Here's an idea that I have done. Take your video camera to a busy trainyard, turn it on and let it run. You don't need to video any particular train. You just want the sounds, an engine switching off in the distance, the occcasional horn or bell, and the crashing of coupling cars. Then transfer just the soundtrack to a DVD or CD. Put an old CD player under the layout and a couple computer speakers, and you have background sounds. I put my camera out in the yard one late summer evening, and got an hour of just crickets and birds. I also made a recording of frogs and pond sounds. You can also make a recording of depot sounds and passenger trains arriving.
And for you single guys, get a can of creosote at the hardware store, and just paint it on a sheet of scrap wood or cardboard, and stash it under the layout. Aaaah, the sweet smell of creosote during an operating session.
The yard sounds are a great idea! Kinda like mood music in a good restaurant.
The smell idea is also great, but I joked in a thread a while ago about simulating the odours from a train of stock cars!?! . On second thought, might be better to stick to the creosote and maybe a bit of diesel!
Dave
I'm just a dude with a bad back having a lot of fun with model trains, and finally building a layout!
Oh creosote armoa therapy? It is probably carinogenic full of BTEX compounds like benzine, toluene, ethyl benzine, and xylenes. Good job there.
So I'll wear my respirator when visit you aroma therapy layout! :D
Rio Grande. The Action Road - Focus 1977-1983
Your post got me to looking about my layout for something "aroma" might augment for reality. The first thing my eyes came to rest on is the currently under construction pulp mill. Ever been downwind of one of those? I recall one hot July afternoon cruising down I-95 just outside of Savannah when I first encountered that particular stench- it was a nasal bender first class. I would seriously consider modeling that aroma as a means to get rid of annoying visitors. I can't do it because after 45 years of smoking a pipe skunks can sneak up on me. I would still like to be able to release such an aroma at a touch of a button since I now could not even detect it and anyone who could would be gone post haste.
Roy Onward into the fog http://s1014.photobucket.com/albums/af269/looseclu/
riogrande5761
Wonder what the stock car smell would be full of?.
Anyone know how to get the smell of good ol' bituminous coal smoke in a bottle? Now, THAT I could get into...! ("diesel"? Eeew!)
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Gary M. Collins gmcrailgNOSPAM@gmail.com
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"Common Sense, Ain't!" -- G. M. Collins
http://fhn.site90.net
Oh creosote armoa therapy? It is probably carinogenic full of BTEX compounds like benzine, toluene, ethyl benzine, and xylenes. Good job there. So I'll wear my respirator when visit you aroma therapy layout! :D
You're probably in more danger from all that high fructose corn syrup in your food, you unknowingly consume, not to mention chlorinated and flouridated water, fumes at the gas pump.
Aroma Therapy, the new Witch Doctory!
Cheers
Roger T.
Home of the late Great Eastern Railway see: - http://www.greateasternrailway.com
For more photos of the late GER see: - http://s94.photobucket.com/albums/l99/rogertra/Great_Eastern/
Hi Roy!
When I was a kid we had to go through Espanola in Northern Ontario to get to the cottage. Espanola had a pulp mill, and that was long before the era of emissions controls. STINK-WOW! Yes, my young nasal passages were severely bent! Strangely, now the thought elicits fond memories! (but no - I won't go that far in my modeling despite the fact that my favourite railroad served the pulp mill).
As for the cancer risks of using a very small amount of creosote to add to the layout 'experience', so far I seem to have survived large amounts of creosote throughout my life (including painting the aformentioned cottage a few times with the stuff straight out of the can, AND getting it all over me when doing the painting, AND assembling numerous military tents saturated with the stuff....etc. etc.). Maybe I got addicted to the smell! I still love it!! Maybe it has preserved everything except my brain!. Some things I am not going to worry about any more.
