Hwy width

[willy1]

I want to run a highway along my backdrop. It wii be 12 ft long with a couple of exits.
How wide should I make it? My layout is 1940's to 1960's

[Jim Banner]

Highways are one item on a model railroad that are rarely built to scale.  They are almost always compressed.  This would be particularly true along a backdrop.

Consider a two lane paved highway with no shoulders but with ditches.  In real life, the pavement is about 36' wide and the total road allowance (from fence to fence) is 99'.  In  H0 scale that would be a 5" wide road in the middle of a 13-1/2" road allowance.  Not many of us can spare a strip over a foot side for a road.  So we compress it.  We might compress the pavement to 3" and the allowance to 5."  And because we think of roads being long and narrow, it still looks like a road.  In fact, it probably looks more like a road than a true to scale one would.

It is probably as well that you are not modelling the present.  A four lane divided highway is around 155' wide (including the median) and the road allowance for it is about 300' wide.  In true H0 scale, that would be about 20-1/2" of road sitting in the middle of a 41-1/2" road allowance.  Assuming your layout is 4' wide along this 12' section, that would leave 6-1/2" for your tracks and everything else!

Bottom line, consider leaving a 4" strip just in front of your backdrop for your highway.  Make the pavement 3" wide and run it right to the backdrop.  Model the ditch on the view side of the highway 1" wide and paint the other ditch on the backdrop.  Some grass along the edges of the pavement, some cars on the pavement, and some trees and bushes along the edge of the road allowance will help soften the transition from modelled world to painted world.  Oh, and remember this discussion next time some rivet counter starts telling you about his layout where "everything is exactly to scale."  Just look at his roads and smile indulgently.

Jim

[pdlethbridge]

1 lane each way with concrete, no shoulder to speak of, and lots of bill boards and signs.

[trainmaster971]

A typical two lane road is 24 feet wide with 4 feet on each side for a shoulder.  If you have a ditch it is usually about 2 feet deep and about 6 feet from the edge of the shoulder.  A typical right of way for the roadway is sixty feet.  I design sub-divisions and county roads and these are typical dimensions used throughout all states.

[lmackattack]

I think you have your answers but If I can add that trucks of the era you want were about 8' wide (not including mirrors and drove down 10' wide lanes. it made for tight passing at night on a 2 lane, not uncommon to clip mirrors back then. so an easy way to tell would be take some scale trucks put them close side by side and there you go.... Some of the bridges in MO on the old Rt 66 (when first built)were single lane and you had to take turnes... Whats more odd is that in some parts of 66 they just paved a single lane to get the road open on time !!!!

so regardless how wide you go its been done

[Jim Banner]

trainmaster971,
That is really quite interesting.  The roads I measured were up here in Canada.  Is it possible that our wider, shallower ditches are for snow control?  I wondered at the 99 feet, even thinking that maybe one of the farmers had moved his fence to make a bit bigger field.  But a local surveyor explained that these road allowances are 1-1/2 chains or 6 poles wide.  (That would make our local poles 16-1/2 feet, or 6-1/2 feet taller than a 10 foot pole.)  Seems these odd measures are part of our heritage and live on in spite of metrification. 
_{(I see metrification chokes up the spell checker about as much as it chokes up the rest of us!)}

Jim   

[Atlantic Central]

Jim,

I too was amazed at your answer. Here in the Mid Atlantic US, average two lane public right of ways are 40'. That is the width of the property owned by the state or county. Some are 60'.

The paved portions of the roads are typically two, 14' lanes or 28' with 6' shoulders if things allow.

The state road in front of my home has curbs, no shoulder whatsoever and the distance from curb to curb is less than 30'.

Even US Interstate Highways typically only have lanes 16' wide, and that is the newest standard. Many highways of all sizes and discriptions all over the US have only 12' or 14' wide travel lanes, as do most city streets and rural secondary roads.

After all, most cars are only 6' wide and trucks are limited to 8'6".

Sheldon

[Jim Banner]

I thought a Google photo might help.  The ruler line across the 4 lane divided highway is 297' long and runs from one edge to the other edge of the road allowance.  Each 2 lane section is about 35' wide with gravel beyond that.  About 25 or 26 feet of that is driving lanes, then there is paved a shoulder on the right hand side (in the direction of travel) that is about 10' wide..  One section was originally a two lane highway with 2 lanes totaling about 25 feet plus paved runoffs each side, each about 5' wide.  (same old pavement, just new lines on that section.)

The road crossing the highway at an angle is a gravel road.  Without making measurements on the ground, it is hard to say exactly how wide the flat area in the middle is.  But wide enough for two semis to easily pass.  Edge to edge the road allowance for this minor road is 99'.

The photo is looking straight down.  The roads crossing at an angle make it look like an oblique view but it is not.



I remember driving through a couple of the New England states a few years ago.  At first, I kept watching for the highway until I finally was able to convince myself that I was on it.  To me it seemed more like a country lane.  Very pleasant driving, but not very fast.  The other thing I remember is seeing signs saying "Town of XYZ" followed some miles later by another sign says "Leaving Town of XYZ" and I had not seen a single building in between.  Not like Saskatchewan which is so bare and flat in places that you can sit on your front porch and watch you dog run away for three days.  Not too many years ago, when every town had its own grain elevators, you could spot all the surrounding towns from ten to twenty miles away.

