scenery

Avoid positioning your backdrop images too high. If the horizon is above eye level, it won't look right to a person standing in front of the layout, and it especially won't look right when you put your camera down at track level.

Install your tunnel portals before you add the plaster and other scenic materials so you can better integrate the portal into the surrounding scenery. Unless the tunnel prototype you're modeling is brand-spanking-new, you shouldn't generally be able to see every edge of a portal that's at the bottom of a cut. Plus, you'll be able to fine-tune your train clearances more easily.

Modeling ideas and inspirations can come from worldwide prototypes. For example, in this photo of Japan Railway's Senzan Line, notice the heights of the foreground foliage and how the colors and heights all even out as they recede into the background. Also notice that even though the track is at the bottom of a cut in the terrain, it's still raised slightly forming drainage troughs along each side of the roadbed.

Railroads had signs for just about everything. Seen here in this private collection are signs that indicate locations where an engineer needs to blow the horn, vehicle traffic warning signs, a hazardous materials placard, and a few safety awareness signs.

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.

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.

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.

Who's waiting at the back of the cemetery for today's funeral?

What color is green? When you're adding scenery to your layout, slight variations in the colors will help give a more realistic appearance. This photo was taken in late May 2003 from the back of the Algoma Central's er Wisconsin Central's um Canadian National's train through Agawa Canyon.