Help regarding distance between station and tracks

Hi!

I need your help...

I am trying to fit a station on a curve due to my stupidity a few months ago when I glued down two buildings before I had considered where to fit my station.

What I now have to find out is how to make the station look good even though it sits on a curve. Take a look on these photos:





The station is the MTL Train station kit as you might see and I will probably mount it on a 5mm thick balsa wood platform to elevate it from the ground level. The white plastic in the upper part of the photos are where I will build the asphalt road with sidewalks.
My main concern at the moment is the distance from the station to the tracks - on most photos of american stations, that I have seen, the distance is between 2-4m but I will end up with slightly over 4cm which means more than 8m distance.

I have thought of separating the warehouse part of the building from the station part and scribed a wall for the warehouse but I would prefer to keep the structure intact. I cannot change the geometry of the tracks without a lot of difficulties.

Any input - can you have 8m between station and tracks? How did IRL railway architects fit stations on curves?

Petter

Any ideas for either how to solve my small problem

Curved station platforms are very common. What I would do is extend out the platform so it curves with the track. That way you don't have to modify the station. You will then have a very interesting curved platform. It will be a great look!

HEre is one example of a curved platform in Florida:

www.flickr.com/photos/alcomike/7174848831/

Rob

Like Rob said, leave the station alone and create a curved platform. Make sure that your longest cars will clear the corners of the station and make the platform to fit the space. This works for the station on either the inside or outside of the curve.

Hi Petter,

I suggest you forget about a platform. Many times, there was no platform or a very low one at best. Just dirt,gravel or brick. Makes it a lot easier around the bend. A platform along a strong curve has to have a fair amout of distance between track and edge to make sure trains don't hit the platform.

See here for an example:
click here


Matt

Petter,
My concern isn't with the passenger side of the station, which as already stated commonly have curved platforms, but with the freight side. There is always a section of straight track within a couple of meters of the freight platforms to park a box car or two, or the station is split into smaller, separate passenger and freight depots. To me, the ideal solution would be to rotate the station 180 degrees and try to put the freight side to the right of the turnout. My other thought would be to leave the station as is and place a spur (possibly non-functional) between the freight depot and the asphalt road.
I've played with the MTL station quite a bit. You can reduce the size of the freight depot by cutting just to the left of the index pin between the two large freight doors and removing the left one (which would be prototypically correct for an SP station). It's a fair amount of work and cutting the roof is tricky. I don't think I'd try actually separating the two depots.

Hope this helps,

mark

Thank you all for your input!
I've now looked at the possibility at adding a dummy track on the "north" side of the station but I cannot fit it so that it will look good. It won't look realistic with the angle on the tracks.

Rob - I will go with the curved platform, due to the height of the MTL trackbed the platform will only reach 1mm above the rails so there will not be a problem (I hope...).
This morning I started cutting the balsa, I will not extend the platform but cut it so that the wood will fit the track and then cover it with plasticard to mimic concrete. I thought of using gravel on the platform but I don't think it would look right since it's on an elevation compared to ground level.