What fall touches do you guys suggest for my layout? I really want to capture the season. Also, any suggestion on modeling fallen leaves and leaf piles?
Color of course, that’s why Woodland Scenics makes those reds and yellows. I was flipping through the Walthers catalog and saw a pumpkin patch, that would be a nice touch. Anything associated with harvest, picking apples, roadside produce stands.
They key to doing fallen leaves–and the tricky part–is that you have to sprinkle the ground foam on the ground under the trees before you put the trees in place. It is the only way I have found of getting them in the right place. This takes some carefull planning and placement of trees, but it looks great when done.
Ron
Let’s see Fall…
Colours changing, street hockey, Harvesting, cleaning/raking lawns, sweaters, hats and Halloween. In Nova Scotia the Pumpkin People, all full of straw, who line the streets of our towns and don’t leave until the first snow. Kinda eerie if you ask me.
I love fall. In fact, my planned layout is set in early october so that if it ever came to absolute fruition (like I find a giant bag of money in the woods), the north end would be early color (mostly orange with hints of green) and the south end would be just around the time the leaves start changing, so green would still dominate. I even went ahead and found the foliage reports from 1998 for it and everything. They’ll make a rivet counter out of me someday.
If you model staghorn sumac trees, common all over the eastern US, they turn a beautiful crimson/maroon color. This time of year they become very conspicuous, especially on the highways around Milwaukee, where they’re just starting to really turn. They’re really gorgeous when that happens.
Sumac in these parts are now turned. It would be interesting to figure a way to model saumac.
Other Fall activities: People cutting down and stacking fire wood, Footbal practices and games, kids kicking leaves on the way to and from school.
I did read somewhere trains would have problems climbing grades if leaves were on the tracks in large quantities as the leaves would act as a lubricant causing the wheels to spin.
Fall in the southern Blue Ridge, where I am fortunate enough to live, is very beautiful indeed. The trees high up on the mountains are just now starting to turn. Over the next few weeks the color will march down the mountains into the valleys.Reds and golds will predominate, with yellows and patches of green intermixed. The air is clear and crisp. It’s not quite time to light off the freplace yet, but it won’t be long. It’s a wonderful time of the year.
The tip about placing the leaves under the trees prior to planting is a good one. It’s also important to remember that not all trees change at the same time, and the color of each tree will vary a bit from top to bottom. Pumpkin patches and stacks of pumpkins and apples at roadside produce stands, people splitting and stacking firewood at home, fallen leaves in yards and along the roadbed all would add to the effect.
Have Fun,
Tom Watkins
Fall means the end of summer and shrtly the end of hurricane season, thank god.
Sumac really would be cool to model - its found on any rail line in North America. Any suggestions?
Love the fall. Right now it’s as if the mountains are on fire up here in the North Country.
Not sure if it would lose some appeal if I looked at it on my layout, year-round though.
Wayne
The problem with most fall modelers is that they don’t gray down the colors. One local layout is done in fall colors at its peak and whole layout is so bright, you need to wear sunglasses.
BC