Model Railroad Blog

Scene Composition

A southbound local passes bridge E8, south of Bloomington, IN on my old N scale layout. I devoted a full thirteen feet to this ‘boring’ scene. There were no industries, no turnouts, nothing but the field and stream modeled as they actually appeared.

Of all of the factors that contribute to realism, at the top of the list is scene composition, the size, shape, location and distance between elements we put on our layouts. It also refers to which elements we chose to place in a scene. Have you ever been riveted by a cleanly executed architectural model? Even if the model is all white or gray, you are drawn in because it is perfectly composed. Such models drive home the impact of getting it right. If you don’t get it right, it can be hard to compensate regardless of how well you perform the rest of your efforts.

Element Spacing – Crop, don’t compress

At the top of the list is the spacing we place between elements. This is where modelers typically put themselves behind the eight ball right out of the box. Given our limited space, obviously there will have to be some compression. However, if you take compression too far and place your elements too close together, your scene suffers. Such overly compressed scenes are probably the single largest error model railroaders make. There are so many interesting things to include on our layouts it’s only natural to try to include as many as possible. It takes self-discipline and a leap of faith but, if you can accept the fact that you can’t have it all, incorporate fewer elements, and space them further apart you’ll be amply rewarded. A few things done well are much more powerful than a lot of things done not so well.

Pictured above is a typical agricultural scene found throughout the country. Diagram 1 shows the scene drawn to scale. Note the ample space between elements. Given our real world of limited modeling room, the natural tendency is to eliminate the open spaces between elements (diagram 2). The typical model railroad mindset is to preserve and incorporate all elements at any visual cost necessary. Unfortunately these open spaces are what defined the scene and we’ve just eliminated them. With the open spaces eliminated, the modeler then compresses everything into the space available. The results is a typical, overly compressed, model railroad scene and not a “model of a railroad”.

If in fact realism is the key, if you do indeed want to have the real world in your basement, difficult choices need to be made. Cool stuff needs to be scratched from the docket. Realism is achieved by cropping away items you don’t have room for and maintaining space between those that do remain. Crop, don’t compress. You can’t have it all, it’s just a fact of modeling life. However, if you don’t try to ‘have it all’, you’ll ultimately be richly rewarded with doing justice to the items you do decide to incorporate.

Element Selection – Document, don’t judge

Another aspect of scene composition centers around the elements we chose to place in our scenes. Are you a ‘cherry picker’ or a journalist? Do you pick and chose which elements to include based upon how interesting you think they are or do you document what is actually there without judgment? If realism is your goal, simply copying what is actually there is the ticket. It’s also much easier. The moment we start having a beauty contest is the moment the scene starts looking like a typical model railroad. Model the mundane. Model what’s there. There is also a hidden payoff here. In many cases, elements that at first glance you had written off as boring, upon closer examination turn out to be understated gems .

The diagram above illustrates a typical rail side scene. Some buildings are interesting, some not so much. A ragged field and empty lot are front and center. The houses aren’t particularly dramatic, probably one or two story white clapboard with their backs facing the right of way. There is a rail side structure that, horror of horrors, doesn’t receive rail service. In other words it’s a typical scene. The modeling path is extremely simple. Just copy it, as it is, without judgment. Unfortunately, doing so make many modelers break out in hives. Anything that approaches the mundane is eliminated. Empty space is considered wasted space (figure 2). Boring elements and open space are eliminated. All industries must be served by rail. The Walthers catalog is pulled out and every nook and cranny is filled with caricatures. The end result again is a model railroad and not a “model of a railroad”.

Slow down, take a breath, take in your surroundings and train yourself to appreciate the ordinary, understated beauty that comprises the ACTUAL rail scene we love so much.

Pacific Forest Inc.

Post author By Lmind1
Post date December 8, 2015
Categories In Construction, Los Angeles Junction Railway

On the southwest corner of Everett Avenue and The Horn Lead is an interesting brick structure housing Pacific Forest Inc. I’ve photo edited, enhanced, and cleaned up the images so they can be used for photo wallpaper. I’m including the images for anybody else that wants to use them.

Using the brick courses for scaling, the structure measures out to fifteen feet tall. That means you would want to print it out a height of 2.125″. I suggest printing out three copies of each so that you can cut out the windows and trim and laminate the various pieces to build some depth. Use glossy photo paper, set your printer on “best”, print it out and then dull the images with Krylon matte preservative. Attach the laminate sheets to your styrene core with 3M Super 77.

Federal Storage Right of Way

Post author By Lmind1
Post date December 6, 2015
Categories In Construction, Los Angeles Junction Railway

I’ve finished ballasting and scenicing the right of way along the Federal Cold Storage Spur. As a few others have mentioned, I find hand laying track to be very relaxing, particularly (or especially!) when you don’t have that much of it to do. Because they’re painted a darker color, the Proto:87 etched tie plates aren’t really visible. Of more importance is what you don’t see; oversized spikes and/or the absence of tie plates. I also used a new technique with the grass. Rather than mixing the green in with the beige prairie grass, I laid the prairie grass first. I then masked off a few short sections here and there with paper towels and dusted on the green so you have more distinct borders between the green and beige. Here’s the overall sequence.

