I live in New Mexico and model what I am around but seems like only a few modelers model this area. There is also an extreme lack of plastered and stucco as well as any southwestern style structures or missions. I have been trying to get Woodland Scenics to produce some cowboys and early 1900's indians but we all need to call them on this.
Lets see pictures!!
“When I was 5 years old, my mother always told me that happiness was the key to life. When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote ‘happy’. They told me I didn’t understand the assignment, and I told them they didn’t understand life.” -- John Lennon
My layout is based loosely on the Cajon pass with Colton(yard) and Victorville.
See the www below for more pics, although this is only the rough shell scenery. I will add soil and details someday.
John
Charles , I know you live near there but here are some photos I took of Bisbee that you may need.
http://s42.photobucket.com/albums/e338/mfifer/Bisbee%20Arizona/
Charles and John , Those are both great looking layouts there.
Charles are you strictly G Scale as we are N Scale but have about 200' of G in the yard as well.
Charles , Here is my rendition of the Bisbee area on my New Mexico layout. This area is called Valle Rojo.
Mike
I don't know if southwest Colorado counts or not, but we're modelling the Silverton RR, based in the San Juan Mountains.
Musket Miniatures has some period figures, and lots of animals, you might look at their online catalog.
I got a whole bagfull of cowboys and Indians from a friend who does military dioramas. I think they're 1:72 scale, but they are less than half a head taller than 1:82 scale figures I have, so with some care, you should be able to place them so as to avoid having them look like mismatched giants. Look in the military figures section at your LHS, get brandnames off the packages, then look at their larger catalogs onine to find the less popular figures.
Pictures hmmm?
I have a mule train and driver for this, but they're off layout while some remodelling takes place.
This is a staged photo...no ballast yet, the water tower isn't painted, (or even glued together, I just bought it for the spount, plan to scratchbuild my own tank).
Just some Old Time motive power eyecandy here, enjoy!
I model the Sedona Arizona sandstone cliffs in three rail. My layout is the fictional Castle Canyon Scenic Railroad...
Website:
http://home.mchsi.com/~ironmaster1960/wsb/html/view.cgi-home.html-.html
Still in the early stages here, but here is my contribution. I model NE Arizona up around Chambers and Adamana.
Really nice stuff Guys !!! I am doing N Scale and am having a hard time trying to do cowboys and pueblo indians. I really like everyones SW scenery!!
There is a company named Pegasus Hobbies, that makes palm trees, cactus, as well as mission Indians, etc. They have a website, and Horizon Hobbies sells their products as well.
when i get to it i'll be modelling central arizona around 1905 , the prescott / jerome / clarksdale area . probably somewhat freelanced but hopefully close enough that anyone who's been there will recognize it
lot's of great layouts in this thread !
perry1060 , i really like your red rocks , what techniques did you use ?
Thanks. The cliffs are made of stacked foam which I then carved, coated with water putty for texture, and then painted sedona red. The tunnels are 1/2" ply.
Here's a new mountain carving I've just about finished...
Just getting started on that section. Here is the one partially sceniced area.
I freelance a fictional 'branch' line, that connects Cortez, CO to Farmington, NM (D&RGW) and then across through NE Arizona to Holbrook and the AT&SF there. No pics yet, as all I have for now is an industrial switching area and medium-size town (debating whether it'll be Cortez, CO or another town). The Colorado, Arizona and Western (CAW - working on some slogan with a crow, I figure, wouldn't mind a punny one). Oh yeah, HO scale, transition era - a Mogul, 0-6-0T switcher, and a Mikado for some leftover steamers, plus GP7/9's (one or two mod'ed with low nose), SW1200's, and for passenger service some heavyweights (the CEO's favorite), but usually RDC's for the day-to-day runs. The CAW bought several of its locos used or rebuilt as other RR's upgraded to newer ones.
Jim in Cape Girardeau
Jim , that sounds like a way cool freelance. I lived in the area for 5 years. You will have to include the Gas industry.
