I model a small town with a bit of an urban look, with tightly clustered buildings. This lets me have a few intersections and sidewalks, scenic elements that I find appealing. The Miller Engineering “HOTEL” sign is animated, and the Walthers traffic lights sequence through R-Y-G, too. Street lights and interior lighting in parts of the structures all add to this kind of scene.
I had a ladder in the train room to change a light bulb on the ceiling, so I took this aerial shot:
I’m also a fan of rows of shops.
These scenes are all in the foreground on my layout, right at the edge. The trains run behind them. This disguises the inevitable reality that the trains run around in a loop, as much of the time you only see the the trains between gaps in the buildings.
This is another section of urban modeling, on the 30-inch wide shelf section of my layout. There are 2 tracks in the foreground here, and then a road and a row of taller buildings. What you don’t see in this ground-level shot is 4 more tracks behind the buildings, reducing the effect of 6 parallel tracks to make the scene look more normal.
This is a bit different. Here, I wanted to create a very tight urban waterfront. I used small kits and built up most of the structures wit
I model a small town with a bit of an urban look, with tightly clustered buildings. This lets me have a few intersections and sidewalks, scenic elements that I find appealing. The Miller Engineering “HOTEL” sign is animated, and the Walthers traffic lights sequence through R-Y-G, too. Street lights and interior lighting in parts of the structures all add to this kind of scene.
I had a ladder in the train room to change a light bulb on the ceiling, so I took this aerial shot:
I’m also a fan of rows of shops.
These scenes are all in the foreground on my layout, right at the edge. The trains run behind them. This disguises the inevitable reality that the trains run around in a loop, as much of the time you only see the the trains between gaps in the buildings.
This is another section of urban modeling, on the 30-inch wide shelf section of my layout. There are 2 tracks in the foreground here, and then a road and a row of taller buildings. What you don’t see in this ground-level shot is 4 more tracks behind the buildings, reducing the effect of 6 parallel tracks to make the scene look more normal.
This is a bit different. Here, I wanted to create a very tight urban waterfront. I used smal
I’ll try this again. Wrote last night and lost my connection. Will see what happens now that the sun is up.
Part of your answer lies in the question: “Which came first, the town or the railroad?”
One town I lived near, the tracks passed between the back side of a row of Main St businesses and the river. Station and a passing track was all that was “in town.” None of the Main St businesses were rail served. Rail service was at the ends of town, lumber yard, oil dealers and a team track. If Main St is at the front of your layout, the businesses and other buildings not modeled on one side of the street are, in theory, on the other side of the street. My small layout has a station, passing siding and a two track yard. One track is a team track, the other serves a fuel dealer and grain store. The road to town passes the station and off the front of the layout.
The closest railroad town I grew up near, the railroad did not pass close to the existing village, so businesses built up around the small rail yard and some houses and small businesses filled in the area. Oil dealers, lumber yard, freight house and a stock yard lined the small yard across the tracks from the station. There was a small park between the station and the main road.
Neither of these railroads were heavily traveled, so the area near them was not considered less desirable. When the business and industry developed heavily around the railroad and many lower paying jobs were created, then that part of town may have been built up to lower standards or, if existing, could have slipped into disrepair.
There are a lot of variations possible and leaving some elements out doesn’t mean that they are not there, they are just off stage, so to speak. I plan to model buildings and businesses that fit my era and locale. I will put the ones on the layout that I like and leave the res
I’ll try this again. Wrote last night and lost my connection. Will see what happens now that the sun is up.
Part of your answer lies in the question: “Which came first, the town or the railroad?”
One town I lived near, the tracks passed between the back side of a row of Main St businesses and the river. Station and a passing track was all that was “in town.” None of the Main St businesses were rail served. Rail service was at the ends of town, lumber yard, oil dealers and a team track. If Main St is at the front of your layout, the businesses and other buildings not modeled on one side of the street are, in theory, on the other side of the street. My small layout has a station, passing siding and a two track yard. One track is a team track, the other serves a fuel dealer and grain store. The road to town passes the station and off the front of the layout.
The closest railroad town I grew up near, the railroad did not pass close to the existing village, so businesses built up around the small rail yard and some houses and small businesses filled in the area. Oil dealers, lumber yard, freight house and a stock yard lined the small yard across the tracks from the station. There was a small park between the station and the main road.
Neither of these railroads were heavily traveled, so the area near them was not considered less desirable. When the business and industry developed heavily around the railroad and many lower paying jobs were created, then that part of town may have been built up to lower standards or, if existing, could have slipped into disrepair.