Ballast track
Mask off track with thin strips of paper towels damped with a mister bottle
Lay down a base layer of Heki Prairie Grass (pn 3363) using a static grass applicator
Follow up with a layer of 6mm Silflor “Autumn” grass
Mask off short sections of the prairie grass here and there and dust on a green blend
Work in tufts of green and brown poly fiber pushed into the foam scenery base with tweezers
I added a few stalks of natural materials from the moss in my backyard. You have to use natural materials judiciously and sparingly as most are often oversize.
Seal with dilute matte medium applied with a mister bottle.
Remove paper towel masks.

Taking photos of your work and blowing it up can be a great aid in pointing out things that need to be fixed. The original base rail paint consisting of rail brown dusted with camo. paint was way too uniform in color. I went back and mixed up a blend of brown and rust color (10 brown to 1 rust) weathering powders and worked them into the rail web and tie plates with an old brush. The final chalk application made a big difference.

Capturing the Essence of a “Place”

Post author By Lmind1
Post date December 4, 2015
Categories In Los Angeles Junction Railway, Model Railroad Design

Topic: Model Railroad Design

The ultimate model railroad design goal? Capturing the essential elements of a scene successfully enough that you have the sense of “being there”. It’s an elusive target because hitting it is hard to break down into a step by step, “how to” sequence. At the root of the problem is the harsh reality that a scene we want to capture may be thousands of feet or even miles long and the space we have available is measured in feet. Picking which elements to incorporate, which to omit, and compressing the scene so the basic essence is communicated is an art. Even so, there are some general guidelines which can help. Employ the guidelines as a rough starting point, edit with the eyeball test, and with experience your results will gradually improve over time.

As a beginning point we need to identify those elements that put the signature stamp on a scene. What makes it unique and says, “This is LA not, Miami”. Scene composition is tricky because often it is the mundane, not the extraordinary that is the largest contributor to the overall effect we are after. Without the plain vanilla background canvas there is no contrast to make the signature elements stand out. Mundane elements are nondescript warehouses, industries that aren’t rail served, abandoned tracks, single story plain white homes, vacant lots, things that comprise the majority of the acreage we are used to seeing when we are out in the world. It takes an enormous amount of self discipline to draw a line in the sand when it comes to the mix of ordinary vs. signature elements, to put that gray warehouse or vacant lot where you’d love to put the newest, over the top offering from the Walthers catalog.

What is the ideal mix? Nobody can give an exact answer but a reasonable starting point would be a ratio of twenty percent signature structures to eighty percent mundane. Mock your scene up using this as a starting point,see how it looks, and adjust from there.

In the case of the Los Angeles Junction Railway layout I had a few hard limits going in. Limitations are good as they reign you in. I only had room for a narrow, nine and half foot long shelf with a four foot L on the end. No wiggle room for any other bench work shapes. I want to model the modern era, modern being defined as something in the last four or five years.

After literally months of pouring over aerials of the prototype, I settled on a spur called “The Horn Lead”. While other regions of the LAJ had the distinctive spaghetti bowl, concrete canyon, and complex track work that is so appealing, I didn’t have the width to make that work. In addition, most if not all, of the industries in the “interesting parts” of the system are no longer rail served. The Horn Lead is a straight east to west shot that fits well on a shelf and is an area that still has the older architecture.

Given my extreme space limitations, I decided to follow the strategy that worked so well for East Rail, go with a proto freelance approach. Stick to industries that actually exist in the area but allow myself some flexibility to shuffle things around a bit. As just mentioned, the trick, the art form, is to pick a combination of elements that provide a good balance of signature and mundane. The map above highlights some of the key structures and streets. You have to take a really hard look, examine hundreds of photos to eventually put your finger on what makes the Horn Lead what it is.

An arrow straight, east to west, three track right of way consisting of a “main” and spurs on each side.
Virtually all of the spurs have been abandoned.
Remnants of track and turnouts still remain where track has been abandoned
Palms lining the right of way.
Concrete pavement that has taken a severe battering and contains a spider web of cracks
Unique gray, white, and pastel one story brick structures.
Although the street/sidewalk side of the industries are old they are in immaculate condition. Walk around to the rail side of the same structure and they are ragged beyond belief.
The iconic Federal Cold Storage structure at the end of the line to the west.

Facing west down the Horn Lead while standing in District Blvd. Note the three track wide right of way, abandoned spurs, and palm.

Near the western most end of the line facing east. 4722 Everett Ave. is visible in several YouTube videos.

Corona Avenue facing east. Note the distinctive, one story, art deco look, and palms.

Gifford and 50th Street. Note the battered pavement and one story art deco. architecture.

As tidy as the public faces of the structures are, the rail side is another story. Call it “multi-textured and modelgenic”.

Looming on the western horizon is the iconic Federal Cold Storage structure.

Here’s how I’ve interpreted and pulled it all together. My space only allows the “L” to bend to the right/north as opposed to the left which would be more prototypical. The space you have is the space you have.

