Bob Brown

Scenery on the Tuolumne Forks Model Railroad

Bob Brown
Duration:   2  mins

Description

Narrow gauge modeler Bob Brown is often asked why there are no mountains on his Tuolumne Forks model railroad when it is a mining and logging layout. The answer is that mountains take up a lot of space on a ¼ inch scale model. What Brown enjoys most about his scenery is the buildings, so he has kept his layout fairly flat for that reason. He enjoys most the building and running of nice trains through nice scenes. So far, he has not done much operation on his railroad, but may start operating in the future.

Brown goes on to discuss his scenery techniques. Brown believes that it is important to keep the colors muted in a layout and to blend all scenery together. Trees and buildings are used as scenic blocks. Brown uses standard scenery techniques such as crumpled paper in different components, but instead of hydrocal plaster, he uses textured paint. The papers are dipped in the texture paint and placed over the scenery shell. This material works like plaster but is not as hard. Dirt is mixed with water and white glue to create mud and brushed on to make a nice ground surface. The Tuolumne Forks model railroad scenery features a lot of loose poured on material that is after secured down with white glue.

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Bob, why don't you have any mountains on the railroad since you have mining? Well, mountains in quarter-inch scale, take up a lot of space and what I enjoy most are buildings. And so in order to get enough room for buildings, I kept the layout fairly flat. Jack Bridges and I kid a lot about this because I usually if I go about an inch off the ground, my scenery doesn't look too good. So I tend to deal with clutter and the little details on the ground. Even though as soon as you leave, I am going to tear out one end of the room and put some mountains in. Put some mountains in. You gotta be forced to it. That's right. People are shaming you. Is that because you're doing logging and no mountains? There's no mountains. Yeah, what are your thoughts on scenery? Now you have a beautifully scenic layout that uses a lot of, I suppose, the ordinary techniques that we all use but it's beautifully done. What do you think people should do with machinery? How should, what should they try to accomplish with scenery? I think it's important that they keep the colors muted and blend them together. Often people will say two Alamy forks and blends together nicely. Uh huh. I also try and use a scenery as scenic blocks but in my case, I've used trees to do this or large buildings rather than mountains. I tried some blocking with mountains in here once but I just don't have the space to put mountains in. And I happen to believe scenery is important. I like to run nice trains through nice scenes. Uh huh. That's what I enjoy. And I would characterize my layout as kind of an operating diorama. What I enjoy most is building and running the trains through the scenes so far. Maybe down the line, I'll start operating. What about some of your scenery techniques? Well, as you say, they're pretty standard. I use the crumpled paper and I usually use, I don't like... Hydrocal, it's hard to get out here so I don't use it but I use texture cement or texture paint, I should say texture paint. And I dipped the papers in the texture paint and dripping up, putting it over on the scenery shell. And it works just like plaster. It works just like plaster but it's a little soft, not quite as hard. I've also done something. It might be a little different and I will take my dirt and I will mix it with water and white glue and I make mud. And then I will brush that on the surface and it gives a very nice ground surface. Oh! And there's a lot of loose material on the layout in that it is poured on and then white glue down which is a traditional way to go.
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