I just got back from a vacation where we took the Empire Builder and the Capitol Limited from Minneapolis to Washington DC and back. One thing I noticed on the trip that piqued my curiosity is this…
Unless you were going through a city/town or the tracks were right at the edge of a river, the train was usually surrounded on both sides by trees and other vegetation that was at least as high as the train.
Has anyone ever modeled that, or is this a situation where remaining true to the prototype takes a back seat to the practical desire to keep your trains more visible?
I’ve done this on previous layouts, and have an area on my current layout where I’ll probably end up doing something similar to hide an area where one level comes down to meet a lower level.
The technique works really well, especially in modeled areas where tunnels or large cuts are completely out of place. We Illinois modelers can use this trick all over our layouts, but I can only think of two tunnels in the whole state!
One word of caution though, especially for us period modelers: there are more trees in the USA today than there were a century, or even 50 years, ago. Between clear cut logging, new construction, and different agricultural methods, there wasn’t much room for trees in the good old days. I’ve found out in a couple places on my layout, where I had visited an area today, photographed it and modeled it with trees everywhere, only to later find a 1940s photo of the same area with nary a tree in sight!
I am using it to hide a 90 degree curve on the module I am workiing on right now. Trees and a cut is a small hill to hide the train and explain the curve. Now I just have to master the plaster / towel landscape and learn how to make decidouis(sp?) trees. It looks good in my head.
You call those trees. The redwoods I’m modeling will be 2" thick and stand 24" tall. And I am using compression. They should be 3" thick and 3 feet tall. Tunnel of trees, ha! These babys will hide the transition to the upper deck.
One of the advantages to modeling the coast range Spacemouse. Heck, I think I could incorporate some eucalyptus groves to counter your redwoods [^] I’m modeling the Sierra Foothills.
I’ll be using a ‘tunnel’ of trees to mask two levels coming together on the Yuba river sub, and it’s pretty common to see tree ‘tunnels’ on some of the lines here in California. There are some places on the old SP Coast Route where eucalyptus have been planted on either side of the tracks that makes for some really photogenic railroading. Me, I’ll be using evergreens, since I’m in the Sierra. But tree tunnels work very well for separating the layout into ‘scenes.’
Tom [:D]
I haven’t thought about using them as tunnels, but I am using trees on my urban layout as scenic dividers–a distinguishing feature of downtown Sacramento is trees, and in many places the tree canopy is so thick that it looks like you’re driving down a green tunnel while looking down the street! Integrating this into street trackage allows me to disguise the fact that the backdrop is only a foot away from the viewer–large trees also mask the photos (taken from actual Sacramento streets) I use for backdrops.
The “tree tunnel” is a good idea. I have designed layouts with that concept in mind but didn’t build them–it works well for mini layouts too!
I have used trees to hide back drop holes and such. When you model the flat lands you just can build a tunnel .
I have also used them in the forground on long streight sections of track to break it up visually. It helps to make the track look longer.
Just make sure you leeve room to maintanace your track if you have to. That’s the only draw back I can think of. You see a lot of that here in Tenn. too.