Gary,
I have some smoke fluid that I got at a local train show, that is suppose to smell like coal smoke from my Lionel smoking loco. Since I don't have any track set up for it, I haven't used it yet. He also has other railroad "scents", diesel I think is one of them, as well as several others.
Have fun,
Richard
My layout is quiet - and it will remain that way. I do like the sound of a loco (one at a time), but that´s about as far as I´d go. No background noises, no scents. I think we are subjected to too much noise and strange smells in real life, we don´t need that in our miniature world.
The train-scene odor idea was commercially market 2 or 3 decades ago under the trade name Olfactoiry Airs. They had a little gizmo like an air purifier with some kind of a pad soaked in a compound.
I notice they do not seem to be around any more.
Or if they are, they changed their tune,
Or their name.
Or their scent.
(When I was a kid, I went to an elementary school that got odors from the adjoining factories, depending on which way the wind blew. Fortunately, one was a bread-baking plant and the other a coffee-roasting plant.)
Don't forget to spread some diesel or fuel oil around, or maybe your "old oil burner may already do that scent for you.
Modeling B&O- Chessie Bob K. www.ssmrc.org
My wife and I have enough problems breathing without adding any artificial flavors to the atmosphere.
As for the sounds of a modern U.S. railroad operation as background - I model a very specific time and place, and the sounds would have borne almost no resemblance to a 21st century American non-equivalent. Thanks, but no thanks. I'll continue to restrict my background noise to PBS or recordings...
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964 - where locomotives didn't have bells)
hobo9941 Take your video camera to a busy trainyard, turn it on and let it run. You don't need to video any particular train. You just want the sounds, an engine switching off in the distance, the occcasional horn or bell, the crashing of coupling cars,
Take your video camera to a busy trainyard, turn it on and let it run. You don't need to video any particular train. You just want the sounds, an engine switching off in the distance, the occcasional horn or bell, the crashing of coupling cars,
and the voices of the railroad or local police asking you what the heck you're doing there, and telling you that if you don't move along you'll be arrested.
I'm sure that they will find your explanation that you are video taping sounds especially interesting.
Sir Madog My layout is quiet - and it will remain that way. I do like the sound of a loco (one at a time), but that´s about as far as I´d go. No background noises, no scents. I think we are subjected to too much noise and strange smells in real life, we don´t need that in our miniature world.
I agree, but then again I don't......almost nothing in the whole wide world is more soothing, more relaxing, and more powerful to me than sitting next to the tracks and listening to the wheels and track sounds of a hundred-car-long string of full coal cars going by. Some guys race to beat the coal trains near where I work; me, I deliberately try to get stuck at the crossing, drive up to the base of the signal, then get out and just listen.
Don't know if I could plausibly work that into the layout though.
I like the yard idea a lot, but don't know where I would find a yard with lots of yard sounds and not just the annoying noise of real city life, which I agree with you, isn't needed in my miniature world.
The St. Francis Consolidated Railroad of the Colorado Rockies
Denver, Colorado
>>
hobo9941: Take your video camera to a busy trainyard, turn it on and let it run. You don't need to video any particular train. You just want the sounds, an engine switching off in the distance, the occcasional horn or bell, the crashing of coupling cars,
. . . just before TSA operatives (if they can spare some time from stealing iPads) come to haul you off to Guantanamo.
I guess I should concentrate on detailing a Jamaican mountain railroad, then, to complete the illusion; already have the aroma*..hmmm, I could mix a few palm trees amongst the pines...ya, mon...
*(I meant coffee, of course)
MR had an article sometime in the past few months about adding background sounds from a CD player, using re-purposed inexpensive external PC speakers.
The problem I forsee with background sounds, unless used for a layout with a single scenic theme, is that the noise can't be limited to a small area. For example, city sounds or yard sounds would interfere with the birds and burbling stream sound that is playing on the opposite side of the aisleway. Or if there's no wildlife sounds the city noises are heard everywhere even where they don't make sense.
