 2015)

Definately not assuming nature is fixed but I want a sense of accurate scale. I don't want to build a mountain that's only six inches tall!

So basically, I convert something in real life feet into inches and multiply it by .011 to get a sense of scale. That helps. 

Also, thanks for the suggestions and photos...they really help!


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## CTValleyRR (Jul 26, 2014)

Our postings crossed, but reading mine should help with your dilemma. Don't get to hung up on trying to scale nature exactly. Focus on relativity and proportion.

Scenery is an art, not a science.


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## netgeist (Mar 3, 2015)

Wow, Chet...nice work!


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