I read the winter scenery artical in the walthers flyer and was instantly inspired. Do you have more tips on modeling winter? (exp. ground cover, balast, between-the-rails snow)
steamfreightboy
Hello. If you don’t get much of a response here, you might look into this current thread in the General Discussion forum.
After reading the other fourm, I decided I want Heavy snow.
P.S. How do you plow snow on 18’ and smaller curves?
I’m not sure I understand your question, but you don’t plow snow with your models. The grit is not good for them. If you want a plowed look, it will take some work. You’d have to build forms, perhaps with thin flexible balsa wood or heavy tape, and shape it like you would for a pour to make curved curbs along an intersection such as a traffic circle. You’d pour the Woodland Scenics “snow” into the moulds and then glue it like you would for ballast. When it dries, you remove the form (that could be difficult in view of the glueing) and you have cuts along the tracks.
Is this what you mean?
Hi steamfreightboy. I seem to remember MRR running a featured layout article on the Denver & Rio Grande Ski Train. The layout was completely covered in snow. It even modeled the Moffat Tunnel with snow. It had a lot of great detail. Maybe someone will remember it and can give you a link to it.
Selector mentioned about building moulds to bank the snow with. Maybe you could use wax paper between the material and the moulds to help with the release. Just my thoughts. [2c]
Floyd
Sorry for the confusion. I am talking about running snow-plowing equipment.
Right now I am almost finished track work and preparing for scenery. With heavy snow and between-the-rail snow, do I need to ballast?
steamfreightboy - I would at least ballast the mainline. And just like the real railroads, make sure that the snow if thoroughly “swept” away from switch points and frogs. Don’t forget track crews with brooms, and smudge pots. You could probably get away with burying your sidings up to the railheads.
Right now I’m working on an industrial district. What do I do there?
The snow in built-up places would be displaced for pedestrians and for automotive traffic. There might be some slushy snow in the streets not taken up by plows, but little of it. The snow that had fallen over time and been plowed would be in dirty berms along the sides of the streets. Shop owners and home owners would have shoveled their sidewalks, from their front doors to the sidewalk, and along their frontage sidewalks.
Don’t forget that most roofs will have an accumulation of snow, and so will car tops where the cars haven’t moved for a couple of days. Trees will be bear, save conifers and some wintering shrubs, and some snow will be in the trees.
You will want a hill with kids on sleds and toboggans, maybe an outdoor hockey rink.
Can you show us a photo of your scene?
I have not started scenery yet. I will get you a photo when I have.
steamfreightboy