How much snow?

[pcarrell]

I'm pretty well sold on the idea of a winter based layout for the new house we're moving into at the end of the month (FINALLY!!!).  I've got the track plan and the era is the late 1930's and the location is mid-coast Maine.  I've always been drawn to winter scenes, and so I've decided to do this one that way. 

The real question is,....how much snow?

A good dusting looks very nice and is pretty easy to maintain, but big snow drifts and miles of white stuff would be really cool (and cheaper I think, because I wouldn't have so many layers of ground cover to do).  But the maintinance would be higher I'd think.

The train room will be dedicated for that use only, so traffic is at a minimum.

What are your thoughts on it?

[dgwinup]

Pristine snow is pure white and a wonder to behold.  Unfortunately, it doesn't last!  In real life, snow gets dirty pretty quickly.  A drive down any city street after a snowstorm demonstrates that point!  The longer the snow stays on the ground, the more opportunity it has to collect dirt.  I won't even mention the yellow snow around the fire hydrants!  (Oops, I just did!)

What area are you modeling?  Is it high enough in elevation that you can model light snow in the lower areas and heavy snow in the higher areas?  That might give you the best of both.  You can also have areas with no snow at all.  Now you have the best of three modeling scenarios.

If you do a snow scene, remember to apply the details that you would find in real life, like shoveled sidewalks and driveways, slushy curbsides and leafless trees with exposed trunks.  (And don't forget the yellow snow around the hydrants!  LOL)

Darrell, quiet...for now

[jeffrey-wimberly]

A winter scene looks really spectacular, at first. Over time, and it's not long, believe me, the "snow" begins taking on a grayish hue due to aging and dust. Attempts to vacuum this away usually results in "snow removal". If you're dead-set on a snow scene, an overnight snowfall of several inches with drifts up to 4 or 5 feet looks good. Don't use anything that could cause corrosion like baking powder, baking soda, etc. These can cause the metal parts on locomotives and rolling stock to sieze up tight. Don't ask me how I know this, just believe that I know and leave it at that.

[csmith9474]

Is the Woodland Scenics snow the best to use, or is there a cheaper alternative that is similar to the WS stuff?

[Anonymous]

Snow scenes are cool but 1930s era will look boring and gloomy.  1990's to present is a better choice but it is your layout.  I like the soo line snow layout I saw in the model railroader.  It was nice.  You will have to cover all your vehicles with snow too.  But they will be the corny 1930 cars.  illl

[jecorbett]

If and when I get my big layout near completion, I plan to build a 4x8 winter layout as a Christmas decoration. It will only be brought out at Christmas and covered the rest of the year which should make the snow last. It will have a two sided backdrop down the middle with a sleepy New England village on one side and a rural setting on the other, possibly with a ski lodge. It will have lots of snow. The village streets will have snow plowed up in piles and everything else covered with a thick blanket. If I do it right, you'll be almost able to hear Bing Crosby singing White Christmas.

[Dave-the-Train]

Glad you liked the ideas

Try this pic http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=4815 scrounged from the trees thread.

