I’m about to start a new HO layout. Anyone have any good suggestions on how to make rolling hills to scale?
Hello, and welcome.
It would seem to me that there must be a bit more information you could share…something contextualizing? Because we deal with relatively light engines, and everything we do is ostensibly going to fit a given scale, we have to be careful about “hills” of any kind because of what they impose on the functionality of the trains. Our light models struggle to climb grades much steeper than about 2.5% when we hook them up to the typical numbers of cars that would comprise a train.
Rolling hills means different things to different people. Will your tracks run through them on contours or will your railroad have to drive cuts through these hills? If the former, then the hills will be substantial necessarily so that your curves don’t get too tight.
Some of us stack layers of extruded foam and shape them, paring back and cutting off what we don’t want left, and some of us make cardboard strip lattices mounded like hills over which we layer plaster-soaked disposable towels or newspaper. Others use aluminum window screen shaped and glued to frames and then covered with a ‘ground goop’ comprising plaster, cement, vermiculite, and so on.
I don’t know if I’m being helpful…hopefully at least helping to orient all of us to your needs.
-Crandell
Welcome to the forum.
Hills to scale, is a difficult idea. Even a small hill might take the space of a basketball court. It is possible to get things in perspective however.
For gentle rolling hills, Woodland Scenic Plaster cloth over crumpled newspaper it easy, fast and looks nice. They have a wonderful video on how to do it. For more dramatic hills, cliffs and canyons I am a big fan of carved foam insulation.
When you have a better idea of what you will be planning, we can help with the details.
There are also many wonderful ways to make trees discussed on this forum.
Many of us have pics of what we have done in our signiture area.
Welcome to the forums and to model railroading.
May I suggest you get a book (or a few books) on scenery. That will give you information on the many techiniques available. You don’t have to select just one, many folks use different methods in different areas of their layouts. You might also want to get some books on other topics, benchwork, track work, wiring and the like… They are great references, but you will always have questions and you are in the right place to do that.
By the way some libraries have a selection of “how to books” for model railroading, don’t know what is available to you.
Have fun,
Hi there! Thanks for answering my message! The train set was given to me by my brother. It was his train set when he was a little boy. What I would like to do is “recreate” the town and area of Oklahoma that he lives. It’s rolling hills and pastures. There are no hills big enough for a train to go through. what I would like to do is make the hills first and then lay the track accordingly. He lives about 2 hours from the missouri boarder. So, he is at the end of the mountain chain.
That is the way nature provides for the railroads, and then we have to scrape and blast out the right of way to get a manageable grade. Some modellers do that…they make a visionary layout and then figure out what to pare away to fashion a right of way. I suggest to you that you would be much better off doing it the way the heavy majority of us do it…fashion a sub-roadbed of plywood ‘cookie cutter’ lengths and laying track on that, and then building scenery to match. There is a reason for this: as a newcomer, you need to understand what makes a model train interesting and functional so that you actually still enjoy it a year from now. That means understanding the typical revenue work of a railroad, and how the configurations of a railroads trackage allows them to do that revenue work efficiently…meaning no unnecessary labour or tracks.
What I am trying to say is, please put on hold any plans or timeline you may have today, and commence to learn about railroads a bit, and then how to successfully lay model track to mimick a bit (at the very least) of what tracks look like. For example, many of us were steered to a wonderful ‘bible’ for modellers, the late John Armstrong’s Track Planning for Realistic Operation. It is available at hobby shops or from our hosts here, Kalmbach Publishing. They have other good how-to books as well.
But, bottom line, you must plan. Plan some more. Ask for feedback, and repair your plan. At some point, you will know that you are ready to proceed. You will have designed a reasonable track placement plan, know why you have chosen it, and you will have a clearer understanding of the surrounding topography that will support the plan, as well as any urban structures, industries that your railroad will s