Layout Sound

Post author By Lmind1
Post date December 2, 2015
Categories In Sound

Topic: Model Railroad Sound

Hierarchy, Vantage Point, and Why We Are Approaching the Whole Shebang the Wrong Way

There are two reasons we build model railroads, the satisfaction of assembly and the desire to be transported, transported to a time, place, or operational system that evokes strong emotions. The better our modeling, the more effective we are at immersing ourselves in our miniature world. The nature of railroading is such that sound is a major player in this quest. This is particularly apparent when rail fanning where the sound is so distinctive and overpowering that it becomes the dominant sensory experience. Sound isn’t an afterthought, an accessory tacked on at the last moment in the same manner you might treat carpeting for the layout room . Modelers tend to view it that way though, either they ‘have sound’ or they don’t with no real thought or care as to the acoustic quality.

Sound Hierarchy

Good modelers are taught that the key to realism is to model the ordinary. Model the typical. It’s the best advice you can be given. The same applies to sound. You don’t model the acoustic trick of the month, you model the dominant sounds and ideally you model them to your utmost ability given the confines of current technology. Realistic sound is not a cacophony of birds, sawmills, car horns, waterfalls etc. Taking that approach is analogous to the layout with the band in the square, carousel, pier, and coal mine jammed into a spaghetti bowl four by eight. Prototypical sound is essentially the sound of a prime mover occasionally interrupted by flange squeal, the horn, and the bell. Even if there are other sounds in the vicinity, the primer mover unloads so much audio power that everything else is drowned out and become irrelevant anyway.

We need to look at the sound spectrum from a different point of view. Not all sounds are of equal value or importance. They aren’t, some are much more important. By far and away the sound of the locomotive prime mover is at the top of the list. A distance second would be the horn, bell, crew radio chatter and perhaps flange squeal. It’s not a game of how many sounds your system can produce, it’s a game of how well your system can reproduce the dominant sound, the prime mover. In fact, you could live with less fidelity from the horn, bell, etc. Prime movers require bass and we need a system, a method that can deliver it effectively. Note that I said method, not decoder.

Vantage Point

The second area that needs a hard look is the vantage point we have when experiencing sound. The time we are most focused on prototype operations and experiencing sound is when we are rail fanning (in person or via video). In this instance we are generally within a hundred feet of the prime mover, stationary, not circling overhead in a helicopter. And this is critical, nine times out of ten we hear one train and one train only. We don’t hear our train plus trains and locomotive in the neighboring cities. Even if there is another train nearby, the one closest to us is so loud it drowns the others out. The point is this, hearing the sounds of locomotives in multiple trains in multiple locations is very unrealistic. On layouts where there is a problem of too much sound in close proximity the owner will combat the issue by turning the sound of his locomotives down very low. To me this sort of defeats the purpose. Now we have a problem. We want to model one of two perspectives, a rail fan within a hundred feet of the track or a member of the crew working in or near the equipment. On board speakers simply don’t do that.

We’re approaching the whole shebang the wrong way.

When sound first came out it seems that without so much as a second thought a delivery system was selected using onboard locomotive speakers. Nobody questioned it then and nobody questions it now. I question it because frankly onboard speakers simply can’t deliver the same sound experience as other methods. Under table speakers are a step in the right direction but there is a big problem there and it’s sound direction. It becomes very apparent that the sound and locomotive are in two different places.

When it comes to layout types, large, multi-train/multi-operator layouts are the most well known. However, on a national basis they aren’t the most prevalent. The most common situation is the person that operates by themselves or one or two others the vast majority of the time. Given that’s the case, maybe we should target the most common layout type and operating situation when it comes to sound.

Headphones

The more I play around with headphone sound the more I’m convinced it’s the way to go for most situations in terms of acoustic quality and the vantage point issue (they aren’t practical for the large layout with frequent op. sessions with numerous attendees). When compared to onboard speakers, high quality headphones are in a different world when it comes to quality . In addition, the wrap around/cupping effect of headphones produces a much less compromised path to the ear drum than going through a plastic locomotive shell, through the air, and then to your ear. The directionality problem is solved because the sound goes with you as you walk.

Until recently, I viewed the sense of isolation as the biggest drawback with headphones. You can’t hear anything else. It’s you and the prime mover. You can’t hear your crew, you can’t hear your guests, and you can’t hear your wife yelling downstairs that it’s time to visit the mother in law (drawback or blessing, you decide).

There’s a solution to the isolation problem and I think it will be a game changer. It’s called a mixer. By inserting a mixer before the headphones other sounds can be ‘mixed’ in. Crew radios are one big example of something that could be cut in and heard through the headphones. That solves the isolation problem as everybody with headphones hears the show. Headphones aren’t cheap but we need to be realistic. How often will you need more than one? Four times a year? Six? Even then it would probably on be one or two extra people.

Another advantage of headphone sound, if we ever move in that direction, is that we are no longer confined to the small space inside an engine shell for the components. Going off board means we have space for larger, higher quality audio components such as amplifiers. Instead of sound decoders we could have dedicated sound processors. Going this direction would be an economic boon to the sound decoder manufactures.