Some other random ideas

1. where vehicles move away after standing in first fall snow they leave an outline and maybe a blob of snow scraped off onto the ground.
2. Icicles!  mainly on the north side again... epsecially where any melt has started and then wind chill or dusk has cooled things down again.
3. winter sun rotation isn't from E to W but from somewhere around SSE to SW... plus it has to get through early morning mist / cloud... and it's low angle.  So the earliest any thaw starts is about 10.00.  I've frequently sat in a nice warm signalbox and watched this process.  Beats being on the public side and answering silly questions about why trains can't run on ice.  "...and how did you get here this morning sir/madam?  you walked?  And why didn't you use your car today???"  (I just love customers )
4. Much track maintenance gets suspended when temperatures fall.  This isn't just because you can't find the rail under the snow or because the crews are out snow shifting but because the steel can give problems if disturbed when cold.
5. There was a programme on the TV last night which included stuff about power lines getting iced up and brought down.  Might be an interesting background scene.
6. Tunnels and bridges can have icicle problems... also... where icicles are like stalactites you can also get stalagmite like formations.  We had all the 3rd rail collection shoes knocked off an 8 car electric passenger train by a slab of ice in Box hill tunnel back in 78/79.  If it hadn't been a pair of ancient 4 Sub units that weighed tons more than the modern stuff it would have probably been a derailment in the tunnel.
7. How you gonna do iced puddles and streams?
8. I've found it quite hard to get numbers of figures wrapped up for winter... but it occured to me last night that there are usually fewer people out in the cold... how come there's always at least one jogger in shorts and singlet?
9. that pic shows at least one animal track.  Even moggies leave tracks in fresh snow.
10. Hmmm... so do birdies... you could work out a combination...
11. Winter trees can be an awful lot of work... all those branches instead of a blob of leaves... so why not have a really early fall of snow while some trees have their fall leaves still on... would make a nice contrast of colours as well...
12. Then again... a real sharp haw frost looks like snow, ices things up (may cause chaos) and is thin so you only need a dusting.  It also clears from the track just the same as light snow... because the sun angles are the same... sometimes frost seems to be colder/more thaw resistant than snow.  It also doesn't usually get dirty.

Have fun!

Oh yes; I heard a programme about Bing's "White Christmas"... apparently there's a first verse that never gets played... something about sitting in a prison cell down south... so the crooner is in the slammer wishing he was back home.  There was also a suggestion that "White" reffered to a different powder... is nothing sacred???

Christmas before last in Austria the workers in a department store brought a successful prosecution against their management for driving them nuts by playing the same lousy Xmas music from sometime in late September.  Brilliant! 

Good luck with the house move!  (Be warned!  You're not done when you move in... not for another couple of years...)  Keep the kettle, coffee making stuff and your laptop/PC where you can find them.  All the rest can wait!

[pcarrell]

Dave-the-Train,

I can see you've put some thought into this.  You've come to a lot of the same conclusions I have.  While big billowy drifts and rolling hills of white sound enticing, I don't think it's a good idea from a maintinance standpoint.  The more I think about it, the more I think and early snowfall might be the way to go.  Like you said, some fall leaves still on the trees with a few barren branches thrown in for good measure.  jecorbett is a brave soul for attempting his winter scene.  I wish him the best.  But his scene will be under wraps most of the year, not out in the open like mine.  He should be alright. 

The ideas on how to model things are quite insightful.  You've hit on some stuff I'd thought of, and a few things I hadn't.  Bundling up N scale people should prove interesting!

BTW, great pic of the "snow"!

Thanks for all the ideas.

Anyone else have any ideas?

[mikelhh]

Great ideas Dave

 Philip - my plan is to have a light covering of early snow so I can have Autumn colour. And since it's going to need renewing from time to time I'll have to economise.

 I can't remember where I found these images - I hope no-one's offended that I've posted them here.

 They have given me plenty of ideas for my Guilford layout. I think the 2nd one is a place called East Deerfield....?  

 We tend to think of snow lodging in tree branches but I guess that requires a pretty heavy fall because the majority of railway-related snow scenes I've found online have no snow on the branches - which is a pity. I might have to use some licence there, I think.

 

 Mike

[Anonymous]

Back in the 90's, Rand Hood did a article or two on snow and ice in MR, check them out. Don't forget, if you model heavy amounts of snow, in real life, as trains move, it sticks to them. The ends, couplers ,tops, even the trucks if there's enough. You'd probably be better off with a late fall dusting, like in the pictures above, both modeled and real. Don't forget most grass and weeds  will be brown also.

