hello all; as the norm for me, looking for inspiration thru Pict’s of others who have"made it happen" I am looking for shallow or back-wall scenes that capture the feel of a larger track side industry NOT the warehouse/loading dock scene that’s is effective BUT simple and ready available, what I would like to see is something that mite not normally be found in a shallow or back wall scene ,example fuel & oil dist, or lumber or cement /bulk commodities ,grain ,junkyard ,steel . that WOW, nice use a space scene ?
Now it doesn’t have to be a Pict of YOUR work, maybe someone else’s that you took a Pict of as a favorite . IF possible would like the * depth * &* length * of scene from track center to the back or back wall , estimate is OK . I think with more people trying shelf style layouts or round the room style this would be of interest to others…for those who would be willing to share ,looking forward to seeing your favorites !..Jerry
This is a back corner, made even more difficult by the 45-degree roofline. I ran a road into the corner, and then added a photo backdrop to continue the road into the distance.
In the upper right corner of the next picture, I did my best to make use of the space beneath the roofline by cutting the walls of the small white building at the same angle.
The 4 tracks in the picture above all run behind this group of buildings:
At this point, the layout is only 30 inches wide, but there are 6 tracks running the length of it. By putting 4 of them behind the tall buildings, the foreground scene becomes less busy and I can stash a few trains behind the “business district.”
My layout is a very long looped 2 foot deep shelf layout. The backdrop is not flat vertical, but is tilted in over the shelf and layout at about a 45 degree angle! Tough to get sense of depth.
The image shown gets decent depth considering the back drop is 6 inches off the back of the tender and the back drop is only about 1 foot over top of the loco’s stack!
Jerry … My layout follows about 130’ of basement wall, and I have many scenes to choose from. You asked for an industry, and here is a fuel oil business crowded into a small space against the backdrop.
On my layout, Greenvale Junction has a couple of large low relief buildings at the backdrop. Country Kitchen bakery will be staying, but the un-named building next door will be replaced by another low relief manufacturing industry that I will kitbash
ON the other side of the view block, Central St in Sheepscott has a deep backdrop building that represents a street with 2 rows of buildings. The main line runs beneath the building
This is a “during construction” picture of the building. It represents the back of 4-1/2 buildings, a street, and the front top few floors of 4 buildings. The lower parts of the front row of buildings is blank, as they will be hidden by the Central St buildings. I made it with spare parts left over from other building kits and some DPM modular parts.
In this scene, the bus you see coming out of the side street, it’s rear end is up against the the wall.That shorter red & gray building is something I printed out and mounted flush against the wall. the dark brown bldg. is only a front of a bldg. placed at an angle from the the larger brick bldg’ on it’s left to the photo cutout bldg. on it’s right. The angles looked right to me, So I stayed with that.
This next scene is at an end wall that juts out one foot. I placed a mirror against the wall and gives the allusion of the scene going on and on.
This is not my model railroad, but I saw this recently. Its a lot packed into the small space against the wall. There is a photo backdrop that makes it look bigger.
yes Michael: that’s the pict that spun this post,I would never thought of that. Some great ideas and use of backdrop blended with some compression like mr Bs road extention with a backdrop picture and peters huge industry that looks to be no more than 2" deep ,great detail peter … and the use of building mixed with backdrop of sams
I’m thinkin that mixing the backdrop pict or painted with a flat industry is the ticket or direction I want to pursue
Dove Creek’s industrial area has some thin buildings. The green one is a Walthers fruit packing house, reconstructed as a flat. The ice house is also Walthers (more below). The warehouse is simply a flat made of Grandt Line doors and some JTT corrugated material, plus misc styrene bits and pieces.
The ice house is mounted on black foamcore like all my flats and that works well behind the open ice platforms. I extended the roof back for a better appearance, but it clears the main line hidden behind it.
Silverton as a scene is 32" deep, but from the the flat to the backdrop is only 7", with the branch to Animas Forks hidden behind, and some trees, etc to blend it all together.
Nicely done flats @ dove creek ,I like the unfolded packing house ,is that the “valley citrus packers” packing house by walthers ?
I am trying to make a plausible RR supported industrial siding behind my engine service area that Ive changed twice (never satisfied with the look or feel) .I just built a new (2nd try) loco shed service building and built curved turnouts for entrance ladder ( was #5s in a cartwheel) so now its starting to feel better to me . The new engine shed is a unfolded and wraps the Helix, the modified ice house hides mainline portal from the other side of backdrop, so I’m down to the backwall industry siding … heres some Pict’s and you can see I’m toying the idea of a tanker unloading diesel storage in the corner next to warehouses ,but it lack something and I think being low it needs a painted/Pict behind it …
now THIS is a great example of what I’d like in that back corner but cut in half the depth , but I think its the use of the painted backdrop that makes this type of backwall industry work . not seeing all that BLUE… love Garys SD units …Jerry
Here is a view of the scene from the aisle. The layout at this location is 20" wide. The road has forced perspective and gets more narrow as it goes to the back. The bridge is built with the trusses spaced closer together in the back than in the front.
The fuel oil dealer side tracks are closer to the back in the left side of the photo. The twin 32’ tall tanks are made from a scrapped 62’ tank car.
There are plenty of great ideas in this thread. … I like Tomkat’s service station idea very much.
A lot of great looking scenes, and some very creative modelling. [tup]
I’m not sure if this the type of scene you’re seeking, Jerry, as it occupies all of the backdrop area, but also part of the foreground:
This is GERN Industries on the shores of Lake Erie:
The layout here is just under 21" deep, so there is, of course, more to GERN than a simple warehouse. What’s visible in the photo below is a combination of Walthers ADM elevators and some scratchbuilt alterations and additions. The double track to the right, converging into one, is the mainline to and from staging:
Here’s most of the remainder of the plant, a re-worked Red Wing Milling building from Walthers, and a scratchbuilt tank car loading facility:
Unseen and unmodelled is the remainder of the plant, including the dock for loading lake boats, and the flux mine extending out below the bed of Lake Erie. Here’s an over-all view of the 6.5’ long complex:
Not the best photo, I’m afraid, but this is the trackage through the Malakoff Hydraulic Dry Diggings above the town of Deer Creek. From track on the bridge to painted sky backdrop is about 4".
I have a branch line that runs very close to the backdrop. The backdrop is a collage of various pictures from commercial backdrops for HO layouts and pictures taken from magazines and calendars… Sometimes I apply ground cover on the lower part of the backdrop which matches the surface adjacent to the backdrop. I also paint some of the backdrop to blend in the pictures.
