Scenery planning

[barney121e]

Hi

 

So i have a trackplan i am happy with. So my thoughts now turn to scenery. So i guess track underlay and ballasting is first thing to do, but curious how others approach scenery planning.

 

Cheers

[HillsideDepot]

For me (and perhaps, only me!) track and scenery planning go hand in hand. 

 

I consider how the railway is going to exit to the fiddle yard; I prefer a road bridge to a tunnel as the former are far more numerous on the real thing. But how does that bridge link into the rest of the layout? Is it a road bridge or a footpath? What about the heights of the surrounding land?

 

What about the station? Where on the platform is the building, and how does that relate to any roads I might have. Does the station have a car park? A bus turning circle? A taxi rank? A dock for (road) parcel vans to back up to? You might not have space for all of these, even if your station needs them, but consider what happens beyond the baseboard, and how that would link together in the real world.

 

The same with the goods yard, engine shed or whatever facilities you have. How do road vehicles gain access? What about a crane? Staff room? Office? A car park for recent times, perhaps a bike shed years ago.

 

Also think about what was there before the railway, and how the railway grew and developed over the years, and perhaps how it then contracted again if you're modelling something more recent. All of that is, to me, part of scenery planning.

 

Presumably when you designed your track plan you had a list of "must haves" and list of "nice to haves". Do the same with the scenery. A factory might give you the opportunity to have a really detailed yard, full of materials and finished product, even if the factory building is only low relief. Or a row of houses could have really detailed gardens. Then consider the heights of the scenery, do you want to partially block the trains, so that they run behind and between buildings? Or are the trains the attraction, with scenery muted and in the background so as not to distract from the trains?

 

Finally, look at the real thing. The internet is a vast resource of photos. I'm at the early stages of planning a big layout, I have my basic location (North Devon), I have an era (early to mid 1970s) and I have a pretty clear idea of what I want to build. But I have an ongoing quest for photos of suitable real locations in the era I'm modelling. OK, as you go further back photos are lower in quality and fewer in number but there are lots of more recent photos which will serve as a good indication of years past. When I save an on-line photo (but obviously only for my own personal use) I usually give it a filename which reflects why I saved it - "lamps around telegraph pole", "carriage end board on platform", "track litter" and so on. All slowly building up to when I will actually build the layout and get into the detailing.  

 

But that's just the way I do it!