[Pdragon]

Hi Philip,

Glad you liked the pics. For my layout, the amount of snow is a matter of trade-off. I like 'piles' of snow, also. But, as others have mentioned, there is the maintenance-of-way problem. So the trade-off is lighter snowfall on the layout proper ( the running area) so that we can keep the trains running and heavier snowfall in the background ( hills and high elevations) where less maintenance is needed. With the lighter snow, however, I have found good ground cover is still needed as it shows through the snow in places. I think it gives a more real flavor of the area you're trying to show rather then one of 'hiding' something under the snow. For frozen puddles, use a small amt of WS instant water. If you're working on a foam base, just make a small depression with your thumb and pour. Run a little sandpaper over it and edge it with snow and take a slide!!

[Anonymous]

Back in the 90's, Rand Hood did a article or two on snow and ice in MR, check them out. Don't forget, if you model heavy amounts of snow, in real life, as trains move, it sticks to them. The ends, couplers ,tops, even the trucks if there's enough. You'd probably be better off with a late fall dusting, like in the pictures above, both modeled and real. Don't forget most grass and weeds  will be brown also.

I still have the issue with the article in it. I remember he said for modelling snow stuck to diesel plows and on coal loads he suggested using white window caulking. Although I model summer in western Pennsylvania so a loco or car with snow on it would seem ludicrously out of place even if we can sometimes still see snow as late as the beginning of April.

[pcarrell]

Great stuff guys!  Keep it coming!

You're really getting the creative juices flowing now!

BTW, what do you think of this?  For a thin sheet of ice on a pond or puddle, what about using clear 5 minute epoxy and pouring it onto some wax paper and working it till it cures, then after it dries, peeling it off the wax paper and securing it over a modeled pond or whatever.  I think you could get the look of ice that way quite easily.  Also, if you've ever noticed ice on a puddle, sometimes the ice touches the water below it, and so it appears darker and more translucent there.  Other times the ice stands above the water a bit and appears to be more of a whiteish color.  This might be a good way to model that too.  Matter of fact, you could probably do icicles the same way.  What do you think?

[Dave-the-Train]

While snow doesn't sit much on branches (probably gets blown off and is higher up to catch what rays there are (BTW low angle sun has more atmosphere to come through which is why it is cooler)) snow does stick to trunks when it is blown.  you could also have small drifts in corners and against things like battery boxes, piles of ties and stacked rail... to name but a few.

Frost will sit all round branches and icicles hang from them.

Just to make your experiments with ice more interesting... how about cracked ice where some one has walked on it... then there's broken ice like when a truck has driven through it... Maybe bits of clear plastic  coloured with felt pen stuck in  the WS water or epoxy at angles would do it.  A way to get the dark or light effect may be to pour the water, colour it with pen or acrylic and then pour again.

Haven't really given this much thought... I just have a strange brain that goes looking for ideas and answers when it's not busy doing much else.  It's really good to have somewhere to post the ideas as I'll never get round to doing them all.

Being around toy trains nearly 50 years helps.  I've seen some amazing models.  Also sitting trackside for years has given me time.

A trick that really works well is to spend some time going through pics as follows...

• use a grid printed on clear acetate or an imaginery grid... can be as little as 4 boxes ... more than a dozen id too complicated.
• looking at the pic look at the whole then work through the grid squares systematically.
• You can decide that you want to find a minimum number of things to note in each whole pic and a minimum number of grids per pic to make notes on.
• This is slow at forst but you soon pic up speed.  You also very soon start seeing far more in every pic without bothering with the grid.
• You can make a list of things you want to notice... like ice, batteryboxes, phone line hookups, ditch lights...
• the list will grow
• writing it down seems to make the idea if not the whole/exact image stick in the mind... bit like studying.
• I switched from noting on A4 to keeping a card index in a box.  i've never used it yet but you have seen here how the ideas can come tumbling back out.
• It's amazing what is in pics.
• Pretty soon you start to see it everywhere else as well.  the planet is amazing.

The internet equivalent of this is to save pics and then edit them by cutting and pasting the relevant bits to files set up for things I'm looking for for models.  It's also really useful to be able to make the details a pile of pics on a word doc and print them out for comparison.

have fun!

