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[quote]Originally posted by leighant Here is one layout I threw together in about ten days for a display. It was 30 by 40 inches. [img]http://www.railimages.com/albums/kennethanthony/aak.jpg[/img] Scenery was hard shell. Plywood roadbed cut out in shape of track and supported by framework at desired height so there was no level "table top" anywhere. Then ROUGH scenic contours made by crumling up old newspaper, covered with layer of industrial dispenser-type paper towels soaked in HYDROCAL type plaster, let plaster set and add another layer of Hydrocal soaked paper towels. When set, pull out and throw away newspaper that formed original contours. "Hard shell" scenery supports itself! Then plaster of Paris for texture to suggest rock layers and to cover the joints between the Hyrdocal paper towel pieces. Painted with sandy/ dirty color. Then "wetted water" sprayed on and sprinkled with earth color dry tempera powdered paint so water soaks up into powder and holds it a little through powder looks like loose first. Natural gray clay kitty litter (UNUSED!!!!) for rock talus, held in place with a little dilute white glue, the same as ballast. Pipe cleaners painted green to form sagauro cactus. This was a display layout, twice around oval. Train just went around and around, no turnouts to avoid stalling and complication. Not much fun for the operation except building it and showing it off. This is a 2 x 4 foot N scale layout I built for friend's kids in 4 weeks as a commissioned Christmas present. I used 2 track switches to make spurs so cars could be switched in and out of train, give operator something to do, add some "play value". One switch ran to spur at depot, another up to area considered to be a mine, but I didn't build any structures for the mine, just a loading place in a rocky area about an inch and a half above main level. [img]http://www.railimages.com/albums/kennethanthony/aao.jpg[/img] Click on picture to make it display bigger. Background from Walthers. All track EXCEPT spur to the mine was level on plywood table top. Though track was level, scenery extending both above and BELOW table top. An area was cut out under the track in front to allow placing a bridge over an open space. If you are doing desert, I think you need to make at least some part of the layout look like it is out in the middle of nowhere. Avoid filling the whole layout with structures, houses, stores. An area with track, a pole line, a fence line that goes on and on helps to suggest that kind of scene. If you want a town or a railroad yard facility, it might be good to limit it so that the town or railroad service area stops and the track goes on into the "outback". Dividing a small layout down the middle with a double-sided backdrop into two scenes allows separating those scenes into one that might be a town and the other side that looks like the track several miles away, out in "the middle of nowhere." I do that on my East Texas layout, with a solid line of tall trees so that you cannot see the entire oval of the main track, from any one angle. The "main" view is only one track going through a town scene. [img]http://www.railimages.com/albums/kennethanthony/aad.jpg[/img] Click on picture to make it display bigger. This is not the kind of scene you want but it shows building a scene in a very small space against a 2-sided background. I built an N scale layout only 4 feet long and 2 feet deep, with only 4 switches. But it represented 2 entirely different scene several miles apart so you felt that train really went from one place to another. One scene was the side of a port with a grain elevator, a docked ship and a scene across the channel painted on the background. [img]http://www.railimages.com/albums/kennethanthony/abo.jpg[/img] Click on picture to make it display bigger. The other side of the layout was a small farm town where the layout, representing a short switching line to the port, picked up cars from a long track supposed to represent a connection with a mainline long distance railroad. I don't have a picture of that scene on-line. But you can imagine the idea. WOW!!! you have helped me so much i never thought of that middle of nowhere thing that is amazing! Where would i get a fence though? that is an awesome idea thnx for the comment keep commenting this too help out thnx alot!
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