cutting through the landscape

[nest]

Hi guys

 

I was thinking away earlier about scenery on my own layout and trying to get contours to look right etc. when a thought struck me. As we are all aware, the real life railway was quite literally cut through the landscape. So the thought was this, has anyone built a mode landscape and then cut the railway through that. Just like the real thing.

It is of course a silly idea but might be quite a fun experiment.

 

Nestor

 

p.s Wasn't sure where I would put this on the site, hope it's okay

[HSB]

I seem to remember somebody was having a go some years back - could have been in a US magazine. The trouble is that you are not digging through earth and rock and using prototype methods of construction. Building a solid and level track base after you've built the scenery could be problematical.

The real problem in getting convincing scenic contours comes from the fact that most modellers tend to plonk everything down on a flat board and then add scenery as an afterthought with everything either flat and level with the track or just climbing above track level. In real life a lot of track is above the level of the surrounding countryside so this should be mirrored in models but it means planning the scenery at the same time as the trackplan and before the baseboards are built.

[Catkins]

The other way could be to draw a map of the area that your model runs through, and on that map you put in contour lines then any watercourses, roadways, settlements and then see where the railway line could run. Once you've done all that you could then do an open frame baseboard, that would include all the right contours for the scenery.

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

It is an attractive idea. Reckon one way to do it might be to build an open frame, and then sandwich the track base between low density foam sheets easily cut with a hot wire. That way you can shape the natural landform, then cut through it down to the track base wherever the landform profile is above the track base to create the cutting. This way you have a level high integrity track base, rather than the tricky job of levelling a cut.

[Oldddudders]

Not silly. Anything that helps you to feel you've maxed the modelling opportunity is just fine. In the case of Sandhurst, well the ruling gradient from Paddock Wood to Hawkhurst was mainly uphill - but from Cranbrook to the terminus was mainly 1 in 80 downhill, and onwards to Sandhurst would probably have been level to downhill, too. I am under the impression that the Cranbrook to Hawkhurst section was mainly below road level, although it then emerged a bit to cross Slip Mill Road, which my wife used daily in the early '90s.

 

Taking Catkins's point, at least looking into the way the countryside would have looked, and using open-top baseboard construction might help you to build-in a feel of realism.

[nest]

Some interesting points there guys.

With Sandhurst I've already started the scenery, this idea came about whilst talking to a friend about landscape modelling. I would love to see someone try it, maybe I will at some point.

With my most recent layout (Sandhurst) I planned the scenery whilst I was planning the track to try and give it that feeling of being cut through, so things like the placement of trees and hedges on both sides of the track (such as a hedge continuing on the opposite side if that makes sense? )

 

Cheers guys

 

Nestor

[Geoff Endacott]

We pretty much did that with Highbridge Road. The contours of the landscape were formed with chicken wire before the trackbed was added. We cut into the terrain to form the cutting and added the embankment above the level of the land.

 

Geoff Endacott

[stewartingram]

Not quite what you intended, but a funny story none the less....

 

A good mate of mine for many years (I won't name him to save embarresment) had one of his "buying" (or more like "acquiring") sessions, coming away with a goodly amount of Wrenn fibre based track and a few other oddments. A layout was soon constructed for a pittance, basically a roundy with a hill in the middle constructed from scrap polystyrene, carved with the "Sunday best" roast knife.

Anyway, not long into this, he decided he wanted to run some Marklin continental locos on this layout. Now for the uninitiated, Marklin are centre-stud contact (ie basically 3-rail) locos which work on AC. Muggins here had been chosen to convert them to DC working (not exactly difficult to do) so they effectively became Hornby Dublo Continentals!. One of them was an 0-8-0T with a fairly long rigid wheelbase, it went round 8" curves corners on this layout. Oh this was fun!

However a problem arose, the slightly tubby continental stock was now catching on the polystyrene hillside, so a bit of carving was called for. No, not the stock - the hillside. No, not the slope of the hill, but the base! This was probably a 2-3ft diameter hill, so how to do it? In the church premises we used as a clubroom, we found....an old electric fire, the sort with a 1kW wound wire element, along with a transformer with open tags, about 1ft cube in size. I seem to recall it was a 1:1 isolation transformer, or maybe 2:1?, so it had either 240v AC or 120vAC on its output side - with exposed terminals........

I think you can guess what is coming?

 

The electric fire element was unwound. With assistance from other club members with pliers (insulated of course), it was stretched taut over a pair of bricks laid on the floor. The ends were wrapped round the transformer tags and held with pliers. The power was turned on, ...........did the earth move for us? You bet it did. Slowly but surely the mountain was pushed against the heated wire, cutting the base of it off. Result was a smaller diameter hill to fit on the baseboard!

 

DON'T TRY THIS AT HOME!

 

Stewart

[BigMal]

The system was partly used on Crumley and Little Wickhill as the track plan was modified and re-aligned several times during construction to ensure the scenic hillsides and valley looked "right" from both ends of the layout.

 

Mal

['CHARD]

The other way could be to draw a map of the area that your model runs through, and on that map you put in contour lines then any watercourses, roadways, settlements and then see where the railway line could run. Once you've done all that you could then do an open frame baseboard, that would include all the right contours for the scenery.

 

I am a huge advocate of that idea.  The planning stages of my Border country challenge (currently under revision as I am moving to SMP track and altering the plan drastically), involve me re-routing the main line across actual OS maps (a couple of military sheets I picked up at the WRHA Whitrope base) and working out how the alternative trackbed would have appeared amid local topography.