From Track to Scene
Trackwork has progressed steadily, if now slowly, through the end of summer. With all the track leads set and bus wires connected, the mainline is ready for DCC installation and operation. Once operational, the mainline run will be approximately 350' distributed across both levels. Next up for track-laying will be the yard, passenger terminal, and the line through the Pullman facilities to the 6-track staging yard above the workbench.
For the time being, mainline operation will be enabled, while switching operations will be deferred until such time that the scenes supporting each switching operation are built. Rather than lay a bunch of sidings, spurs and other swithing operation and drop buildings in to 'fill the scene,' I choose to build the scene starting with the buildings and let the scene determine track placements and switching operations. My approach is different, but my entire layout is different. First, it focuses on passenger operations - main terminal, mail terminal, Railway Express Ageny on the north end of the ladder, with commissary, shops and Pullman terminal at the South - with a downtown built around it.
Second, it is different because scenery will dictate track placement and, to an extent, operations. When I set out to build this layout, a few themes were its drivers: super-detailed scenes of the 1950s, passenger terminal and mainline operation, urban switching and industries along the mainline. I never wanted to build a track-laden freight-focused layout in large part because that's what everybody else does, and in large part because I LOVE passenger cars, passenger trains, their functions and operations. The 1950s is the perfect era to model passenger trains because of the diversity of equipment and actual trains to model. I'm told a lot that this is the only passenger-focused layout in Utah and one of the very few in the Western U.S. So, having said that, I have settled into blazing the trail for modeling passenger operations here and learning more about passenger service in the process.
Finally, I want my layout to have a distinctive look and feel that sets it apart from most of the layouts I have seen. Choosing to freelance, while keeping faithful to the operating principles and trains that were at home in the Ogden area in the 1950s, allows me to focus on crafting scenes where the trains are at home, rather than scenery for the sake of filling dead space around the tracks. George Sellios and John Allen are, in my view, the ultimate master modelers. John Allen pioneered the freelance layout concept and countless modeling techniques that are standard today. George Sellios perfected the concept and techniques to create the most extraordinary layout I have ever seen. He created a look and feel with the Franklin and South Manchester that draws people into a different world. More on that later, but for now I will state that with my layout I seek to build a model that is as evocative as the FSM set 20 years after and 2000 miles away from his masterpiece.
Ok, back to the track. Mainline and ladder operations will come online soon. Now I can begin building scenes. I see a clear distinction between 'scenes' and 'scenery' in a model railroad. Most layouts have scenery, which is a backdrop, often an afterthought to the operation. Prototype layouts rely on scenery to reproduce some feel of the prototype, but all of the attention to replicating the prototype constrains scenic choices. Scenes, by contrast, are modeled first, where the modeler pays careful attention to all of the elements that make the scene - the human activity, structures, vehicles (including trains), textures, colors, smells, that give a at once a realistic and fantastic effect. Scenery is for running trains, scenes are for modeling. Passenger operations lend themselves to scenes, albeit scenes that take a lot of space.
Getting Started with Scenery
Fall definitely is my favorite time of year. I love the color, cooler, shorter, softer days, Indian Summer, along with the holidays and the time indoors. Fall is the most dramatic time to model on a layout. The colors set a definite tone, invite detail and debris and create many opportunities for activity - raking leaves, fishing, traveling to see friends, harvesting crops and processing foods, merchandise movement, etc. Studying the Fall transition around my house I started to notice something that most modelers just don't seem to get right: the variety of color. Here are a couple of shots I took this afternoon around my home and on my street to illustrate the point:
In these shots the variety of color is obvious. Less obvious is the layering of color in a single tree. As the colder weather sets in, trees begin drawing nutrients from their leaves for the cold winters. However, this process occurs in stages, starting with the outer, more exposed leaves and moving inward. This process gives each tree different colors - red outer, yellow middle, green inside as shown here. These trees have multiple colors at the same time.
Most commercially-available trees do not capture this color variation. These commercial trees that I bought a few years ago illustrate the point:
Shown still in their box, these trees are nice but monochromatic. They lack the variation in color on a tree that makes it look real. I aim to capture the variation and realism of fall by making my own trees. Being in the Wasatch gives me access to an abundance of sage from which I can make all varieties of trees. Here's one more illustration of Fall finery (note the big cottonwoods in the center):
An Now a Canyon
Scenery is starting with the big canyon on the layout. Though based loosely on Echo Canyon, this one will take on a life of its own. I've always been drawn by the detail of narrow gauge layouts. Mines are a prominent theme of narrow gauge models, so I want to incorporate a canyon of old mines on my layout to similar effect. The fact that so few have attempted to build a mainline standard-gauge layout with a narrow gauge look does not discourage me. That's where freelance modeling can shine.
The scene starts with track. I decided to weather the track first mostly because the canyon scenery will make it very difficult to go back in later and finish the track. Starting with Testors track weathering 'pens,' I painted the rails rail brown and the ties railroad tie brown, then went over them with a series of alcohol and ink washes, finishing up with chalks. Track detail can be tricky. There is rust, grime, dirt and dust all over. Ties, depending on their age, can be creosote black to variations of browns and grays depending on the type of railroad and operation (on my layout it is Class 1 mainline operation, so well-maintained).
With the track weathered to give it a more natural dirty, rusty brown, the chalks and washes bring out the grain of the ties. Once the scenery is in, the track will get another round of weathering with the addition of ballast, more washes to simulate grease, sand and debris from the trains, and cinders from all of the steam locomotives that worked these canyons. Trackside debris and vegitation will be added for extra realism. In areas that are REALLY close to the eye, more details, such as fish plates and joints will be added to the rail.
From above, the weathered track looks like this:
Once the weathering is mostly dry, I carefully cleaned the railheads with a bright boy, being careful also to clean the inner railhead to avoid getting pulled up in wheel flanges. The earth tone and texture of the homasote provide a solid elevation for the roadbed, which will be detailed in several phases of scene-building that I will document in later posts. This area will be the scene of an abandoned mine in a box canyon with mine equipment rotting away and the old miner's shack somewhat of a hovel. Old Shadrack, his mine played out, his body old and tired, sits around begging for spare change from the few cars that come through here, his botte of cheap whiskey always handy.
With the mines mostly played out or too expensive to work with the falling prices of silver and competition from larger mines, this area has long become home to poor old miners who go begging to make ends meet. But that has always been the story in this canyon. Hmmmm . . . Begger's Canyon?
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