A pizza layout is a model railway laid out as a circle of the smallest workable radius of curve, on the smallest possible square or circular baseboard. This baseboard can be so small as to look as if it would fit into a

pizza box The pizza box or pizza package is a folding packaging box made of cardboard in which hot pizzas are stored for take-out. The "pizza box" also makes home delivery and takeaway substantially easier. The pizza box has to be highly resistant, cheap ...

, hence the name. Pizza layouts are not serious scale models, but are to provide a little humour. Despite their simplicity, they are rarely built by beginners but are usually light relief for an experienced modeller. As they are quick to build and lower budget they are often used as a theme for exhibitions and contests. Many are also seasonally themed, such as Christmas layouts. They often provide an opportunity to experiment with a different gauge and scale from a modeller's regular. Mini Layout01

Building this minimum-size layout requires a small gauge. Most pizzas use 9mm gauge, as for

N gauge N scale is a popular model railway scale. Depending upon the manufacturer (or country), the scale ranges from 1:148 to 1:160. In all cases, the ''gauge'' (the distance between the rails) is . The term N ''gauge'' refers to the track dimensions, ...

Z gauge Z (or z) is the 26th and last Letter (alphabet), letter of the Latin alphabet, used in the English alphabet, modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its usual names in English are English ...

and the esoteric smaller gauges would be useful too, but their costs are more than 9mm and there are fewer options available. Other gauges up to the popular H0/ OO 16.5mm gauge are also used, but almost only as narrow gauge models. Most pizzas model

narrow gauge railway A narrow-gauge railway (narrow-gauge railroad in the US) is a railway with a track gauge narrower than standard . Most narrow-gauge railways are between and . Since narrow-gauge railways are usually built with tighter curves, smaller structur ...

s. This combines the narrow physical

gauge Gauge ( or ) may refer to: Measurement * Gauge (instrument), any of a variety of measuring instruments * Gauge (firearms) * Wire gauge, a measure of the size of a wire ** American wire gauge, a common measure of nonferrous wire diameter, es ...

needed with a larger and more visible scale. Narrow gauge prototypes also have short wheelbases, slow running speeds and so are often more accepting of tight curve radii. Where

standard gauge A standard-gauge railway is a railway with a track gauge of . The standard gauge is also called Stephenson gauge (after George Stephenson), International gauge, UIC gauge, uniform gauge, normal gauge and European gauge in Europe, and SGR in Ea ...

is modelled, this is only for N, Z or smaller gauges, H0 requiring a size greater than the usual 'pizza' format, although this can just be achieved in 2' diameter. For an

00-9 OO9, often also denoted as 009 or 00-9 is a model railway scale and gauge combination of 4 mm scale and gauge tracks, which models a prototype track gauge of . It is a common choice in the United Kingdom for the modelling of narrow-gauge ...

or H0e pizza, using 9mm gauge and either 4mm or 3.5mm scale, a workable minimum curve radius is 6", for an overall baseboard diameter of , within the pizza box format. Some model companies, such as

Tomix is a Japanese entertainment company that makes children's toys and merchandise. It was created from a merger on March 1st 2006 of two companies: Tomy (founded in 1924 as Tomiyama, changing the name to Tomy in 1963) and long-time rival Tak ...

, even produce extra-small radius curves of 4" radius, for modelling

tram A tram (called a streetcar or trolley in North America) is a rail vehicle that travels on tramway tracks on public urban streets; some include segments on segregated right-of-way. The tramlines or networks operated as public transport are ...

s. These have been used to model at N gauge within a 9" baseboard. Gn15 gauge models one of the smallest prototypical gauges, 15 inch minimum gauge railways. This gives the greatest combination of small curve radius and largest scale. Nn3

Z gauge has even been used to make layouts inside a large glass bottle. The layout is a simple circular loop.

