I live in New Mexico and model what I am around but seems like only a few modelers model this area. There is also an extreme lack of plastered and stucco as well as any southwestern style structures or missions. I have been trying to get Woodland Scenics to produce some cowboys and early 1900’s indians but we all need to call them on this.
Lets see pictures!!
My HO scale home layout is desert southwest. I’m currently scratchbuilding models of the buildings found in historic Tombstone and Bisbee as a Tourist Trap town on my layout.
My layout is based loosely on the Cajon pass with Colton(yard) and Victorville.
See the www below for more pics, although this is only the rough shell scenery. I will add soil and details someday.
Charles , I know you live near there but here are some photos I took of Bisbee that you may need.
http://s42.photobucket.com/albums/e338/mfifer/Bisbee%20Arizona/
Charles and John , Those are both great looking layouts there.
Charles are you strictly G Scale as we are N Scale but have about 200’ of G in the yard as well.
Charles , Here is my rendition of the Bisbee area on my New Mexico layout. This area is called Valle Rojo.
Mike
I don’t know if southwest Colorado counts or not, but we’re modelling the Silverton RR, based in the San Juan Mountains.
Musket Miniatures has some period figures, and lots of animals, you might look at their online catalog.
I got a whole bagfull of cowboys and Indians from a friend who does military dioramas. I think they’re 1:72 scale, but they are less than half a head taller than 1:82 scale figures I have, so with some care, you should be able to place them so as to avoid having them look like mismatched giants. Look in the military figures section at your LHS, get brandnames off the packages, then look at their larger catalogs onine to find the less popular figures.
Pictures hmmm?
I have a mule train and driver for this, but they’re off layout while some remodelling takes place.
This is a staged photo…no ballast yet, the water tower isn’t painted, (or even glued together, I just bought it for the spount, plan to scratchbuild my own tank).
Just some Old Time motive power eyecandy here, enjoy!
I model the Sedona Arizona sandstone cliffs in three rail. My layout is the fictional Castle Canyon Scenic Railroad…
Website:
http://home.mchsi.com/~ironmaster1960/wsb/html/view.cgi-home.html-.html
Still in the early stages here, but here is my contribution. I model NE Arizona up around Chambers and Adamana.
Really nice stuff Guys !!! I am doing N Scale and am having a hard time trying to do cowboys and pueblo indians. I really like everyones SW scenery!!
Mike [bow]
I prefer the desert in the springtime after a good wet winter. 
I will be modeling a partially southwestern theme when I start my layout…SP of course!
There is a company named Pegasus Hobbies, that makes palm trees, cactus, as well as mission Indians, etc. They have a website, and Horizon Hobbies sells their products as well.
when i get to it i’ll be modelling central arizona around 1905 , the prescott / jerome / clarksdale area . probably somewhat freelanced but hopefully close enough that anyone who’s been there will recognize it
lot’s of great layouts in this thread !
perry1060 , i really like your red rocks , what techniques did you use ?
Thanks. The cliffs are made of stacked foam which I then carved, coated with water putty for texture, and then painted sedona red. The tunnels are 1/2" ply.
Here’s a new mountain carving I’ve just about finished…
Just getting started on that section. Here is the one partially sceniced area.
I freelance a fictional ‘branch’ line, that connects Cortez, CO to Farmington, NM (D&RGW) and then across through NE Arizona to Holbrook and the AT&SF there. No pics yet, as all I have for now is an industrial switching area and medium-size town (debating whether it’ll be Cortez, CO or another town). The Colorado, Arizona and Western (CAW - working on some slogan with a crow, I figure, wouldn’t mind a punny one). Oh yeah, HO scale, transition era - a Mogul, 0-6-0T switcher, and a Mikado for some leftover steamers, plus GP7/9’s (one or two mod’ed with low nose), SW1200’s, and for passenger service some heavyweights (the CEO’s favorite), but usually RDC’s for the day-to-day runs. The CAW bought several of its locos used or rebuilt as other RR’s upgraded to newer ones.
Jim in Cape Girardeau
Jim , that sounds like a way cool freelance. I lived in the area for 5 years. You will have to include the Gas industry.
If you were N Scale , our railroads could have intersected!
Mike
Good to see this thread again. I have added my version of the Supersition Mountians. I have just finished finding the Lost Dutchman Gold mine near the Massacre site, but no pics yet. I am heading back down there is a couple weeks to get some more pics. I have also finihed what would have been a malachite quarry in Bisbee had they wanted malachite instead of copper. There was a chuck of Malachite in the Queen mine worthy of quarrying.
Mike, are you meaning up in NW New Mexico? I know they had some oil there. I am playing with a lot of ‘artistic license’, since in that time period (or later), I have my doubts whether the Navajo nation would’ve given rights for a RR to cut through that area. But hey, it’s my version of ‘alternate history’, right? [swg] I am planning on having the Lukachuki (spelling is off) vanadium/uranium mine, which will ship to Farmington, where the Atomic Energy Commission (or whatever it was back in the 1950’s) refines and buys the uranium ore. Maybe a tongue-in-cheek reference to ore cars that glow in the dark, etc. Connecting to the ATSF, I figure on having a ‘bean’ elevator where they ship out their bean crops to the (predecessor of?) Frito-Lay company in Texas. Also some sheep that get shipped off for all those lamb chops like my Mom used to fix every so often when I was a kid…[:-^]
Art, love your mountains - how do you make those? Carved foam/plaster/what?
A lot of my resources for my layout are a combination of one vacation trip to Arizona (to Phoenix area and then on the return back up through Four Corners, Cortez and Colorado) the last year before my divorce, and a lot of looking at photos online, and borrowing a bit from Pelle’s layout (which though it’s too modern for my time period, I really like his scenery)![yeah]
Jim in Cape Girardeau
I’m modeling the ATSF towns of Rincon, Whitewater, Deming and Silver City. All in NM. You can click on the links in my sig to see the pics but not too much scenery yet.