Go Big or Go Somewhere Else. Or, "How to make it fit?"

It's been a few weeks since I posted. We are now in the new house and I am about ready to start construction.

I have come to the realization that everything in Cleveland is BIG and would still be BIG if scaled to HO. CUT is almost 27' long in HO scale as I have illustrated in a previous post. The NKP Broadway Av Freight House was about 650' long in real life, or about 7 1/2' long in HO scale.

Everything will have to be downsized. Model railroaders struggle with that reality constantly, and it is nothing new. The key is how to downsize something and still make it look good.

Here is a photo of downtown Cleveland taken facing NE. When you look at the photo, you can really visualize how you could construct benchwork out of this scene. The Cuyahoga River would be aisleways between blobs or peninsulas. Unmodeled area would be backdrop against a wall and/or access room behind peninsulas.

I've really been trying to figure out how to make CUT fit in my basement.

Jason Cook started a thread on this very same topic over at the Yahoo Groups Proto-Layouts group and I have chimed in on the thread with my case.

Cheers