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Spring Layouts

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Spring Layouts
Posted by GP-9_Man11786 on Thursday, December 7, 2017 2:55 PM

I didn;t want to hijack the Winter Layout thread, so I started this one. Has anybody ever build a layout set in the spring time? I think they may be even rareer than winter layouts.

Modeling the Pennsylvania Railroad in N Scale.

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Posted by ACY Tom on Thursday, December 7, 2017 3:16 PM

Randy Anderson's Huntingdon & Broad Top Mountain (Model Railroad Planning 1997) was set in the Pennsylvania mountains in April, 1947.  Bill Henderson's Coal Belt was divided into four sections representing the four seasons in Pennsylvania.

Tom 

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Posted by ATLANTIC CENTRAL on Thursday, December 7, 2017 3:28 PM

GP-9_Man11786

I didn;t want to hijack the Winter Layout thread, so I started this one. Has anybody ever build a layout set in the spring time? I think they may be even rareer than winter layouts.

 

So my question would be what would seperate a "spring time" layout from a summer layout? Especially if your spring time layout is set in let's say May?

My personal preference is fall, no snow and multi colored trees.......It is the forth week in September on my layout. Some trees green, some changing.

I suppose one could set the mood with room temperature......

Sheldon

    

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Posted by Eric White on Thursday, December 7, 2017 4:22 PM

Growing up in Pennsylvania, I noticed the leaves in spring are a variety of greens. By late summer, they're all a dark green.

It would be tricky to re-create "high spring" without it looking too garish. The same sort of problem that fall can create as well.

Now that I live in Wisconsin, I have ne desire to model winter.

Eric

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Posted by SeeYou190 on Thursday, December 7, 2017 6:52 PM

I tried Spring time on my last N scale layout. There was a small company in Sarasota, Florida in the 1990s that made all kinds of "Spring Trees" that looked very nice.

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I went with brighter greens, and bluer skies. All and all it looked OK, but I have settled on late Summer.

.

-Kevin

.

Living the dream.

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Posted by Lone Wolf and Santa Fe on Friday, December 8, 2017 12:38 PM

ATLANTIC CENTRAL
So my question would be what would seperate a "spring time" layout from a summer layout? Especially if your spring time layout is set in let's say May?

In southern California the hills are green in the spring because that is when it rains. The rest of the year they are a yellowish brown.

Modeling a fictional version of California set in the 1990s Lone Wolf and Santa Fe Railroad
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Posted by ATLANTIC CENTRAL on Friday, December 8, 2017 12:46 PM

Lone Wolf and Santa Fe

 

 
ATLANTIC CENTRAL
So my question would be what would seperate a "spring time" layout from a summer layout? Especially if your spring time layout is set in let's say May?

 

In southern California the hills are green in the spring because that is when it rains. The rest of the year they are a yellowish brown.

 

Ok, fair enough, but here in the lush green Mid Atlantic where water does not have to be piped in from two states away, it is green from late March until early October. 

So here spring, summer and early fall all look the same, but they don't "feel" the same....

Right now the trees are bare, but the grass is green......

Sheldon

    

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Posted by GP-9_Man11786 on Friday, December 8, 2017 2:22 PM

ATLANTIC CENTRAL

Some trees that are green in summer are flowering in the spring. Cherry and forsythia to name two.

 
Lone Wolf and Santa Fe

 

 
ATLANTIC CENTRAL
So my question would be what would seperate a "spring time" layout from a summer layout? Especially if your spring time layout is set in let's say May?

 

In southern California the hills are green in the spring because that is when it rains. The rest of the year they are a yellowish brown.

 

 

 

Ok, fair enough, but here in the lush green Mid Atlantic where water does not have to be piped in from two states away, it is green from late March until early October. 

So here spring, summer and early fall all look the same, but they don't "feel" the same....

Right now the trees are bare, but the grass is green......

Sheldon

 

Modeling the Pennsylvania Railroad in N Scale.

www.prr-nscale.blogspot.com 

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Posted by ATLANTIC CENTRAL on Friday, December 8, 2017 2:47 PM

So yes, it depends on the region you model, and what you are modeling, the natural landscape or the cultivated landscape.

Sheldon

    

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Posted by Doughless on Friday, December 8, 2017 6:10 PM

For an early spring time layout set in the eastern US, the leaves on the trees would just be blooming.  No polyfiber puff balls, just spread ground foam on the armatures to make it look like new leaves on the branches.  You'd probably want highly detailed armatures made from dried plants, etc. 

And probably brightly colored foam to represent flowers. 

I think it would be harder to make it look right than summer puff ball trees and grass green foam.

- Douglas

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Posted by SouthPenn on Friday, December 8, 2017 9:11 PM

Cherry blossoms, White Dogwoods, and light colored deciduous trees. It must be spring.

  

South Penn
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Posted by ACY Tom on Saturday, December 9, 2017 8:35 PM

On Randy Anderson's layout (Bedford and Huntingdon Counties, PA, April, 1947), the trees were just beginning to leaf out. They were represented by nearly bare armatures with just a few leaves. The forest floor was covered with the dead leaves of the previous year, and the forest floor was littered with deadfalls that you would see in nature. Most of the grass was still brown, but a few green shoots were poking through. The dogwoods were not blooming yet, but some very similar Shadbush trees were beginning to flower. Shadbush is similar to dogwood, but somewhat larger and earlier to bloom. 

Tom  

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Posted by angelob6660 on Saturday, December 9, 2017 8:41 PM

Since my layout is decorated in full desert. I guess I call it spring.

Modeling the G.N.O. Railway, The Diamond Route.

Amtrak America, 1971-Present.

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