There are a lot of variations possible and leaving some elements out doesn’t mean that they are not there, they are just off stage, so to speak. I plan to model buildings and businesses that fit my era and locale. I will put the ones on t
Question: Did anyone here ever mention a RAILROAD STATION? Seems to me that the biggest tipoff that there is a town there along a rail line is the depot. In small towns and villages, even medium-sized towns, the railway station was the focal point of the community. Even if you model a more modern era, you can model a closed up station or an abandoned one. I would think building the structures (restaurants, bars, shops, etc.) and industrial facilities, be they rail-served or not, would be a good tie-in for a “town”. The whole idea, in my view, is that there is a scene created, one that is believable. That, in my mind, is where the fun is too
Howdy, glad to have you visit the little town of Johnston, Texas, named in memory of skilled railroad modeler and artist Roland Johnston who passed away 40 years ago.
Let’s go on a guided tour. But first some background.
When I built my East Texas piney woods layout some years ago, I devoted two-thirds of the layout space to a courthouse square town, and I really wanted to get the feel of the town. I think layouts usually concentrate on railroad buildings and railroad-served industries, and a few picturesque items, to the neglect of some of the structures needed to make a town. Ocassional there are a few town buildings- store, service station and so on, maybe a church. There is often a lack of enough dwellings to house a population that could justify railroad service and a town. Also omitted is the infrastructure… government buildings, utilities.
At the center of Johnston is the courthouse square, dominated by the grandiose courthouse, and a smaller separate jail building, simpler in structure but with the same color brick.
Note the boxcar on a freight house track that encroaches on the street right-of-way on one side of the square. I would have liked to have had the courthouse square at least one street and one lot depth away from any railroad facility but the depth of the entire town scene- less than 2 feet- and the depth of the entire layout- 3 feet- prevented it.
Across the street from the front of the courthouse stands the U S Post Office with its 48 star flag (transition era), recruiting posters. The upstairs had room for office
You guys might wanna look at this model railroad as well since we are talking about a town. this modeler or group appears to have built more than one big cities in this layout
It helps to see what quality “styrene kits” are available to model as-is, for kit-bashing, and building flats in front of city/industry/scenic backdrops. Here are two sources…
Note: Japanese N Scale (1:150) is compatible with our N Scale (1:60). You can also convert a building kit to another purpose – Convert a bank (kit) into a passenger union station, and add an island platform (kit).
Also see Dave Vollmer’s N Scale Juniata Division for what can be done in N Scale (see Lewistown) on two hardwood doors. The newer staging module captures the essence of the Enola Yard (see YouTube) just north of Harrisburg, PA, and; note the bridge structure’s ability to act as a view block along with the hillside. This layout will be part of the Great Model Railroads 2014 special issue.
Are you looking to build a town or a city? The apartments and grimy buildings you describe speak to a city rather than a town. A town will tend to have individual or company houses, even close to the track. Going to either a town or a city is a good choice, and would make an interesting setting for the railroad, but would have a different arrangement of buildings and types of buildings depending on which you model. Apartments mixed with a general store for example would look out of place, but would fit with a West Bottoms type plan.
I already made a list of DPM and Woodland Scenics structures for my layout I just need to know what additional buildings i would need to call the community around my branchline railroad a town. I saw a few Japanese buildings that could be converted into American buildings uses. I have Mr. Vollmer’s layout website bookmarked and usually browse his layout
I am wanting a city, but due to space I am settling for now a town. I have seen a few layouts including one on Tracks Ahead that use Downtown Deco buildings not to make a town, but just a few shops to depict a town or city is near the railroad. I would like to have that look for a certain part of town to have the downtown lively area and the bad sides of the tracks.
Another crazy idea- a PORTION of a city that supposedly extends beyond the visible and modeled portion of the layout may possibly be more effectively represented than a small town in a limited space.
As I remember back in the days of live TV drama, a director said if he had only budget for 10 people in a crowd scene, don’t set up the camera to make sure you show all ten (to get your limited money’s worth!) Rather crowd your ten people together and have the camera focus on only 7 or 8 in the middle of the crowd with one or two at the edge, suggesting that they are part of a crowd that goes on and on.
The only structures or industries that are going to be closer to the aisle are my postal service warehouse, my harbor, downtown entertainment area, and other industries (brick, lumber complex, steel mill, and quarry).
Might sound weird, but I am going to combine both the fire and police station together and going to have a salt storage structure to give the appearance they the town has a snow removal services.
