Redwood Trees

[Anonymous]

Anyone have info or a source on how to build realistic scale California Coast Redwood trees[?] I'm planning a redwood logging layout and want to model the real thing, with the real scale height in O scale.

Karlos [^]

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[Anonymous]

Ahh, OK.

I don't know how to best go about modeling it. But I can tell you that a full size tree in O scale will scale down to about two feet tall.

[Anonymous]

Quote from website....The coast redwood is the most outstanding tree on the California Coast. These trees
regularly reach heights of 300 to 350 feet and a diameter of 12-16 feet. That's closer to 8 foot in O scale. Go to the greenhouse and buy some real young ones in the 8 foot height range. FRED

[Jetrock]

The average mature California redwood is around 300 feet high. This means that at 1:48 scale your redwood models would be around six feet high--you're either going to have to set your layout on the ground or install 10+' high cathedral ceilings!!

Actually, flee307's idea isn't a bad one--make it a garden layout in your backyard, buy some redwood saplings between 3 and 7 feet high, and have at it! Buy a couple extra to cut up for carloads while you're at it...

[Jetrock]

Another, slightly less ludicrous, idea: Use a "shadow box" type setup--essentially, do it as a shelf layout with a limited vertical field of view. Say, for example, you have the layout set 48" off the ground, and have a valence/view block at around 72" off the ground, hiding lighting above it at around 80". This gives you two feet of vertical space.

Now, as to the track plan--most Redwood Country logging was done on the side of mountains, typically running up creekbeds or other relatively-accessible geologic features to reach the trees. This shelf, probably 24-30" deep, might be 12-18" higher in back than in front, to represent a sharp incline up a hill. Since redwood trees would be 6' high and 2-4" thick in your scale, all you need to do is model the trunks and the lower branches, and provide a subdued, cool lighting from the top (fluorescents would be ideal for this) and the tops of the "trees" would technically be hidden from view behind the valence. But, since the shadow box creates an illusion of more than is visible, it would look better than a gaggle of 6 foot tall trees sticking out of a tabletop.

O scale redwood trees would be roughly 2-4" thick. As before, getting ahold of some actual redwood branches and bark might not be a bad idea, as long as the branches were approximately the right diameter or smaller. When building the hillside, use the thickest branches closest to the layout edge, and put in smaller trees as you go further back against the wall to aid forced perspective. Also, since the trees will go up a hillside, the trees farthest to the back will only have 1' or so of trunk before vanishing into the valence. The foreground would probably consist of mostly stumps and a logging camp (steam donkey, crew cars, loading area, etc.) with a few of the biggest trunks nearby.

Ground cover would be mostly open dirt, stumps and discarded bits of redwood bark and splintered bits (redwood lumbering produced an awful lot of waste), while in relatively undisturbed parts of the layout you'd find a lot of ferns and redwood saplings in the undergrowth. Soil is dark and damp, due to the constantly rainy and moist conditions of the region--almost nothing will be totally dry.

If you've ever been on the northcoast, you'll know that the canopy of trees can often be total--you sure as heck can't see the tops of the trees when you're sitting underneath them, so a model set on the forest floor would be most accurate to suggest rather than show their altitude.

Modeling Northcoast logging on On3 would be a hoot--that cute little On3 Porter would make an ideal small logging engine. If you're one for scratchbuilding you could even build one of the crazy little homebrewed gypsy engines that were popular up there--I started one in HO scale but jumped ship for traction before completing it--although I may end up building it just for fun.

[wp8thsub]

You might want to pick up some back issues of "The Narrow Gauge and Short Line Gazette" featuring the series by Paul Scoles entitled something like "Journey to Big Trees." Paul models an area like the one you're interested in but does it in Sn3. I found a photo of his Big Trees station here: http://sn3photos.tripod.com/Train1.htm .

If you seriously want to represent the landscape, try picking up a book like "Conifers of California" (Ronald M. Lanner, Cachuma Press, 1999) that will provide more information about the typical plant communities. The redwood forest also includes trees like Douglas-fir, Sitka spruce, red alder, various oaks, dogwood, etc., along with seasonally prominent smaller trees and flowering shrubs like rhododendrons which could be realistically represented in O scale. I've seen a few O scale layouts where the variations in bark texture among the larger tree species really lent realism to the scenes.

One O scaler named Tom Beaton also has had numerous articles in the Gazette on his logging layout set in British Columbia. Tom has scenes where most of the trunks are truncated at either the ceiling or the underside of an upper deck. Another series of articles dealt with a modular On3 logging layout called the "Red Stag Lumber Co.," featuring some of the best forest scenes in the hobby. I found a nice gallery of photos on that layout here: http://members.optushome.com.au/jdennis/redstag/frameset.html .

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by Jetrock

Another, slightly less ludicrous, idea:

Why the name calling? I don't think or intend to be ludicrous. Anyone doing O should have lots of room. Therefore 6 to 8 foot trees shouldn't be a problem, and indoors they can be kept alive, but not allowed to grow. Outside they will either grow or die due to the enviroment. An further more nothing looks more real than the real thing. FRED

[Jetrock]

Not intended as name calling--just a bit disproportionate unless you've got that aforementioned lots of room. If Karlos has a warehouse with ceilings at least 10-12 feet high and wide enough to make a layout big enough to make 8 foot high trees look proportioinal, more power to him.

But it's not necessary for O, at least O narrow gauge, to take up a lot of room--the latest Model Railroad Planning includes an On3 logging line set in a couple of shadow-box type housings like the ones I mentioned. So if you've got a warehouse and the funds and the obsession to build full-size trees, great--but modeling the trunks in a limited-perspective way would allow one to create the illusion in a much smaller space.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the input. When I did the math I thought [:0] "holy cow!!!" The idea WAS [8] ludicrous! My wife, Doll Face [:X], thought so too [V]. I don't need to support her suspisions about my hobby ([:o)]) by knocking holes in the ceiling ([:(!]) just to accurately model trees. When I asked my brainy son [8D] to do the math on an O scale 300' redwood he just laughed quietly when he came up w/ the answer [:D].

So I liked Jetrock's idea about the shadow box. I haven't seen it used in a model railroad, but it is common in museum dioramas. I'll consider it.

And thanks for all the input about Narrow Guage Gazette articles and authors.

Karlos. [;)]

[Jetrock]

Keep us posted, Karlos--I am very interested in Northcoast narrow-gauge logging railroads and would enjoy reading about how your project comes along.

In fact, this discussion and another discussion on a small-layout-design forum has inspired me to make use of the small quantity of HOn3 stuff I have to build an extremely small HOn3 Northcoast logging layout inside the box of an old portable record player--with the speaker hole as a shadow-box window. I'll post photos as soon as I have something to show for it...

By the way, I highly recommend LOGGING THE REDWOODS by Lynwood Carranco and John T. Labbe, Caxton Press--it details logging operations in Humboldt, Mendocino and Del Norte Counties and has lots of photos.