If you were N Scale , our railroads could have intersected!
Good to see this thread again. I have added my version of the Supersition Mountians. I have just finished finding the Lost Dutchman Gold mine near the Massacre site, but no pics yet. I am heading back down there is a couple weeks to get some more pics. I have also finihed what would have been a malachite quarry in Bisbee had they wanted malachite instead of copper. There was a chuck of Malachite in the Queen mine worthy of quarrying.
mfiferJim , that sounds like a way cool freelance. I lived in the area for 5 years. You will have to include the Gas industry.
Mike, are you meaning up in NW New Mexico? I know they had some oil there. I am playing with a lot of 'artistic license', since in that time period (or later), I have my doubts whether the Navajo nation would've given rights for a RR to cut through that area. But hey, it's my version of 'alternate history', right? I am planning on having the Lukachuki (spelling is off) vanadium/uranium mine, which will ship to Farmington, where the Atomic Energy Commission (or whatever it was back in the 1950's) refines and buys the uranium ore. Maybe a tongue-in-cheek reference to ore cars that glow in the dark, etc. Connecting to the ATSF, I figure on having a 'bean' elevator where they ship out their bean crops to the (predecessor of?) Frito-Lay company in Texas. Also some sheep that get shipped off for all those lamb chops like my Mom used to fix every so often when I was a kid...
Art, love your mountains - how do you make those? Carved foam/plaster/what?
A lot of my resources for my layout are a combination of one vacation trip to Arizona (to Phoenix area and then on the return back up through Four Corners, Cortez and Colorado) the last year before my divorce, and a lot of looking at photos online, and borrowing a bit from Pelle's layout (which though it's too modern for my time period, I really like his scenery)!
I'm modeling the ATSF towns of Rincon, Whitewater, Deming and Silver City. All in NM. You can click on the links in my sig to see the pics but not too much scenery yet.
Check out the Deming Sub by clicking on the pics:
Jim , Those are some cool ideas and very acurate for the area.
On the ACTRR I have Fifer Unobtainium which also sells its product to the US Atomic Warfare Administration , but the employees are now striking.
El Cap , That is a fine plan and layout so far and I think your helper likes it!
Great layouts! I was going to the southwest, but decided at the last minute to model the southEAST in N scale. Hazzard County to be specific, home of the Dukes.
mfifer"...here are some photos I took of Bisbee that you may need."
One of Mfifer's photos of a structure in Bisbee..
reminds me somewhat of a structure from Kato in N scale, sold as either a "school" or "city hall" or "administration building". But looks kind of like Mfifer's photo. I could not immediately find a link to a photo, and I think this is a structure NOT sold by KatoUSA but available through a Japanese eBay store. If U R interested.
I once had a tiny little kit for a southwestern style mission chapel-- a European manufacture such as Kibri or Faller or Vollmeer or Pola but I don't remember which one-- some 30 years ago...a chapel that would have accomodated a dozen worshippers. I used the mission on a generic Southwestern injtended to represent a romanticized/generic Santa Fe theme...before I really knew all that much about the Santa Fe. A layout built in a month as a commission for a kid's Christmas present.
I threw together another generic"southwestern" layout in about 12 or 15 hours for a display back in 1974. Hard-shell Hydrocal terrain, Zip texturing, kitty-litter rock rubble, dyed pipe cleaner for sagauro cactus.
JimRCGMO "Connecting to the ATSF, I figure on having a 'bean' elevator where they ship out their bean crops to the (predecessor of?) Frito-Lay company in Texas."
Frito was an active company in Texas back in the 1950s-- I don't know about the "Lay" part, that may have been a merger. I remember Fritos (byt eh brand name) as a popular part of my lunch when I was 2nd grader in 1950. Not depending on memory but going to a documented historical source, the April 1955 Corpus Christi Texas Southwestern Bell Telephone Company directory lists the "Frito Sales Company" in the warehouse district.
wow ,nice work guys.nice picts