hello, i am planning a layout based on a rural location in anytown usa. can anybody lend me some advice about farms on layout?
thanks,stephen
Sure, I can tell you about the farm I grew up on, where the C&EI ran right through our corn and bean fields. We had a gravel road crossing, with only a crossbuck protecting the crossing. I remember when I was real little there was a concrete phone booth near that crossing. A block signal set was there also. It was the next to last signal set before going into Danville ILyard. There was a grain elevator there also, with a siding for many years. One of those old school prairie skyscaper types. Later, there were steel bins and a LEG serving them.
The rail line there was always pretty well maintained, although we had the occasional grass fire from hotboxes.
Our farm was grain…beans, corn, wheat. We raised cattle and sheep, never shipped on the rail during my lifetime, we drove to nearest town (Danville). In 59 the train came through and blew up a truck load of sheep at the crossing. Sheep everywhere. We lost a cattle truck several years later also.
What can we tell you?
Rick
heyy there,
Well it really depends on what scale you are modeling. i have a farm on my n scale and all i spent was 20$ too build it. i bought model power white fences, farm animals of your choice really doesnt matter, and a bachmann farm house. its really your choice no one is going too pick at your choice. just look around and your bound too find something!
Stephen,
there are some really amazing farm scenes and rural scenes on this site, with desctiptions of materials and methods used for each scene. Click the Logo on the header page, then the galleries link, then the rural scenes gallery.
http://magnoliaroute.com/magnolia%20route.htm
Have fun & be safe
Karl.
As an ex farm kid, my take on modeled farms is that they’re almost never done right.
Virtually EVERY farm scene I’ve ever seen is a cartoon of reality. The buildings aren’t realistic, there aren’t enough of them, the fences are a joke (and there aren’t enough of them), there’s almost never a realistic junk pile out back, the roads are in the wrong place, etc., etc.
Farms are working businesses, with a good chunk of their workings on the outside, exposed for all to see. That’s good news for us modelers, because we don’t have to work off memory - we can actually drive up to one and take a few reference photos. And there’s nothing more relaxing than taking a nice, lazy drive out in the countryside doing “research” on farmland!
Pay close attention to two key features on farms you’re studying: building architecture and fencing. Farm architecture is VERY region-specific. You won’t find a Vermont conjoined house and barn in Florida, and you won’t find a Kentucky tobacco drying barn in Michigan. Gable roof barns almost NEVER have dormers like that (nicely done) AMB barn kit, and actually, most barns don’t even have that style of roof. Farmhouses too feature regional architecture, so make sure you find or build one that’s truly appropriate for both the region and the type of farm (the fanciest farmhouses in the Midwest, for example, are owned by dairy farmers).
Fencing is even more important, especially on a period layout. There will always be a boundary fence, and that fence will almost always be three strand barbed wire (bob waar in most places). Fences around the 1/2 acre around the farmhouse area is usually a bit fancier. And then there’s the fencing for cattle (dairy or feed stock; most farms had at least a few cows or steers): it needs to be at LEAST 4x4 posts and four crossbeams (1x6 oak is best). And there needed to be several paddocks to seperate cows, as well as gangways and loading chutes (if you’ve got cows, you need a chute; how else will you get them onto a truck?)
Try to ensure that the fields that you model are a decent size. I’ve seen several instances where “farms” have fields so small that a tractor almost doesn’t have enough room to turn around. With fields that small, there’s no need for a tractor. All you need’s one guy with a hoe!!
-Ed
What materials do most people use to model crops on farms for instance corn, wheat, beans? Since i live and work on farm a corn field is a must for my HO layout
It depends on the era you plan to model. No two barns are alike,so most kits, even inexpensive ones will work. It also depends on type of farm and region as stated above. To do a whole farm willl take up a lot of space on any layout, so plan it out. A barn,some out buildings, a silo, a farm house, fences, and tractors, a few animals and you can do a reasonable farm scene. Lots of barns also have additions added as families grew, some times farmers would add more livestock.Fences,many times were just barbed wire, even by the house, so look around your area,do a web search and figure what you want.
Scenic Express, with a website at (naturally enough)
sells a kit designed by Busch for an HO scale corn field. It looks pretty good in their catalog. With about 400 corn stalks, it’s enough to cover a 36 square inch field. It requires some assembly, although they’re not more specific about that. It’s kit BH 1202 HO scale Corn Field Kit for $ 13.99
-Ed
P.S. Just looked at the entry on the website. The kit consists of sets of 20 cornplants strung together on a corn row, so it should be real easy to work with. And right now, there’s a sale on this particular item. So with this, and one or more of Silflor’s new cow pastures, you’re halfway there[:D]
The folks at our sponsor magazine must have been anticipating your question! The September MRR cover photo features a corn field, and the construction methods and materials are the subject of an article.
