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For anyone modelling the South-west USA around the begining of the 20th century


shortliner

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If you need to know what the countryside in that area looked like back then....... this is what I forwarded to OG when I picked up the first post on The Gauge Forum

 

http://www.the-gauge.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=5993

 

I looked on Youtube and there are a heap of trailers - the scenery is superb, and might be useful for "Once upon a time....." BTW there are trains!

 

A couple of examples. but there are a whole lot more- scroll at the right hand side

 

 

 

This is in Spanish - but the scenery is good

 

 

Have fun!

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It's not all desert. Flagstaff is home to the biggest forest of Ponderosa Pines in the world and way back had an amazing collection of NG logging lines. As I said before it's all dependent on elevation. Outside of Flagstaff the elevation drops from 7,000 feet rather quickly to High Desert (no Saguaro's!), then down to Low Desert around Phoenix (that has Saguaros).

 

Best, Pete.

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Ian, last time I flew into Phoenix it was 114f when I picked up the car, 90 minutes later in Flagstaff it was a pleasant 86f. A couple of years ago Flagstaff picked up 5 feet of snow in a 12 hour period! I could live in Sedona, which is halfway between the two (elevation not miles).

 

Best, Pete.

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Pete

 

Flagstaff is more my sort of climate as dont mind the snow.

 

Phoenix is way too hot for me.

 

Last year we flew into Phoenix late at night and it was still arounf 100 degrees. Luckily we flew out fairly early the next morning to Santa Barbara, just before that huge dust storm that hit Phoenix!!

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As I said before it's all dependent on elevation. Outside of Flagstaff the elevation drops from 7,000 feet rather quickly to High Desert (no Saguaro's!), then down to Low Desert around Phoenix (that has Saguaros).

 

But what if you are modeling a generic desert? Or is keeping track of where the suguaros are too nit-picky? 8-)

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Actually I was being generic Dave, by basing my observations on just where one finds Saguaros - which is being very simplistic - they are just highly visible.

You have to be much cleverer than me to figure out the various kinds of brush (such as you see in Ian's photo,which is very nice by the way) that do look very similar across the different elevations.

 

Best, Pete.

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The whole shield that Flagstaff rests on is the remnant of one very old "Supervolcano" - if it had not blown it's top off (above where the ski lifts are now) it would have been the tallest peak in North America (according to some estimates).

You can see approx. 1,500 volcanos in the area of Flagstaff most of which are cinder cones and dormant. The one closest to I40 as you leave Flagstaff heading east has actually been sold to a road re-surfacing company and you can see their large trucks spiralling around the base on most days collecting the cinders.

 

If you missed it the best route to the Grand Canyon from Flagstaff is the one to the East that heads towards Cameron. It is a spectacular route that goes past the Little Grand Canyon (I can't remember its correct name). Turn left just before the "trading post" at Cameron.

 

If you drove from Flagstaff to Albuquerque you passed the "Painted Desert" - which is worth a stop if only to see the biggest Dust Devils I've ever seen (around midday). I haven't bothered stopping at the Winslow meteor crater to be honest.....

The town of Holbrook is interesting in a Western '50's way too!

Great watching the BNSF mainline all the way to Gallup NM isn't it?

 

Best, Pete.

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Pete

 

Yes think we did those routes on our travels.

 

We went through the Petrified Forest and viewed the Painted desert form a vantage point. We also got quite a few shots of BNSF trains along this route including some from the moving car whilst I was not behind the wheel!!

 

Ian

post-1557-0-28703900-1348238336_thumb.jpg

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