Hope this this is not to but there are alot of people that do layouts for model railroading. I was wondering why there arnt many military layouts built I no there are some big dioramas but just not to many. Is it because of the scale. I want harp on this I just wanted to hear some opions on this. Because Ive tried to start projects like this but seem to lose interest.

Howdy Keenan. I think it is the animation factor. Out here.

Hello Keegan,

I don't know what you exactly mean with "model railroad layout", but i recently started a mega-dio (10 footx10 foot), and i intend to use the railroad model technique of doing a few modules, at least 6-7, so that it will be some what transportable.
As the dio will have some big level differences (from a river bed to a hill , about 2 foot) i will try to arrange the modules in such a way, that the joining lines of the modules will be placed in a discret emplacement (in the forest, along houses or roadsigns) .
I will keep some ground cover of the original dio to camouflage the visible lines.

That is what i am thinking to do. i just started with some of the dio elements, not even started to do the base, so i don't know how this will work out, but for a dio of 100 square feet you need to look for a solution like that.

Don't hesitate to ask me more about my project, my english is nott the best, but i will try to answer what i can.
Cheers from Luxembourg
Claude

I believe it's because of scale - the most popular available military scale is 1/35. This drives what you are able to reproduce.
As far as railroad enthusiasts go, the most I talk to try to duplicate a RR "Line" or switch yard. These can be huge and literally run from town to town. In the smaller scales they are able to get more in the same space.
With military projects you are limited in some degree to the size, therefore as a dioramist you tend to duplicate a small situation or AFV.
If you look at the smaller Arfix figures and 1/72 scale I've seen dioramas of a complete Gettysburg battle front or a huge Indian attack on a Western Fort. Also in the Warhammer arena you get large size dioramas (if only for an afternoon).

Also the nature of RR is to have a close circuit to make it function so you have think of things in a different way, it's harder to 'split' a feature down the middle because of space. You need a loop to get the electricity going. I haven't seen any 'portion' RR dioramas.

I am a model RR myself. With a military dio you have to complete the scene (landscape, tank, figures, etc.) before you can display it. A tank sitting un a piece of plywood with unpainted buildings and unorganized scenery seems incomplete.

With a model RR as long as you have laid the track and are operational, you can take your time filling in landscape, vehicles, figures, etc. My club has a buge 20x40 room running multi-levels of N scale trains. The backgrounds on the back walls are all painted and some of the mountain passes are done and painted. However the railyard, industry and factory area are unfinished with track on plywood. only 50% of the 100 buildings are painted. We still have fun running the locos and pulling long strings of cars even when they pass through unfinished territory.

Obviously scale is the issue. Almost all true train layouts are in HO which is 1/87 or N which is I guess half that so an 8' by 4' N scale train layout would have to be somewhere in the vicinity of 32' by 16' if it were 35th scale. That's bigger than my 2 car garage. I have seen a 4' by 8' diorama. It had about 2 dozen trucks / cars/ kubelwagons and well over 100 figures on it. It was magnificent

Hello from another railway modeller but you can and I know of several people who have build either railway modells with a military theme or a diarama with a railway theme, I have in the pipeline an armoured train,as per Roomney Hythe & Dymchurch which ran on 15"between the rails and was run during the crisis of 1940.
There is actually a rail scale that matches armour 1/48 scale which is very big in america and here in australia where I actually model On30 whitch is 1/48 locos running on 30' rails and my father and brother scratch build 1/48 tanks or the new tamiya 1/48 and there was also locos that ran into the areas behind the trenches of ww2
There is also larger scale that works out to be approx the same scales as 1/35 (actually 1/32 and has quite a few people in Australia Uk and US) just look at arecent article in Mil Modeller (uk) showed a small military Railroad around a 1/72 scene of the german coastal defences of Rommels Atlantic wall.
Other magajines to look out for are Narrow Guage gazette and the French railway mag about small layouts all have shown all sort of layout ideas using both railways and military . There is a thousand ideas out there ( my brother is looking at building a layout bases around an armour museum and there is a real 2 ft line in Sydney that runs inbetween the armunition bunkers at homebush near the 2000 sydney olympic site.
I hope that stirs up this conversation and if anyone needs anymore info just drop me a note
Ian