The only problem I have with it has been mentioned above. The model looks like somebody’s hobby plot, not a commercial operation. It really needs to be continued onto the backdrop.
On the original question, there have been tremendous changes in US farming practices in my lifetime, and a modeler has to get pretty specific about when, as well as where, the model is supposed to represent. Certain structures (eg. Quonset huts) can date a scene almost as accurately as a visible calendar. The “little bit of everything” farm common during Steam’s finest hours has largely yielded to intensive single-commodity “outdoor food factories” in much of the country, while other areas have seen those farms become suburban sprawl. The best source of information isn’t any single source. It’s a wide-ranging search for detailed photos of a specific region and era - once you decide what that is.
FWIW, there isnt any such place as “Anytown, USA.” Except in the smaller, geographically homogeneous states, there isn’t even an “Anytown, (state).” The only similarities shared by the Mexican-flavored border towns along the Rio Grande in West Texas and the Cajun-overlaid towns along the Texas-Louisiana border are a common State Capital at Austin, and the same two Senators in the US Congress.
Chuck (who models a large farm - that grows trees)
The only thing I’ve ever modeled an entire field of was corn, and I used a piece astro-truf door mat. My scene also had an orchard of - don’t laugh - Life Like apple trees (which look surprisingly like apple trees), a herd of dairy cows, and a craftsman kit barn.
Unfortunatly, it was on my previous layout, and I don’t have any pictures.
Nick
I agree on the Life Like apple trees. I bought 8 trees from Hobby Lobby on clearance. I put them on my small farm in an apple orchard. Mike
The way to “get around” having to make fields of crops is to try to make sure you design your layout so that just a small corner of your layout, or the edges, have a field on them. Or as was mentioned, work your scene into a backdrop. I forget what the word is, but you can give the impression that there is a huge field on your layout without actually having to model the whole field. Selective compression?
Another option, in all seriousness, is to model October or November. Have a few stalks or whatever with a combine in your field. Then make the rest of it look like it’s already harvested. Even easier, model the winter or early spring and make your field “empty” or just plowed. Busch even makes a plowed field but you can make your own with corrugated cardboard.
Much thought has gone into this field problem. The city kids used to ask me if I grew up surrounded by corn. Once I replied, “NO…there was a BEAN field on the east side of our house.” [:)]
One thing I can tell you from experience from much younger days when I was even more unrealistic about time and energy constraints: DO NOT try to get a bunch of toothpicks, paint them green, cut up a bunch of tiny strips of green construction paper and start gluing them to the toothpicks! Not a bad looking stalk, mind you, but try making 400 acres of them!
So far the advice is very good. The out buildings and fences have to have a realistic layout and proper scale. The farm I grew up on had at one time been very prosperous and had a Three holer, I don’t know if anyone makes a kit for that. My parents put in indoor plumbing when we moved there in 1963 but the outhouse was still standing in 1990. The hog barn and chicken coop had been removed a long time before that. As for modeling the crops I chose to model them in early spring, plowed, disced & planted but still bare earth. Late fall is also a nice time to model, bare earth and stubble after the crop has been harvested. In the spring you can have green trees, the orchards can be in bloom, calves and other young animals can be seen at the barn. In the fall you can have the trees turning color, fields of pumpkins laying exposed in the fields after frost has killed the vines. The only easy to model summer crop I can think of is a mowed hay field. Mowed grass racked into windrows waiting for the bailer. Good luck.
I’m assuming you havn’t subscribed to Model Railroader If you do, Take a look at this months, and even if you don’t, be sure to pick it up. They have an article about how to model Corn Fields.
Can’t wait to see this month’s issue of MR! My supply has not quite been received but it must be on the way.
A thank-you to Chuck (tomikawaTT) for politely informing me that the correct term I was searching for in my earlier post was not “selective compression” but rather the correct term would be “forced perspective.” I do get those two mixed up, among other things.
Seems like I had a box of that Busch cornfield around here but I can’t find it. Also seemed like there was some hang up about it as I didn’t buy another box of it once the first one was opened. Looks great in their catalog though!
A previous post mentioned about how different each farm looked, and he was quite correct in that statement. Riding around on the school bus back in the day showed that each farm one of my friends grew up on was unique. One of the best ways to see how farms were laid out is to buy one of these general interest coffee table-type books on family farms or old barns. A very good source of info I’ve found.
Plus I’ve noticed we are fairly blessed with a lot of (HO, anyway) farm equipment that we didn’t have years ago. A very detailed farm can be had today!