Wondering the Same

I will be very interested to read the replies as I too have pondered the same.

Interested

I've seen flats of varying depth used effectively on layouts and would like to use flats on my layout too.  Looking forward to the discussion.

Dear Jamis, I've used many

Dear Jamis,

I've used many forms of backdrop flats, and the one thing that keeps popping out at me is simply:
"if the scene is viewed at scale eye level, even a boxcar can act as a very effective viewblock,
strangely enough, just as a 12'/1' scale one does!"

What I'm getting at is, it's mostly the "chopper view" that spoils the effect of backdrop buildings. Get down at tracklevel (scale 5' off the ballast), and even the flattest, most parallel-to-the-backdrop "building flat" will start to look a whole lot better...

http://carendt.us/scrapbook/page103a/index.html#chicago-fork

http://carendt.us/scrapbook/page97a/index.html#chicago

http://carendt.us/scrapbook/page87/index.html

Happy Modelling,
Aim to Improve,
Prof Klyzlr

Rare but prototypical.

Here is a classic building flat idea seen on many layouts.
It's a fairly rare arrangement in real-life but it gives you the best of both worlds; moves the track farther to the back but still allows some depth to the structure. Using this technique might not be appropriate for the entire length of the backdrop but it could be worked in with regular flats to give some variation to the building depths.

I would agree with Prof Klyzer.

As soon as you are looking down on a layout, building flats or thin 1 inch thick buildings look weird.  That is why my shelf layout will be set on top of 4 foot high book shelves.  I am 6 feet tall, and plan to adjust the height of the layout before laying track to get the best compromise between view angle and reach.  I would like it to be at eye level, but may need it to be lower to enable a reach to the back of 24 inch shelves.  I plan to have a folding 2 or 3 step ladder in the train room to use if I need to do more than uncoupling of cars to the back of the layout.  I may even have a portable step stool to use for uncoupling if I find that it is worth more to have the eye level view.  My layout space is only a 7' x 9' L shape on 2 walls of a spare bedroom, so it isn't as much of a hinderance to have to move a stool as some full size basement empire would require.

Building Flats

I am in the same predicament. If you see my post on "wharf" That is what I mostly use. Since I model in O scale and my layout is 24 inches wide. The wharf section is only 11.5" wide and with the ship is 20" wide. So building flats is a must. The warehouse is almost six feet long and the width is only the width of the wood except on the loading docks which are 1 1/4" wide. And the affects are realistic. Here is a photo with out the ship.

The other section which I am working right now is my downtown area and that also I used flats. As you can see it is a must. Again the area is very small, so I take the advantage to make it look very busy to give it the "big area" look. And that is what I am working on

Here is the back section of the downtown area. The flat building on the left is an old kit that I had and used 2 of the 4 walls and I added the angle tile roof on it to make it look different. The back building is a Ameerican Towne flat kit which I need to add some signs on the wall and weather it. On the blue wall underneath the crossover I have installed a mirror since I took this photo to make it look a continious look. The track is On30 track. Again this area is only about 20 inches wide by 22" long. It is on the upper portion of my 2 feet wide O scale layout. So if you don't have the room, using "flats" is a big advantage.

Eye level view

I used a barstool with casters, sitting on it gave me a nice eye level view. If need arose, just standing up was all I needed.

People have been doing

People have been doing marvelous things with building effective scenery on narrow benchwork.  Personally I prefer a bit of depth to my buildings and would at mininum two inches between the backdrop and the furthest in track.  Better yet run your sidings at an angle.

Building Flast vs. ?...

Thanks everyone for the replies.  Since the current design has 10' 10" of backdrop and it all is city or urban views, I believe that there will be a mix of everything from photo appliques to 2" thick building "flats" in the design.  The corners of the layout will have staggered thicknesses of buildings to fill in the corners.  The prototype was situated in what is called the "Warehouse District" and the tracks ran up through the middle of the area and fanned out to reach the various customers.  The buildings in the district were up to 7 stories tall and most of them were taller than they were long or wide.  The design point of the layout is from the trainman's perspective so the trackage is mostly up front with buildings and city scape in the back. The design is currently set at 51" off the floor, so the viewer should be looking at the buildings rather than down on them.

Building flats

The late John Allen had several buildings that "framed" a mirror giving the illusion of depth. His work and pictures was a staple of old Model Railroader. Some pictures at:

http://www.gdlines.com/GD_Galleries/The_Slides/Set_01/index.html

Warehouse

Aran,

I wonder where you got the lower building walls ... with arch windows and doors .... would be perfect for what I need..  Thanks,

Skip

Salty I think he is building

Salty I think he is building in On3 so if your building in O gauge the flats should work great for you.

Dan