Points Point or points may refer to: Places * Point, Lewis, a peninsula in the Outer Hebrides, Scotland * Point, Texas, a city in Rains County, Texas, United States * Point, the NE tip and a ferry terminal of Lismore, Inner Hebrides, Scotland * Point ...

are limited to just one, perhaps two, small sidings and these are more decorative than useful for shunting. A siding to the outside of the loop requires a larger baseboard. A siding inside the loop may do so too: the siding's radius must be smaller than that of the running loop, which is already close to the minimum radius. Allowing the loop to be a little larger, so as to permit a tighter siding curve within it, means a larger loop and baseboard. This can be done most compactly by stretching the circular loop to an oval, but keeping the same radius with an added straight; the point comes off the straight portion. In rare cases, a

fiddle yard A fiddle yard or staging yard is a collection of model railway tracks that are hidden from view and allow trains to be stored and manipulated by the operators. These tracks are used to allow most model railways to be operated in a realistic manner. ...

has been incorporated into a hidden part of the layout. Although rare, some pizza layouts have also used multi-level spiral layouts, with something of the

rabbit warren A warren is a network of wild rodent or lagomorph, typically rabbit burrows. Domestic warrens are artificial, enclosed establishment of animal husbandry dedicated to the raising of rabbits for meat and fur. The term evolved from the medieval Anglo- ...

to them.

Scenery

Scenery may be realistic, a caricature of geography containing real buildings or deliberately unrealistic. The difficulty is the likelihood that all of the layout can be seen at once, and the problem of finding any sort of visual break between the two sides. Many simply ignore this, placing a realistic building or feature in the centre and ignoring the logical pointlessness of a railway that obviously circles without going anywhere. Some layouts model funfairs, where the short circle can appear purposeful. A popular approach is to place a large visual break in the centre of the layout, such as a hill or quarry working. This has the advantage of stopping the layout look so obviously a loop, but at the risk of looking like a wedding cake with an arbitrary hill in the middle. Many alpine or mining layouts have hidden half of the loop beneath tunnels.

References

{{Reflist, colwidth=35em, refs= {{Cite web , title=Pizza Pizzaz , author=Carl Arendt , date=2006 , page=49 , url=http://www.carendt.com/small-layout-scrapbook/page-49-may-2006/ {{Cite web , title=Pizza Party , author=Carl Arendt , date=1 April 2010 , page=96 , url=http://www.carendt.com/small-layout-scrapbook/page-96-april-2010/ {{Cite web , title=Pizza Parade , author=Carl Arendt , date=15 April 2007 , page=60a , url=http://www.carendt.com/small-layout-scrapbook/page-60a-april-2007-special-bonus-issue/ {{Cite web , title=Pizza Party , author=Carl Arendt , date=15 November 2008 , page=79a , url=http://www.carendt.com/small-layout-scrapbook/page-79a-november-2008/ {{Cite web , title=Pizza Is Built On A Lazy Susan , author=Carl Arendt , date=1 November 2011 , page=107 , url=http://www.carendt.com/small-layout-scrapbook/page-107-november-2011/ {{Cite web , title=Pizza in a Bottle , author=Carl Arendt , date=1 December 2012 , page=111 , url=http://www.carendt.com/small-layout-scrapbook/page-111-december-2012/ {{Cite web , title=Stony Brook , author=Carl Arendt , date=10 January 2013 , page=112 , url=http://www.carendt.com/small-layout-scrapbook/page-112-january-2013/ {{Cite web , title=The Gynthrolith Mine , author=Günther Kiltz , website=Carl Arendt , date=1 July 2014 , page=116 , url=http://www.carendt.com/small-layout-scrapbook/page-116-july-2014/ {{Cite web , title=A Rural Railway in France , author=Carl Arendt , date=9 April 2015 , page=117 , url=http://www.carendt.com/small-layout-scrapbook/page-117-april-2015/ {{Cite web , title="Pizza Hill" N-scale Model Train Layout , url=http://www.scottpages.net/PizzaN.htm , website= {{Cite web , title=The "Pizza" Layout , url=http://www.zen98812.zen.co.uk/pizza.html , website= {{Cite web , title=Model Railway in a Pizza Box , url=http://www.mendorailhistory.org/1_layouts/pizza_layout.htm , website=Mendocino Coast Model Railroad and Historical Society {{Cite web , title=Pizza Layouts , url=http://www.gdngrs.com/layouts , website=Greenwich and District Narrow Gauge Railway Society {{Cite web , title=Pizza Layout , date=Oct 2005 , url=http://www.westportterminal.de/pizza.html , website=Westport Terminal Model railroads Narrow gauge railway modelling

Scenery

See also

References