While there are ways to limit sound projection through managing acoustics, the baffles and walls needed might interfere with the layout design.
George V.
Already on this with my layout, but reminds me I need some more pine...
I model Durango and the Silverton area railroads. Some years back ('03?), I took my Sony TCD5M cassette deck and recorded at the bridge location south of Silverton where the D&S jumps the Rio de las Animas for the first time going south. It's 90 minutes of stereo wind, river noises, birds, and two D&S trains as they pass through.
All very subtle, except for those Ks hammering over the bridge. A good background tape does exactly that, blends in so you mostly don't notice it
I need to transfer that to CD, though. Digital's not forever, but definitely longer than cassette.
The other part, the stink? Subtle here, too. I simply open a pine air freshener. Takes me back to the Rockies every time.
Creosote? You're too close to the tracks if the whole layout smells that way
Mike Lehman
Urbana, IL
How about a sound system that automatically plays sounds appropriate to the scene that the train is travelling through? They would have to be subtle enough to not intrude, and it probably wouldn't work too well with multiple trains running, but the concept is not beyond the realm of possibility. A few sound tracks, some occupancy detection....?!? Certainly the technology exists today. OK Soundtraxx, step up to the plate!
Now, somebody said if you can smell the creosote you are too close too the tracks! I agree! Likewise with the stockcars!! Don't stand too close!!!
gmcrail Anyone know how to get the smell of good ol' bituminous coal smoke in a bottle? Now, THAT I could get into...! ("diesel"? Eeew!)
DIESEL!!!!
What we really need though is different regions of coal. I know for a fact that certain coals have a certain smell.
If it's done right, it'd be a cool effect.
If you can read this... thank a teacher. If you are reading this in english... thank a veteran
When in doubt. grab a hammer.
If it moves and isn't supposed to, get a hammer
If it doesn't move and is supposed to, get a hammer
If it's broken, get a hammer
If it can't be fixed with a hammer... DUCK TAPE!
Don't forget to scrape a little creosote off a RR tie and spread the real scent of railroading!
OK, then seriously, folks; let's address a couple of the criticisms. What if you just had a small speaker connected to a sound module - connected to a motion sensor? That way, you would only have the sounds pertinent to that area or diorama. And even if there were enough others around the layout, triggering the other motion sensors, at least they would hear it in a sonic 'perspective', so it might make more sense. And finally, we're not talking about THX theatre sound, just a soft suggestion of the atmosphere...with audio sculpting, if you do it right, no one knows you've done anything at all. Odours could also be triggered this way - not a squirt of something, but maybe just the lifting or sliding of a cover...
I have a small area of my layout which will be a carfloat terminal in an old industrial part of town. It will be served by a Bachmann 0-6-0T, a small tank engine. A few people have put sound decoders in these, but my plan is to put a Sound Bug into a building in the town, since that particular engine will seldom operate more than a couple of feet from that point.
Some time back, I played with the actual programming of a Sound Bug, the software that runs it, not just the sound files. As a computer geek, I found it was relatively easy to do things like re-assign function keys. My plan for this system is to add a few more "ambient" sounds, like seagulls and foghorns, and let the stationary Sound Bug give a voice to the whole district.
I make a lot of plans. I've also got a workroom full of unbuilt kits, so don't hold your breath.
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
"Fortunately, one was a bread-baking plant and the other a coffee-roasting plant.)"
leighant , I'll bet by lunch time you kids were about to starve to death..!!
Jarrell
leighant The train-scene odor idea was commercially market 2 or 3 decades ago under the trade name Olfactoiry Airs. They had a little gizmo like an air purifier with some kind of a pad soaked in a compound. I notice they do not seem to be around any more. Or if they are, they changed their tune, Or their name. Or their scent. (When I was a kid, I went to an elementary school that got odors from the adjoining factories, depending on which way the wind blew. Fortunately, one was a bread-baking plant and the other a coffee-roasting plant.)