FASCIA COLOR

[Anonymous]

I am considering repainting my layout fascia. It is made of 1/8" masonite hardboard.I started out with a color that blended well with the decor of the finished basement. Now I know that I need to accentuate the layout rather than the basement since the scenery is progessing. My setting is early fall in the Appalachian Mountains. I've seen an article in MR that showed some examples but I'd like to hear from you modelers. What is the best color for a model railroad fascia?

[Anonymous]

I use a black plastic sheeting that I bought at the local garden supply. I stapled it to the front of the layout and cut it off at the floor level. It provides a neat appearance to the layout and conceals and provides easy access to all the stuff I have stored under the layout. The black color goes with any season color.

[DavidH]

There was a fairly lengthy discussion of the issue in an early issue of Great Model Railroads, I believe. People like Tony Koester, Allen McLelland, David Barrow and Rick Rideout all were consulted. The concensus then seemed to be that the colour should be keyed to the overall scenery colour such that the fascia doesn't draw any attention to itself.

David

[Anonymous]

The popular colours are various shades of green to an olive colour green - this is recommended for places with lots of trees etc. Sand colour for desert area. A light and darker brown can work, but these aren't my favourites. Black is not recommended since it easily shows scuff marks.

After painting the colour, you might want to repaint with a semi-gloss, or matt finish so that the colours won't scuff easily.

[douginut]

I have always used woodgrain for the fascias, formica when prosperous and contact paper when not, looks good and doesn't clash with scenery or room.

Doug

[cmrproducts]

At our club on our double deck HO layout we had the fascia the natural brown masonite color for years. After a lot of debate we finally decided to try a forest green color. We figured that if it didn't work we could always go back to the brown. Well it was unbelieveable what the green did. It made your eyes look at the layout. We just could not believe the difference. We even held up some old brown masonite to try and see what caused the eye to move into the layout instead of the fascia. It just worked.

BOB H Clarion, PA

[wp8thsub]

There is no one right answer to the fascia color debate. I've seen a number of treatments that worked and many that didn't, however.

Locally, Lee Nicholas' Utah Colorado Western and Ted York's Cajon Pass use black and both are happy with the results.

I prefer a color that picks up something from the scenery. My last layout, the Northern Nevada (June 1997 MR, the title photo shows the fascia color) used a dark olive green to complement the desert scenes but that didn't work on my current layout which features Nevada desert on the bottom deck and Sierra forest on the top. A green either looked good with one type of scenery or the other but not both. I switched to a dark brownish gray (Benjamin Moore Taos Taupe) which picked up the dirt and rock colors from both decks.

One idea to remember is that keeping the fascia darker than the scenery helps focus attention back on the layout, while lighter colors tend to draw attention toward the fascia. Also be careful with greens, not only for the reasons above but because many greens have a lot of blue in them that looks funny next to our model scenes where even the green foliage tends toward a yellow or brown cast. Take some of your ground foam materials to the paint store and compare them to the available colors, then pick a few swatches to bring home to the layout and see which one works best.

Rob Spangler
Layton, UT

[Anonymous]

I think your best bet is to take heed what the guy from Utah said I saw his layout in MMR still have the issue seems to know what he's talking about anytime you get your layout in MRR you pretty well know what you doing.Basically I would have my facia to blend in with my ground cover or seanery.