I have a quick question. I’m making mountains for my layout and was wondering if 24" was too high for the Appalachian region? Also, is 1/16" too small for roadbed?
I’m modeling a backwoods Appalachian branch line in mid 1950’s
Thanks,
Jacob
Well, if you’re in HO 2 feet would be about 174 ft. high. Real mountains generally have to be at least 1000 ft. or so high to be considered mountains. (Otherwise they’re hills, though I’m sure there’s plenty of fudge factor.)
In model railroading, having hills about 2 ft. high representing mountains would be OK, that’s more space than many of us have to make vertical scenery in fact.
More important is the shape of the mountain and the type/density of vegetation to impart a feeling of location. Appalachians are typically rounded and heavily forested as opposed to say the jagged peaks of the central Sierra Nevada mountains which end up treeless at the higher elevations.
Mark
Hi,
A couple of additional thoughts… While your “mountains” may only be 2 feet actual size (174 scale), how high in elevation is the trackage at that point? Obviously, your tracks are not at sea level.
Also, your backdrop could reflect much higher hills/mountains in the distance.
It all depends on how much you want to emphasize the mountains, and how much room - vertical and horizontal you have to deal with.
ENJOY,
Mobilman44
No, geologically speaking 24" is hardly a bump in HO, N, or O scale. In HO scale that is 174 feet. A major grain elevator is going to be about that tall. As I recall when I measured these in Wichita KS (in 1974) ended up being 196 feet tall at the high points and the silos are right at 160’.
As the others have pointed out the height being sought would be how high would the mountains be immediately adjacent to the rails. The scene below has more than 24" both above and below the trestle with the train on it. It looks tall and steep because it is so close to the tracks. Also notice the “far away” mountains painted on the backdrop. Of course these represent Colorado 12-13,000 foot mountains but the concept remains the same. The same height moved 6’ back from the tracks would not look nearly so tall.
See the line to the left of the river? Train.
See the big poppa mountain on the right? Like 850’ taller than the river.
Smack in the middle of West Virginia.
Jacob
Sweet memory’s. My first book I bought about MRR’.ing (50 yrs ago, a German booklet by Miniaturbahnen called “Anlagen Fibel”) stated it so clearly: railroads are build in the foothills. The fact i still remember it so well indicates it really was an eye opener to me.
You can see the tops in the distance, if you’r lucky of course, usualy the only thing you see are those damm trees. If after hours of climbing you were on the top, those trees again; no view at all. Or it rained. This is the reason why so many folks love the Alps, above the trees you have the views, alas the trains never come that high. Or started Californian dreaming in my case.
The hills or mountains on the background should tell you where you are; just as the kind of houses, trees etc. The photo of the Virginian valley tells the whole story. On J. Fugate’s layout Mount Shasta is looming on the background, in reality as well; SP never got the idea building track over the mountain it self.
I am not so sure about the second question. Beside the train you need a footpath for the conductor; together 2" will do in HO. I’ve seen the footpath on but also just beside the roadbed.
Have fun, good luck
Paul
I would look at the work of modellers like W. Allen McClelland’s Virginian & Ohio RR, and Tony Koester’s previous layout, the Allegheny Midland RR, and others. They managed to give the look and feel of Appalachia without doing floor-to-ceiling scenery.
As model railroaders, we seldom model entire mountains. We generally focus on the portion of a scene within a few hundred feet (or less) of the railroad tracks. Using this photo as an example, the red line indicates about where we’d cut off our model of the scene.
The elevation gain within that area is well within 24 inches (174 scale feet). Generally, we want to give an indication of the terrain without having to build a model of it all. Besides, who wants to make all those trees?
By the way, you folks in the eastern US sure have some pretty country.
It’s all theater… Don’t get hung up thinking you have to build your scenery to scale. 24" will make a pretty impressive elevation in N or HO.
Lee
to Lee mainly
this is the point!; it’s all about scale. Seems so easy, is so hard to understand: if you scale down a building with an extra 50%, you end up with rooms only 4 foot high. When making Mount Shasta 50% lower it will not be looming on the background anymore.
The area you are modelling is the 100 foot left and right of your track, never thought Mount Shasta being that close. The Virginian picture, with the red line added made it so clear; the distance between the red lines is easely more then 500 foot in reality. Scaled down; more width needed then wise for reaching in. (and who wants to build a zillion trees, ask Jeff Wilson)
Selective compression is great to make big stuff smaller, never over do it; truncating is the trick.
Paul
But it’s impractical to try to create a scale height mountain. If your mainline is selectively compressed horizontally, then it’s okay to compress your mountains vertically.
I don’t think anyone is going to question what part of the world this model represents. And, it looks a lot taller than the hill in this proto photo…
It’s a matter of perspective, and optical illusion. When you’re dealing with these things, there are all kinds of tricks you can play on the eye to make a scene believable without expending thousands of feet of chicken wire and tons of plaster.
Look at this scene… The rail line is across the middle behind the trees. look at the proportions of the river and surrounding hillsides.
Aside from the wintery landscape in the first image, you should still get a pretty strong impression of the area I’m modeling through the shapes and proportions of the landforms, not necessarily the size of them. It’s all part of the forced perspective. In the real photo, the distant ridge is probably 1000 feet away. On the layout it’s about 13 inche
May be I am wrong, but what was your question anyhow? When modelling you should be aware you are always working on a very shallow trench of the big outdoors, so the peaks are off limit.
Those 24", were they only the max. difference in heigth on your trench? Or were they the height of the peaks?
If the answer on the first question is yes, you should also consider the width of your layout; 24" in just on shelf one foot wide is very steep indeed. I think in general a 1:2 ratio would do fine; 1 ft heigth on a 2 ft wide shelf. But nature is not strict, there will be steeper sides, a bit of variation please.
When building your Virginian wonderland use all the tricks Lee is speaking about. I am always surprised how well a simple blue backdrop works. I love the artwork done by people like Lee and Lance Mindheim (Monon layout) either but I shy’ed away giving it a try.
Have fun, good luck
Paul