Newbie help with measurements for our first LEGO City?

[theboyk]

Hello!

My daughter and are I planning our first Lego City. We have a 84 x 122 cm table and I'm looking at purchasing some baseplates and rail track. We'll also be making custom "roads". This is, in the grand scheme of things, a "small & simple" project, but for us, planning is part of the fun. I've been going through the forums and have been trying to put together the info we need to get the planning underway, but I'm having a hard time understanding how to "measure" things out and I'm hoping for a little help.

Just to get an idea of what we're doing, the road is going to split the city through the middle (from left to right) and the rail track is going to split the city perpendicular to the road (from top to bottom) with a rail crossing in the centre of the city. Both the road and the rail track are super simple (just straight from left/right and up/down)—nothing fancy.

Anyway, so I'm just trying to get a basic idea of what typical measurements are for things. What I'm looking for, more specifically, is…

1. What's the width of a current (?) rail track? Or, how much space should you allow for (in terms of width) when laying track between two objects to allow for both the track itself and the trains (as we're thinking of putting the rail track between two baseplates versus bumping the baseplates flush together and putting the rail track on the baseplates).

2. Is there an average size of a LEGO car/truck/vehicle? For example, if we were planning a two-lane road (one lane in each direction), how wide should the road be (again, we're thinking of custom-building, via paint on the table, the road between the base plates)?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks,

Kristin.

[Rick]

Even though your questions are about a combination of setting up a town and train layout, I'll move this to the Train forum because I expect you'll get the best responses there.

[tedbeard]

1. If you are not going to have any curves you might get away with a total of 10 studs clearance (total space including the track) as stock trains are six-wide with bits hanging off.

2. "Modern" LEGO vehicles are mostly 6-wide, so allowing for some room to maneuver and for the occasional wider vehicle each lane should be at least 9-wide. Wider if you want on-street parking etc.

Painting on the table would allow for lots of room. If you are going to build on baseplates and paint roads I would suggest you paint the entire table in chalkboard paint and simply build whatever you like adding lines using chalk. You could have narrow lanes one day and with a quick wipe down a major highway the next day.

[theboyk]

Thanks! Much appreciated!

[zephyr1934]

Lego baseplates can get expensive to cover an entire table. I'd suggest that you choose your lego color (e.g., light gray or green) and buy paint to match that color (bring a brick to the paint store and have them match it). Then only use baseplates under the buildings or structures where you need them. You could build dynamic roads, sidewalks, etc. using regular plates and update as needed.

It sounds like you would just have straight track without a loop. As you know, Lego designs the trains to run in loops, so there are no sensors to find the edges, etc.. So presumably you'll be doing push trains? There is no right way to do it and there are ways to make trains run without a loop, but they are a little involved. Most importantly you want to avoid any unpleasant surprises. In that regard, straight track is typically $2-$3 per segment and each segment is 16 studs long. The track segments are 8 studs wide, but the rails are 6 studs apart. Most lego trains are 6 studs wide + handles or whatnot that extends beyond. Lego switches space the tracks with 8 studs between parallel tracks. Again, you do not have to follow these spacings, but that is what is most common.

Good skill

[theboyk]

zephyr,

That's pretty much the plan. Using four of the XL grey baseplates for the city portion and two greens for the grassy area. Then the rest is going to be paint (roads) and some old, cheap model train style hackery/work for the dirt road (dyed sawdust & watered-down carpenter's glue), which I'll be mounting the rails along, and a small lake (a combo of paint and liquid glass). That way, we can save the money for the fun stuff (the LEGO). 8)

And as for the train. Yea, on this go, we're keeping it simple and just a straight, unpowered line (well, aside from push-power, that is). Like I said, we're just keeping it simple. Just one, small table (at least, that's what we've told my wife <G>).

Thanks for the advice! This is going to be fun!

k.

[madball]

I used an Ikea Lack coffee table to make a Lego table for my daughter...3 x 4 size on standard baseplates and roads. I've not glued these down, but connected thenm together via bricks so they don't move around at all.

I've a train set too, but there wasn't enough space on the table to make it work well, so we decided to put it up on the floor when she wants to play with it.

[Zed_43]

If you are planning a layout, and trying to fit it in some specific dimensions, there are some little things you'll need to know:

-standard basplates (32studsx32studs) mesure 25x25cm (that would help you counting how much of them fit on your table

-lego train track are 8 studs wide. But curves uses a specific radius (I don't know how long...) but there are some tips for placing tracks:

-you can try planning your circuit using this kind of software: http://bluebrick.lswproject.com/ . That allow you to use basplates and lego tracks (be carefull some tracks are not official one but are customs ones made by modifications of official ones)

-there is a kind of standard way that could be use, especially form meetings/displays/events... that makes it easier to connect to other people and that could help you. We often use two train tracks on one baseplate (that means 4 parts as one track is as long as the half of the baseplate). The track edge is 4 studs away from the edge of your basplate and track are separated by 8 studs.

I hope that was clear (English is not my mother thongue) and that would help you!

[theboyk]

Thanks everyone—that's been a great help!

[Jorrith]

Use the link Zed_43 provided... I have been brainstorming about a lego room for quite some while (and i need one really soon!) and bluebrick was ideal to lay out a virtual layout for the train tracks. (you can easily fit the town to the layout, but if you are using 9V tracks, or PF tracks without flextrack, it's a different story)

84x122 cm is not much room for a track.... you might want to go for a modular setup, so you can expand when the wife gives the go-ahead.... nothing wrong with a little planning ahead.