Maybe we have wide roads up here just because we can.  I seem to remember that we can fit 14 or 15 states into Saskatchewan and still have room left over.  But I think something to do with snow control is probably closer to the truth. 

Jim

[pdlethbridge]

In August of 1958, our family drove to Florida. 90 % of the ride was on route 1, a 2 lane, no shoulder road. there were very few places that would be considered 4 lane highway, and they only lasted a few miles in and out of Washington, DC and New York City. Route 1 would have been considered the NS equal to the EW route 66. Most of the speed limits were in the 40 to 50 MPH range and that, at the time, was the recommended route to take courtesy of the AAA. As a family of 4, it took us 4 days to get to Miami, and 3 days to get back.
Highways in the 40's and 50's were a new thing because it was only when Eisenhower signed the highway bill that the highways improved. Even though the bill had been signed, it would take years for the improvements to be seen.
Google Route 66 for info and photos.

[Atlantic Central]

Jim,

I for one did not doubt that you where correct for your area, but having traveled the east coast of the US quite extensively and and a good portion of the US east of the Mississippi moderately well, I can tell you without doubt that what you have is far from what is typical down here in the lower 48.

I'm sure it has a lot to do with snow. I have been to places in up state NY, PA and other states in New England where rural highways are similar to what you discribed. But elsewhere in the eastern US, land is expensive, people live in close proximity to each other, things are "crowded" in many places.

Old buildings, valuable private property, natural barriers like rivers and bays, make using land in that way totally impossible.

Many, many roads, even busy highways have little or no shoulder. Or for example, here, divided boulevards like you pictured, have 6' shoulders on the outside but only about 2' of pavement to the inside of the lanes along the median which is only 20'-30' or less, making the whole 4 lane highway only 90' wide - 1/3 of your example.

Snow? What is that? We don't get enough here in the Chesapeake Bay region to even worry about it. We usually only have three or four light snowfalls per winter, seldom more than 3-6" each. When we do get more than that life stops for a day or two.

Take care,

Sheldon

[pdlethbridge]

to all, just a reminder that the original poster is modeling between the 40's and 60's.

[Atlantic Central]

And the standards I discribed have been typical in this region (the Mid Atlantic) since I was a child in the 60's. And from the photos I have seen, while all the big highways are newer than that, city and rural secondary roads here have not changed much since the 50's, there are just more of them.

About 28' wide asphalt with some lines down the middle, still have thousands of miles like that around here, about 4" wide for two lanes in HO scale. Or, for an early limited access highway, two such 28' roads with about a 30' median and exit ramps can be pretty sharp with not much "merge" space. I clearly remember the original parts of the Baltimore Beltway (built in the late 50's) being that way. That would still only take about 12" width - just like my 90' example in use today.


Sheldon

[ebtnut]

Getting back to the '40's-50's era, most highway driving lanes were about 10 feet wide.  There was usually a shoulder about 5 feet wide.  As traffic got heavier and faster the lane standard got wider, first to 11 feet, then 12 feet wide, which is about standard for a major highway today.  Back in the olden days, if there were any type of guard for a steep downslope off the roadway, it was usually a set of wooden posts about 8" in diameter with 2 or 3 steel cables strung between them.  The tops of the posts were usually cut at an angle so that rain and snow would tend to run off.  I also remember a lot of highways in the mid-Atlantic that were 3 lanes wide.  The middle lane was a joint passing lane, that many folks termed the "suicide lane".  The little country lanes might only be 10 or 12 feet wide total.  When cars had to pass, one or both had to move partly onto the shoulder to get around.  In tight spots, someone might have to back up.

[Jim Banner]

This has been an interesting thread in terms of the differences in time and place.  Checking around Portland Oregon shows a wide range of roads, right up to Highway 5 to Seattle - 6 lanes divided on a 300 foot right of way.  I don't know if willy1 is modelling his home state but if he is, the narrow, twisty 2 lane Pacific Highway is probably an artifact from the 50's.  The size is quite reasonable, 24 feet of pavement on  a 44 foot right of way.  In H0 "background scale" of 1/8" = 1 foot, that would be 3" of pavement on a 5-1/2" right of way, or if only one ditch is modelled, then a 4-1/4 or even 4" right of way.

Harking back to my original comments, modelling highway 5 would require about 3-1/2 feet of table width.

Jim

p.s. to Sheldon - I never thought you doubted me.  The photo was more by way of showing one way of coming up with answers for a particular area in modern times.  Ya gotta luv Google Earth!!

[jward]

actual width of right of way varies in places such as pennsylvania where major roads, even the 2 lanes, often have extensive earthwork. especially in the past 20 years or so, highway engineers like to cut back hillsides to the angle of repose (about 30-35 degrees) to minimize the risk of slides and falling rocks. doing this often requires at least 100' or more on the side of the roadway. the same is also true for fills and embankments, although many of those are much older than the cutback hillsides. even so, they require extra wide spots in the right of way.

cut back hillsides often tower 100' or more above the roadway.....

about the 102" wide trucks. i think that is interior width not exterior. the older 96" wide trucks couldn't haul two 48" square pallets side by side, and the extra 6" allows them to do that. i haven't measured it exactly, but i know the interior width of my truck is more than 96". i've hauled 48" pallets side by side.