Hello,
I'm planning on incorporating a canyon into my layout. The scenery will go all of the way to the floor. The floor itself will be a river, which will be painted as I will have to walk on it. It will be about 1 - 1 1/2 foot wide. There will be a steep canyon on either side of the river running up to around 40 inches from the floor.
I'm just generally wondering if anyone has any experience and suggestions for doing this type of thing. The painted floor doesn't sound all of that appealing in particular but I will definitely need to walk on it.
Thanks,
Pete
Interesting plan! I'd like to see the finished article.
Forum member Arthill has some spectacular gorge scenery. Maybe he'll have some ideas.
Mike
Modelling the UK in 00, and New England - MEC, B&M, D&H and Guilford - in H0
I believe John Allan had done just what you want to do.
I have never personally seen anyone who did the scenery-to-the-floor conxcept actually model the river at the bottom of the canyon; it's just sort of assumed the river is there.
Then again, your version is pretty small, so I'm thinking you won't be walking in there very frequently. (If you do, you're going to be unhappy walking between scenery 12 to 18" wide.)
If your question is "can a painted floor stand up to being walked on" the answer is yes.
My train room is a two car garage. Before it was a train room, it was the camera room when I did professional photography. Because my backdrops had to roll out on the floor, I painted the floor with epoxy paint so that it would be mopable.
Many people have been walking on it for years and it is holding up just fine.
Arthill has a gorge that goes all the way to the floor.
Dave
Lackawanna Route of the Phoebe Snow
There was a article about 1 and a half years ago in the magazine about some one that did the same thing, but with a twist. His canons where on rollers, and would roll under the bench when it was time to work on it.
Cuda Ken
I hate Rust
John allan did it way back in the early fifties on the Gorre and Daphetid. Several pictures have appeared in MR over the years and it is probably shown in the Kalmbach book about the railroad. He painted the floor a dark green and it looked very good. What else would you expect from John Allan?
I am doing the same thing on an 8' long section of my layout. Mine is up against a wall with a canyon going to within 4" of the floor. Getting the wiring from one side of the canyon to the other had to be thought out as I still wanted it to be accessible. I was wondering how you will be routing yours.
Brent
"All of the world's problems are the result of the difference between how we think and how the world works."
Scenery to the floor, you say?
I agree with one of the earlier replies....an 18" wide walkway will be very tight and uncomfortable to walk through.
Don Z.
Research; it's not just for geeks.
John Allen's Gorre & Daphetid
If you can find a copy of Great Model Railroads 2007, there is an article in there about a guy who did exactly what you are trying to do. It was pretty cool.
I have posted my pics so many times people are tired, but they are available in my sig. The river is on an oak board. All the scenery is foam, carved in sections on the work bench and placed in the scene. I will be glad to talk more if you are interested. Three pics:
The space
The long view
The mood
Thanks a lot for all of the replies. I really appreciate it.
I have seen the layouts and articles referenced, although I did not know that John Allen painted the floor green. I can say that John Allen's railroad along with that pic from the 2007 Great Model Rairoads played a role in inspiriing me to try it myself I suppose...
Art - I had wandered into your photobucket site a couple of years ago and still have a bunch of pictures saved on my computer. I really enjoyed taking a look at your progress tonight and as other have said here, your layout is really amazing! A couple of questions...
- Can you walk into the canyon? I would be interested to hear about a fully scenicked river that could be walked on. Not sure I'd do it but I might!
Batman - I'd love to see what you are up to. As for your question, the anser (sort of) is below.
I'd better come clean here..... Although pretty much everything about my layout, from designing the room and the benchwork and every scenery technique is based on model rairoading, there actually is no railroad. The layout is a 22'x28' 1/32 scale slot car set called "Taroko Gorge" based on a national park of the same name in Taiwan. The park is full of gorges, tunnels, bridges, overhangs, etc and is quite the inspiration. It is a big project that I will certainly be working on for a long, long time. Hopefully you'll still talk to me until I get booted out of here! I wouldn't bother you all but there just aren't a whole ton of slot car guys doing scenery so it's tough to get good feedback.
BlueHillsCPRSeriously. I never get tired of seeing photos from your layout.
I will second that Art.
Pete:
Don't worry about that---scenery is scenery, whether it's a model railroad, a slot-car layout or just a historical diorama built for viewing and not operating.
I'm contemplating a section of my MR to go to the floor a la John Allen's "Giant Canyon" on the GD--in fact it will be the entry into the model railroad itself. In my case, a model of the South Yuba River in the California Sierras. My own canyon will be somewhat wider than yours, though--about 30", but it will still entail some careful modeling of the canyon 'sides' to make them relatively immune to accidental bumping. I plan on using sturdy plywood 'carved' to form the canyon walls, and cross-braced, then forming the walls themselves with carved foam and finished with Sculptamold. It won't be 'shock-proof' (no scenery really is, IMO), but it should be sturdy enough to walk through if I'm careful. For the river, I plan on using a non-skid dark green epoxy paint. This is sometime in the future, perhaps in the next year or two. But the idea's always been there.
Tom
Tom View my layout photos! http://s299.photobucket.com/albums/mm310/TWhite-014/Rio%20Grande%20Yuba%20River%20Sub One can NEVER have too many Articulateds!
If I were going to try that I think I might put a 1 x 4 toe kick board at the bottom. In every picture I have seen of this type of scenery that is the widest portion and probably highly susceptible to damage.
I am also using a 1"x 4" for a kick board. There were two choices to run the wiring so that it will be accessible. One is to run it in the structure of the bridge. I don't like that option as I want to be able to remove the bridge at times. The other option was to run it along the outside of the kickboard. If you go to your building supply store they have attractive looking metal electrical casings that are meant to run wires up the sides of walls and along the floor where unsightly wires are not wanted. The best thing about these is that one side just pops off if you want to add another wire or something else. Take a look they come in many shapes and colours and sizes.
Thanks for all of the replies. Twhite, I really appreciate you describing the details of how you might do it. That seems like a great method and I hope you won't mind if I do the same thing.
In terms of a kickboard, it sounds good and might enable me to widen the isle a bit. I suppose that would be the end of the scenery so painting the floor would be out. I will need to think about that one.......
Brent - One advantage of slot cars over trains is the simplicity of power delivery. It's quite simple and makes putting the track together just a small fraction of the work involved with a model railroad. There are a lot of disadvatanges too though - scale and the need to be able to always see the car being the most frustrating.