After deciding to hand-lay my tracks, I decided to take it one step further and finish my scenery before laying tracks-just like real railroaders do? After all, real railroaders don’t put down the track and then erect streams and mountains.
From a model railroader perspective, there are challenges with the scenery-first approach. Erecting the roadbed and wiring the track, for instance, are much easier without scenery in the way. But I will shortly point out some of the advantages I found in creating scenery first.
My original intention for the layout was to model a 25-foot-long shelf layout that represents a portion of the Santa Fe’s single-track Abo Canyon route, in New Mexico on the Belen Cutoff. I spent several months studying photos and other information about Abo Canyon, and even purchased a video of the route and corresponded with railfans who visited the site.
After amassing a large quantity of material, I went to work, creating mountains that were three feet tall, using 4-foot-thick industrial white-beaded Styrofoam that a company had thrown away (got permission to use it). Incidentally, I don’t know where to obtain this from but you can make thick Styrofoam using the layering method, with glue that doesn’t react to the foam. The big advantage of using Styrofoam is that you can sculpt and re-sculpt the terrain as many times as you like.
After completing the scenery, I suddenly realized that although it looked spectacular, those tall mountains took a lot of valuable real estate away from the layout, and that the single-tracked layout wouldn’t real
That’s a really interesting idea that I had never thought of but it does make sense. As I think about the next and last build, I’m going to consider this idea.
Thanks for taking the time to post your progress, this one is going to get printed and filed away for future use.
The only hobbyists that do this consistently are garden railroaders. This looks like fun and is laudable - in my circumstance and many others - you just have to work backwards from the real estate available. I like your working from ‘un-flat’ landscape. I had a bit of that simply because my foam boads were laid atop rocks that weren’t graded flat.
I am aware of only one other model railroader of note who took this approach - the late John Allen, builder of the HO Gorre and Daphetid. He would put in roadbeds and fairly detailed scenery (complete with stacks of ties and barrels of spikes) before hand-laying his track. Some great shots of his “surveyed” route can be found in old issues of MR or “Model Railroading with John Allen” by Linn Wescott (Kalmbach, out of print).
It certainly adds an element of realism as you build a photographic history of your railroad. It also requires more advance planning (not a bad thing at all!).
I don’t think I would attempt it myself, but I can understand why you did it.
Thanks for sharing the photos of your progress - very well done!
I really admire the depth to which Dave analyzes his undertaking. This is just one of many in-depth posts he has made on a number of subjects, each one with a really interesting insight and perspective.
thx guys, Roger, I’m using incandescent and halogen lights; that and the desert terrain itself, coupled with the backdrop of the sunrise perhaps gives the yellowish cast.
I do not use any filter or color correction in photoshop. I like the feeling of morning and a new day and in the desert, sunrise and sunset are always my favorite parts of the day when the features are more colorful and 3-dimensional
I’ve still got a ways to go with the construction and then the industries, real running water that only comes on during a storm and 2 more shelves of construction, one of which I want to be trees and possibly a canal or something really special.
but, I’m not really working too fast on everything; I’ve got a novel and a screenplay I’m trying to polish up as well, as well as spending a lot of time w/BB the rabbit-hunting beagle.
she rousted out 2 really chubby rabbits this evening, btw, near a townhouse community; the neighbors came out to watch BB do her thing. Most of the folks were amused and entertained but a couple didn’t like her howling despite their own dogs barking
I really like the way your use of a wire on posts for the center “rail” looks. You have described this in previous posts, but I don’t think I appreciated the effect until these pictures. Your hand-layed track and wire center rail looks better than any track system I have seen.