Talking of endless ideas... anyone want more stuff on forklifts or some new bits on painters/decorators?

Jeffrey;- I thought that "Mobilis in mobile" meant that I'd dropped my phone in diesel?  Or is that spilt diesel on my phone?  never was very good at congugating...

Have a nice day

[Anonymous]

Don't forget, for ice to build up in ponds or even puddles, the temperature will have to be freezing, usually more than a couple of days, especially on deep water. That means all your citizens should be dressed for winter. Also, if you're modeling the 30's, I don't know how sophisticated snow removal equipment was. Plows, salt/sand spreaders, etc. You could have two guys on the back of dump truck shoveling sand/ or cinders on lightly, snow covered street and somebody splitting up wood for wood stoves, there's probably more than one in many homes.

[Dave-the-Train]

Good pointb BXcarmike

Road junctions, gateways, slopes, doorways and steps would be gritted first.  People wore more clothes indoors 'cos of drafts and 'cos fuel was even more expensive compared to income back then.

Both then and now anyone coming into town from the hills with more snow could have tyre chains on and a heap of snow plastered on the vehicle.

Do you highways authorities leave grit in bins at bad places?  In industrial yards you could have bags of rock salt stacked ready and/or 40 gallon drims of grit/ash strategically placed.  Of course there is a question of what colour grit/ash should be....  Tyre trails carry the stuff... and also run into/through out of snow and from broken ice if the ground is otherwise dry...  Wheel compacted snow ice dark grey/brown to black.

How about a vehicle that's got stuck on ice and needs pushing out from the curb... or, if you're feeling grim, has slid into another, a wall or even a building? ... then the Police come along and slide into the first one.  Seen it! .  Sorry, still makes me laugh... but no-one got hurt... except in the pride department.  The best bit was the cop had got out and started lecturing people when his car just slid right on in there...

See?  I recall all sorts of stuff!

Back in horse drawn days they used to put straw down... don't know about grit/salt/ash... except footpaths.  Sadly many horses would slip... and not just on snow but on wet rails in pavement, manhole covers etc.  Once down many horses had to be killed.  Big business for the horse knackers who would come along with a low-boy cart and winch the dog food on board.

The temp hovering around zero for a few days would, as you rightly say, make the deeper ice and add aspects to what is going on.  I'm sure those of you up in the north know that it can be too cold to snow for days at a time... then it dumps on you big time.

BBBRRRRRRRRR!

Just think someone was posting about Sept 1st and how great it was that the summer high temperatures were over... give it a few weeks and we'll be complaining about the cold!

I'm glad I'm not the weather!

[pcarrell]

I'm bookmarking this thread as it's just loaded with too many good ideas to lose. 

Splitting wood, that's good!

A lot of houses were coal heated back then too.  The local coal dealer would be busy, and so would his delivery people.

[Dave-the-Train]

Parafin and coke back in the day and gas cylinders now...  Extra oats in nose bags to help kep the horses warm... molasses were added...  (If you didn't know molasses are the things you find at the back end of moles...)

Make a hard copy... all this genius is worth it! 

1930s... snow would stay on roofs that weren't insulated... windows would ice up... saves on interiors... but how to do ice on a window???

Smoking chimneys... No...we've been there...

Burst water pipes...

That reminds me... better go check the coolant in the van...?

I trust you've all checked your smoke alarms recently?  (I'm nagging again)... and check or get a CO alarm ... all this modern draft proofing is dangerous! NAG! NAG! NAG!

[Anonymous]

don't forget a shoveled path to the privy,still plenty around then, kids and snowball fights, snowmen, and hapless harry sittin' on his backside, slipped on sidewalk, somewhere.......

[Dave-the-Train]

don't forget a shoveled path to the privy,still plenty around then, kids and snowball fights, snowmen, and hapless harry sittin' on his backside, slipped on sidewalk, somewhere.......

Put an 8 day signal (oil) lamp in the privey... freezing your butt to the seat is a pain...

