The Rip Track

When you start on building the scenery in your city or industrial areas, make some cardboard and paper mockups of the structures that you want to include. The mockups can help you determine if the structures you want are the right shape and size for your layout; if you use the DPM wall templates, you'll even know what you need to buy to build them.

An initial wash with diluted water based acrylics makes your cars look like they've been on the road for a few months. The color collects in the crevices and makes the details stand out more clearly. The photo shows a before and after view of this technique applied to a pair of N scale boxcars.

So we're at the NMRA Midwest Region convention and we get to talking about modeling scales. There was a preponderance of N scalers in our bunch, so we came up with these:

• Z = Zany
• N = Normal, Nice or Neat
• TT = Totally Terrible
• HO = Horribly Oversized
• S = Strange
• O = Outrageous
• G = Gross

Jointed rail was normally made in 39 foot lengths so it would fit in a 40 foot gondola, but shorter lengths can be found in use. Prototype railroads used whatever lengths they had. If you're modeling jointed rail, include a few shorter pieces near the foreground for extra detail.

Don't throw away the ties that you cut off your flex track when you're adding rail joiners. Bury a short row of ties in your scenery to show where track "used to be". These ties are at the Mid-Continent Railway Museum in North Freedom, Wisconsin.

Did you know that the busiest interlocking tower in Chicago isn't on one of the freight railroads? It's this cantilevered tower at the northwest corner of The Loop (as seen from the rear of a passing El train in 2004).

Use a light-colored paint to recolor some of the roof hatches on your covered hoppers. This is an easy way to simulate a replacement roof hatch without actually replacing them. Would you believe that the photo shows N scale models?

I recently finished reading Playing With Trains - A Passion Beyond Scale by Sam Posey. I received a paperback copy of the book as a Christmas gift this year, and as I had just finished reading Rumpole and The Penge Bungalow Murders, another similarly sized book seemed to fit well into my reading list. Overall, the book was a pleasant diversion through one man's experiences in learning about model railroading and building his own home layout, but I was left both wanting to read more about the layout and with a rather pessimistic view of the hobby's future.

When you're adding signs to your layout, add a couple older logos and slogans for your railroad on some bridges to give the layout a sense of history. This bridge was photographed along the waterfront in Toronto in summer 2004.

Make your streets narrower and the details smaller as they approach the backdrop and they will appear longer to your viewers. You can also help the illusion by matching the angles in your backdrop image.