my logging module is going to be mountins, the big city outskirts module is going to be a transistion area, prairie farm module is going to be prairie, and the town with co-op module is going to be a transistion area. the transistion area1 is going to be mountins to prairie and area 2 is going to be prairie to mountins. how should i do the transistion areas?
This is where the end of my mighty mountain pass ends. The pass heads off some 34’ to the right with the mountains as high as the backdrop in spots, and sinks to the floor in others. That is why the backdrop ends there, as it now has pink granite against the wall.
This table will contain my small one Elevator prairie/foothills town. Hopefully there will also be a Co-op/ farm equipment dealer on the siding at the right end. A cattle pen and a small petroleum dealership on the left end. The Elevator goes on the inside loop where the hole is. Once I am finish with the scenery, half the hole will be filled in while the other half will have a removable hatch with something on top. I only need half the hole for access but thought a bigger space would make the work easier.
I hate cities, so I don’t want one on the layout. ( The only time I go into “Big Town” is to see the Canucks wipe the floor with some other team ) I didn’t want more than a small town on the layout. Everything on my layout is based on something more rural.
I have seen places where the Rockies make a rather abrupt transition to foothills/prairies so I don’t think I fudged too much by having my rocks end the way they do. Selective comp mountain ending.[C):-)]
Brent
As Batman stated, the Rockies in many places transition quite quickly (Northern Montana, along the BNSF mainline for instance) The Tetons in Wyoming are another instance, hardly any foothills at all.
For a model railroad you could use a tunnel to transition from a mountains into foothills/prairie, and use a backdrops.
Just a suggestion
Look at pictures of the Alps some time: there are mountains there that drop off to an absolutely flat valley floor.
Or, as in the Appalachians, you could have a series of progressively smaller peaks and / or hills.
Your question is best answered by looking at real photographs of the area you’re trying to model. I’d recommend at least a couple of smaller hills at the edge, though.
Prairies don’t have much foliage, eastern mountains are covered with trees, but on western mountains the trees are not as dense. Prairies are flat and mountains are, well, mountainous and rough.
From rough mountains, you go into smoother rounded foothills, then onto the flats of the prairies. So as you ease the mountains down through the foothills to the prairies, thin out the foliage and reduce the tree height as you go.
You can break scenes as above, using a tunnel or bringing the track close to the front as it goes around a hill. You can also go behind a hill. A couple of simple ways are going through a thick stand of tall trees or passing behind a city building and coming out behind a hill in the next scene, only inches away.
Good luck,
Richard
You can also make the transition with a river (or, in this neck of the world, dry wash) crossing the tracks which run from from the flatlands on one side to the crags on the other. I can think of several places where I have seen this phenomenon along US 93 and 95 north of Las Vegas.
If you model my neck of the desert, you won’t need to invest much in foliage. At the level where the rails ran in the past (and along the one route where they still run) the only way to get a tree to grow is to irrigate it. You can usually walk between the scrubby little bushes. As for grass, fugheddaboudit. The local water district has cash incentives for people who replace lawns (high water useage) with gravel.
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964 - in the dessicated desert)