(No I don't know that one from personal experience but I do know a Signal person who does and we were still using this trick in the 80s after the signals had gone to colour lights).

Have fun!

[pcarrell]

This thread is too good to lose!

[sparkyjay31]

I have an article at home out of a old MR I think.  It's based on using plaster of paris I think.  Sprinkle it on and spray it with water.  Even goes into detail about coloring it so it's not too white ( lacks the depth and feel of a real snowfall ).  I'll see if I can find the article and post the information here.

[jecorbett]

My main layout is set in the summer but for about 15 years I have had it in my mind to build a 4X8 Christmas layout that would be set in New England. I plan a two sided back drop, with a small village on one side and a rural setting on the other with the mainline curving around a frozen pond. I might even put in a ski slope. Of course, it will have a heavy blanket of snow with plowed snow piled everywhere. Every year I swear I am going to build it but there is so much that still needs to be done to complete the main layout that I just don't get around to it. Someday though it will get done.

[wjstix]

On my last layout I tried for a 'first snow' kinda look, snow over green grass (in northern MN it can snow in mid-late September) as kind of a "sugar on the corn flakes" look. It was OK in person but in pictures it just kinda looked like light green grass. On the next layout I'll probably do a little more snow, plus use deeper grass, like static grass in areas that will stick up farther.

There is a downside to winter modelling...harder to get drivers into closed cars (not many convertibles with the top down in winter) there are far fewer figures available dressed for wintertime. (I'd love to find some HO lumberjacks dressed for a -30F Minnesota winter!!)

Still, I think it's worth the effort. A nicely weathered dirty boxcar with a roof of new white snow looks good to me, and the white snow makes it much easier to see things if you like operating in the dark with just layout lights. 

[sparkyjay31]

I have an article at home out of a old MR I think.  It's based on using plaster of paris I think.  Sprinkle it on and spray it with water.  Even goes into detail about coloring it so it's not too white ( lacks the depth and feel of a real snowfall ).  I'll see if I can find the article and post the information here.

Wierd.  I'm responding to my own thread.  Does this mean I'm talking to myself?  Again?  But I digress...  The article in question was written in Scenery Tips and Techniques from MR.  My book is dated 1989 and is ISBN # 0-89024-095-7.  Great book and has lots of cool (no pun intended) ideas.  And I was correct is stating that it's pretty much zip-texturing with white plaster.

[jecorbett]

My main layout is set in the summer but for about 15 years I have had it in my mind to build a 4X8 Christmas layout that would be set in New England. I plan a two sided back drop, with a small village on one side and a rural setting on the other with the mainline curving around a frozen pond. I might even put in a ski slope. Of course, it will have a heavy blanket of snow with plowed snow piled everywhere. Every year I swear I am going to build it but there is so much that still needs to be done to complete the main layout that I just don't get around to it. Someday though it will get done.

I just discovered I had responded to this thread when it first came up a year and a half ago and that what I wrote today is almost the same thing I wrote back then. It tells me that I have a pretty clear idea in my head of what I want to create. It also tells me I am no closer to building this layout then I was back then.

[jeffers_mz]

I have an article at home out of a old MR I think.  It's based on using plaster of paris I think.  Sprinkle it on and spray it with water.  Even goes into detail about coloring it so it's not too white ( lacks the depth and feel of a real snowfall ).  I'll see if I can find the article and post the information here.

If you start here, your mobile snowflakes can drop in area and number to just a dusting over the old and crusty snow. Then when the snow gets dusty, just vacuum it up, toss it, expose the grimy snow-sludge underneath, and leave it until the next storm comes along and dumps some more.

If you can fix the actual powder in place like a smaller version of ballast, you add another dimension of flexibility. The better the surface is held in place, the more vacuum power you can use to remove dust and renovate the aging snow.

A combination of the above techniques would allow you to temporarily place drifts and such, auditioning them till you learned the techniques you wanted to preserve permanently.