Structures on the Union Pacific Cheyenne Division
John GrayDescription
The structures on John Gray’s Union Pacific Cheyenne Division layout are massive. It features huge engine facility buildings, huge car shops, a huge diesel facility and more. Allen Keller asks if they are exact models of the prototype. In the west, this is exactly what a person would see, large structure looming out in the middle of nowhere all by themselves. This is the impression that John has tried to translate on the railroad. In Cheyenne in those days, these were the largest buildings in town and they were impressive, looming over everything. Almost everything needed to be scratch built on the layout to achieve what John wanted. There were no available buildings that he could use, so they did use quite a bit of design preservation components to help build them. All of the other buildings were scratch built.
The backdrop was painted to help convey that distance and Steve was the artist who painted them. His expertise is airbrushing. Much of the work on the layout was airbrushed and then touched up with painters brushes. It was labor intensive, but John thinks they used the most efficient method. They built the layout first and then painted in the backdrops to blend the layout with the backdrop. In many places across the layout, it is difficult to tell where the layout ends and the backdrop begins because the colors match perfectly. Steve knelt on the layout on pads and painted the backdrop, as John describes it, “like the Sistine Chapel”. For more tips for creating structures or making structures from scratch, visit the Model Railroad Academy archives.
John, the structures that you do have on the layout are, I guess, what you would call massive. Huge engine facility buildings, huge car shops, a diesel facility. Everything is large. The coaling tower, everything is large. Are they all exact models of the prototype? In the west, this is exactly what you would see. You would see a large structure loom out in the middle of nowhere, all by itself, and that's the impression that you get here. In Cheyenne, in those days, these were the largest buildings in town, and they just loomed over everything. Well, how much scratch building was needed to do what you've done? Everything. Everything is scratch built. There were no available buildings. For the town of Cheyenne, we did use quite a bit of design preservation components to help build 'em, but all of the other buildings were all scratch built. Now, the backdrop was painted to help convey that distance. What was that all about? How was that done, and who did that? Well, Steve Lottie was the artist that did it, and Steve's expertise really is in airbrushing. And much of this work here was airbrushed and then touched up with painters brushes. Again, it was laborious. I don't know if there's any easier way to do it than the way we did it, which is we built the layout first, then we put the backdrops in so that you could blend the layout with the backdrop so that you can, in many places, as you look across this layout, it's very difficult to tell where the layout ends and the backdrops begin. Because the colors match perfectly. Perfectly, and that was because the layout was built first. Then Steve got up there on pads and painted this like the Sistine Chapel. A la Michelangelo. That's right.
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