Need some help with scale width 8 wide vs 6 wide

[SuRrEaLNJ]

I designed and prettymuch finalized a steam locomotive in LDD that is bult in 8 wide. I notice that alot of the good stem trains that ive seen tend to be built in this scale. Mine has liberties taken and is not a particular engine, but more of a feel of the subject.

I started working on some rolling stock for it, and then i started messing with the idea of doing a diesel as well and this is where i became confused. i notice majority of the disel locos i see are built in 6 wide. Is there a reason for this that my limited train knowledge is missing?

Ive searched the web and forum for a discusion on this, but havent hit upon what i was looking for.

Is it posible to mix 6 and 8 wide engines and rolling stock without it looking out of place. I how have halted on the ordering of parts for the original steam engine while i sort this out, so advice would be apreciated. Im not sure if im going to need to go back to the drawing board or not here.

also does anyone have any standardized rolling stock dimensions or designs for the scales to help me work this out? its kindof hard to estimate size when most of my prebuilding is done digitally.

Thanks in advance.

[legoman666]

Different folks do different things. I build all of my diesels 7 wide. The one steam locomotive I did was 8 wide because of how the geometry worked out to get a large round boiler. I try to make all of my rolling stock 7 wide as well with varying degrees of success. Tank cars are impossible to do 7. They can be

6 or 8. I make mine 8. My box cars are 7 at the body with 8w roofs. Coal hoppers are 7 with trim that brings it to 8. None of it looks silly when paired together. However, if paired with official Lego 6w locomotives, my rolling stock dwarfs them.

So I'd say aim for 7.

[SavaTheAggie]

My opinion, for what it's worth, is if you're just starting out and are building steam engines 8-wide, you should build every thing else 8-wide. The only reason, in my mind, to build 6-wide is if you are going to build everything 6-wide.

The only exceptions I would make would be for modeling different regional trains - European trains are smaller than American trains, which in turn are smaller than Russian trains.

--Tony

[detjensrobert]

If the loco is 8-wide and the rest of your rolling stock is 6-wide, I would suggest making the tender 7-wide to act as a kind of buffer. Putting 6w and 8w directly next to each other looks wierd, but with the addition of the 7w in between, it adds a transition that helps them look better.

-Robert