Model Railroad Blog

New Horizons For The Sungas Scene

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Sungas on the Downtown Spur layout. I used a sky image from the actual site for the background.

For me, the best way to experience my layouts as if I were actually there is through photography. There are limits to how far squinting with one eye just above the layout will take you!

Realism of the model photos is greatly enhanced if you crop in a photo of an actual sky for the background. Looking back at past photos where I’ve done that, I’ve become less than satisfied with how a number of them turned out. The horizon line was the problem. In many cases, I have prototype photos of the area I’ve modeled. Why not use those for the background I crop in?

Base photo of the model before cropping in the sky.

I had to work for this one, trial and error with two cellphones and my Canon Rebel. As usual the iPhone 6 gave the most realistic perspective. I left the overhead room fluorescents on but most of the light and shadows came from a 500w photo flood about four feet to the right. This image is a composite of four images combined with Helicon Focus.

Next, I went back to my rail fan files and found this image taken from 30th Avenue, the prototype location I was modeling. The main thing I wanted was the horizon with the containers and orange warehouse. I needed to copy/paste over the tank cars in the right so they wouldn’t show up.

All I had to do at this point was remove the background of my model photo and copy/paste it over the prototype scene. I use a Corel program for background removal but if you fiddle with the new AI tools those will work too.

A Morning at Poorhouse Yard

I’d be hard-pressed to think of a location where you’re virtually guaranteed of seeing more intense switching action than Poorhouse Yard in York, PA. Both NS and York Rail have yards in town, Windsor Street and Lincoln, respectively. Every weekday morning, starting at around 8 am, they exchange cars back and forth at Poorhouse, located between Lincoln and Windsor in York’s historic district. One minute you’re shooting NS power, twenty minutes later it’s York Rail. Back and forth, non-stop. What’s especially nice is that all of this can be taken in simply by standing on public property at the crossing at North Queen Street.

In the image above, NS SD60E (ex Conrail) is hard at work. The old Ma and Pa line can be seen splitting off on the right just in front of the tower. About twenty minutes after taking this shot, the NS unit had gone back to Windsor Street and York Rail re-appeared on the scene.

Queen Street (where I took the photo) runs north/south on the left side of the photo. Poorhouse Yard sits on the south side of the wye and is in the upper right.

Railroading

Spending eight hours a day in front of the computer working on the latest book got to the point where my eyes were glazing over, and I was going stir crazy. The Tuesday weather forecast called for perfection. I decided to call in sick and make the ninety-minute drive up to York, PA. Once the capital of the US, it’s a fascinating town, and the switching action up there is intense. Everything unfolds in a fairly small area, so you’re virtually guaranteed of seeing something cool every trip.

As usual, the rail gods decided to dick with me and play a game of cat and mouse. I would get to location A only to see the train leaving for B. I’d go to B, and it was heading back to A.

I finally caught up to the York Rail job switching E3 Logistics, a food supplier. It brought home again the vast disconnect between the pace of actual railroading vs. how model railroaders do things…slot car style. The job was to spot a massive reefer inside the structure.

I have a bad habit of getting into mission mode sometimes. I wanted a passing shot heading to the west, where the lighting would be perfect. Not so fast. Railroading doesn’t work like that. I had to remind myself that the weather was perfect, I had a train in front of me, and no schedule or place to be.

The entire process took a good fifteen minutes. They backed up to the fence. The conductor had to walk a quarter mile and unlock the gate. I think he had to unlock and throw a switch, also. Then the rollup door had to be opened. Wow, those suckers are slow! Finally….they backed in…and stopped. I waited…and waited….and waited. What the hell are they doing in there? Finally, they pulled forward beyond the gate. More waiting….and waiting. I saw the door close. Through the telephoto, I could see him lock the gate. More waiting. What is he doing back there? Finally, I could see him walking the quarter mile back to the loco. Walking, not jogging.

After what seemed like an eternity, bossman gets back to the train.

Fifteen minutes later, they were moving again and, finally….I got the passing shot I wanted. Real railroaders aren’t slot car racers.

Hue and Saturation

The following is an excerpt from my upcoming book, “Student to Master, The Lifelong Pursuit of Model Railroading Excellence”.

Historically, model railroaders have had a love affair with deeply saturated, vivid, primary colors. However, that doesn’t square with the world we model, a world typified by earth tones, pastels, and desaturation. It’s also a world where, as you add distance and atmosphere, the color spectrum slides further to grays and browns.

We can improve the realism of our work significantly if we model this reality. Also, if we have a layout canvas that is, say, ninety percent earth tones and pastels, when we do add a touch of primary hues, they really snap. Note the red curbs and sign.

Most Days, No Trains

In some ways, many ways, rail fanning is like fishing. There’s no guarantee you’ll catch something on any given day. In fact, most of the time I don’t. I’m fine with that and enjoy the experience of simply being rail-side and taking in the environment just the same. That’s what I’m used to and like to reflect that in my model photos. The above image is an opposite end view of my newly completed warehouse for the LAJ extension. I intentionally did not include rolling stock. The crossbuck, windows, and loading doors are all prototype photos printed to scale and glued in place. I’ll address the core strategy and concepts I employed here in my upcoming book.

The iPhone 6 seems to do the best job of capturing the perspective of actually being there. I did some research and found that it’s comparable to a 28mm lens. I’m skeptical. At any rate, even if I went out and bought a 28mm lens for my Canon Rebel, I wouldn’t be able to get it into as many locations as the phone. It’s physically too large and the lens sits too high.

I’ve been increasingly aware of, and picky, with the sky/horizon images I crop into the model photos. I’m finding the best look is when you have a color gradient ranging from almost white at the horizon to a darker (but not too dark) blue the higher up you pan. No dramatic or puffy clouds. I’m also noticing that the images look better if you have just the edge of horizon on the sky photo you use. Just a little. Note the electrical towers in this case. It could also be a tree line.

I had been putting off using Google Streetview to capture sky photos, but have done a 180 on that. The screen captures of Streetview aren’t as vivid and crisp as what you’d get with your camera. That may be a good thing, a better look. Having a slightly hazy diffuse appearance actually looks better I think.

Here’s the screen capture I used taken from a bridge across the LA River. I did some light editing but not much. Feel free to download and use it if you want to.