For me, one of the most fascinating aspects of this hobby is creating small scenes on my layout. Right now I’m working on detailing a corner to create a backwoods shack scene, complete with trees, doghouse, chickens and chicken koop, assorted junk - basically the kind of place you’d find on a backroad in Kentucky or someplace. I’d just like to know what your favorite “mini-scene” is on your layout, or that you’ve seen on someone else’s. What kind of structures, figures, details, etc. were used, stuff like that. One of my favorites was in a MR magazine, a hobo in the woods with a cooking fire made with scraps of wood, orange cellophane, and a grain-of-wheat bulb.
Excellent question. The scene I remember was in MR several years ago and was of a small steam engine coming through a gorge, track beside a river and the track and river passed under a RR truss bridge. There were mountains in the background.
Well, yankeejwb, you are certainly not the only one who likes mini-scenes - these are in fact so popular that several firms sell kits and ready-mades scenes: Woodland Scenics with the Sign Painter, Saturday Night Bath, Moonshine Still, etc.; Noch with Spring Cleaning, Exercise Course, Building Site (this one has a very nice looking porta-potty that I wi***hey would sell separately) etc, GRS with a Hobo camp w/working fire (sounds like that’s the one you have) and a Prospector camp, Busch with Summer Night Party, Circus Breakdown, Speed Trap… well, you get the idea.
I’m not all that crazy myself about such pre-packaged mini-scenes (however, they often contain details that I could use elsewhere, such as that porta-potty). One type of scene that I do like is a well done, realistically laid out suburban block, with a decent number of good condition home, with decently maintained (but still a bit ratty) lawns, driveways, sidewalks, etc. For some reason (space, I guess) you see these blocks much, much, more in catalog ads, dioramas, and home construction articles than you do on the average layout…
Here’s mine:
The workbench is scratchbuilt from scrap basswood, the tools are Evergreen metal castings, the figures are Woodland Scenics.
On my first pair of modules I used Woodland Scenics “Smiley’s Towing Service” mini scene, and added my own “mini-mini scene” within it. It shows the small building having a sign painted on the roof, and the sign painter has slipped off the roof, leaving a white line of paint. There’s some spilled paint on the fence below, and all over the painter! See it here - http://www.geocities.com/fundynorthern/FirstModuleSmileys.html
Lotsa fun!
Bob Boudreau
That’s pretty clever, Bob.
I don’t have a favorite scene. Some are humorous, like the Bob’s, and another scene where a painter was hanging on by his fingernails at the edge of the roof, after his ladder had fallen out from under him. Some are prototypical, large and dramatic or small and detailed. Then there are scenes like when MR posed an “Anniversary Train” on several well-known layouts for photo shoots during one of their anniversaries.
Another one that stands out in my mind was one that I saw in a magazine. It was a very tall module depicting the side of a mountain, with a couple of tracks at different elevations. It was set in the diesel era, and among other things, they had an old, rusting turn-of-the-century steam locomotive submerged in the river at the bottom of the display, depicting a locomotive that had been left down there after a derailment.
—jps
Hey Bob,
That is funny! A favorite of mine is two sunbathers on a fire escape and two skinny dippers in a river. They are on a friend’s layout.
BC
For a “mini-scene”:
Passengers at a station waiting for their “hot shot” streamliner to cruise in.
On my layout Ive got a couple of skinny dippers in the river and I guy hiding in the bushes with binoculars, also Ive got a drunk guy sitting above the top of one of my train tunnels about to fall onto the tracks, howevers Bob’s is much better looking than both of mine.
Very funny, Bob. I had a good laugh. [^]
I have two. Both I saw on here. One is the river with the pier and boathouse, I think it is UKguys. The other I have not seen for a while, an older car sitting while a steamer rushes past. Both are really well done and well thought out little scenes
i cant say this is my all time favorite, but it was really well done, and VERRY unusal. i cant remember if it was at madison or milwaukees big show, but on a clubs layout there was a big mountain with a UFO crashed into the side of it. there was spotlights on it, the army was there, cops & firetrucks with all the lights going, news trucks,CRIPES, there was tons of lights and action going on. the scene was done so well it looked as if it was accually happening. besides all that i have mentioned, the mountain, trees, grass,roads, i mean EVERYTHING, was done to a perfection. the guys that modeled that scene, REALLY knew how to model! funny thing about it is, i HATE sci-fi, I DONT belive in UFO"S, and i dont like space shows. fact is, the modeling was SO WELL done, i hope to see it at the shows this year, differance is, i"ll bring a camera. [;)] [8D]
I recall on a freind’s layout there was a mini scene in one of the back alleys between two buildings. There were several people around, and a scale model figure was hanging by the neck. Kind of gruesome, and when the owner was asked what the scene was about, he replied '“That’s a diesel salesman!”. I guess he liked steamers better!
Bob Boudreau
That was a famous John Allen scene, too…but can you avoid mentioning him in any discussion of this kind? My favorite G&D scene pops up at the end of the Linn Westcott book: the “Gorre Live Steamers,” a tiny model railroad on a model railroad.
I can’t find a digital pic when I need it, but I built a rolling mini-scene last year: an old MDC boxcar with the doors open, and a group of hoboes confronting three chained convicts who had just climbed aboard - I thought of it after watching “O Brother, Where Art Thou?”
I kind of like action scenes myself, like kids playing baseball, firemen putting out an old building that’s ablaze, a fender bender at an intersection complete with traffic cop and wrecker and things like that. Busy little towns with a lot going on…
Tracklayer
Here’s one i did a few months ago, it’s a bunch of guys lifting a rail for a turnout that they will be changing soon on my layout
I have to admit to being a fan of Paul Templar’s work. It inspired me to do a redwood lumber layout.
More here:
http://www.cooncreek-and-tumbleweed-springs.co.uk/
My favorite of mine is below. But I have a couple others coming one of these days.
I haven’t got around to much scenery and people yet, but I plan to have an old engineer sittingon the bench. And in front of the bench are a couple of future railroaders (kids) listnening to him. Maybe a lady little ways off on the platform looking like she is looking for the kids. I hope it turns out when I do it, might not do it for years, but I like the idea.
I hadn’t seen Fundy’s painter before, but the Chattanooga Model Railroad has a scene where the guy painting the “See Rock City” barn roof had slipped, real similar to Bob’s version. I also haven’t seen it yet, but The Kid said when he went to Charlemagne’s Kingdom in Helen Georgia last time, there was a UFO crashed into the side of the mountain.
I’ve been looking at the UFO in the Walthers catalog for several years. One day I’m going to get it! Think I’ll set it in a field making “crop circles”.
One of my favorites was in one of the train magazines, or maybe the Walthers catalog, where the train was in the foreground, with the crew looking out towards a field, and a dinosaur in the field grazing!
Rotor
Harry Potter gets a lesson from old “Brakie.”
