Choosing a season for your railroad

[Anonymous]

How do you which season to use on your model railroad? Being in the great white north, I get a lot of snow which would make a lot of snow plows and snow runs. How do you choose which season to put on your railroad?
Thanks

[Fergmiester]

I've chosen the fall as the colours are brilliant and the best time to see the Musqodoboit Valley. Also presents more challenges on a modeling level.

Fergie

[simon1966]

Everything is green, but I have not been overly vigilant about fixing my layout in a point in time.

[Anonymous]

Would it be to much trouble to be able to remove the green trees stick in fall trees in the holes like the Woodland Scenics Realistic Tree Kit? Then put winter trees down and then put some snow down? I don't have many trees right now though.

[tangerine-jack]

I model G scale outdoors. I let Mother Nature determine the season. I run in the heat, cold, snow and rain (and on nice days too!). My model railroad has an ever changing scenic backdrop, one that I cannot control but enjoy to the fullest because of that. I have to overcome the real world obstacles of leaves in the fall and wash outs in the spring, just as the real railroads do. I have the best sunsets and sunrises that I don’t have to worry about controlling with dimmers and special lighting. I never have to worry about my scenery becoming boring or out of date, it grows anew every spring!

I'm not trying to dimini***he artificial scenery achievements of the tiny indoor scales, but how can you call yourself (generic statement here, not directed at any one person!) a model railroader, particularly a "prototype" model railroader when ZERO prototypes run indoors? If a real RR moves a widget from point A to point B, then we do as MRR's, if the prototype paints a loco bright pink, then we do as MRR's, but why then when the prototype runs OUTSIDE in the natural environment, do most MRR's run INSIDE??? Not very prototypical!

Just my thoughts..................

[Fergmiester]

Ooh! You could be causing yourself a lot of grief trying to do that for several reasons.

1. You would have to make sure your ground cover was consistant and put extra effort into it as most people use trees to fill in voids as less work and detail goes into remote areas.

2. Your trees would have to be extra sturdy as "planting & Uprooting" them will cause fair wear and tear. Most trees I've handled loos a bit of foliage when handled.

3. Go with pine/spruce and other evergreens as they are an all year plant.

4. Shrubs and grass also change shape and colour so are you willing to change that as well.

5. I suspect all artificial snows once placed is hard to recover/clean from layout.

6. River beds, will you freeze them in the winter?

Just some things to think about

[Anonymous]

I take that as a no, you should not do you that. I think might just do winter because I could have snow plows. Do the trees you get from woodland Scenics and stuff be detailed enough to not have any foliage. With snow piled branches?

[Anonymous]

Who says you can't use um all? If you have enough elavation, you can model some of everything. I've even seen people change to match the current seasons of the year. I'm lazy though, and ain't goin to all that trouble. I think it's gonna be stuck in late Fall on my railroad.

[pcarrell]

You know, depending on how fine you want your branch detail to be, the Woodland Scenics trees might not do the trick. They are basic branch structures that are designed to be covered with folage. They do make excellent dead trees if you leave them bare. However, they don't have the zillions of finer branches that a real tree has and shows off in the winter.

I learned something early on that I've found invaluable to my modeling. Nature repeats itself in miniature. There are many weeds and fine branch structures that can be used to accurately model a winter tree, even in N scale like me. Sage is one plant that comes to mind.

There have been a few articles written on this topic, but I can't think of where I saw them right now. I'll look for them when I get home tonight.

As mentioned ealier, evergreens are an option. But even at that, there aren't many areas of the country that there are ONLY evergreens. You are still going to need some decidious trees. I'll look for some more info for you later tonght. I know I've got something (I hate it when I can't remember, don't you?).

[Anonymous]

How would you get the snow off, use a ballast collector thing. The thing that they use to get pellets off the ballast maybe? For the trees you could glue the snow onto the tree branches. But how about every where else maybe a felt sheet with some fake snow glued onto it. But how would you get the snow of the tracks? Vacuum?

[pcarrell]

QUOTE: Originally posted by LSIModeler

How would you get the snow off, use a ballast collector thing. The thing that they use to get pellets off the ballast maybe? For the trees you could glue the snow onto the tree branches. But how about every where else maybe a felt sheet with some fake snow glued onto it. But how would you get the snow of the tracks? Vacuum?

Go for it if you want, but it sounds like a lot of work to me. I got into modeling to have some fun, not to work more.

Just my take on it, but if that would be fun for you then go for it.

I do think that you won't be satasfied with the look of felt. It will be difficult to make it look like anything other then what it is.

Just a thought. Take it or leave it.[8D]

[CNJ831]

Of the four seasons, summer is the easiest to model, autumn the most difficult. Winter and spring are rather straight forward, if you are a reasonably talented modeler.

Autumn is the most difficult to make believable to the viewer largely because the color/appearance of autumn trees varies so widely from region to region. In the northeastern U.S., autumn can be a virtual riot of colors so intense that reality can look like an altered image and folks from elsewhere around the country often refuse to believe the colors of the scene, even if modeled very accurately. Elsewhere in the U.S. autumn trees are more of a uniform yellow, with some weaker reds and oranges mixed in - some places are just all yellow/golden.

The best very late autumn/early winter (bare trees, no snow) I've seen has been done by Mike Tylick. There's something about his dense, second growth, trees that conveys great believability in his northeastern MR layouts and scenes. The fellow that does the Coal Belt railroad is almost equally excellent at portraying the transition to winter, with some early snow fall on the ground and the bare trees. Viewed from a reasonable distance, there are several modelers who do very fine winter scenes. I'll let others add their names.

Spring, and of course, summer, are mainly a matter of the correct choice of foilage colors. Since tree branches can be largely hidden and the ground cover is variations of green, these seasons as easiest to model in an effective manner and why the summer season totally dominates model railroad layouts.

CNJ 831

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by pcarrell
I do think that you won't be satasfied with the look of felt. It will be difficult to make it look like anything other then what it is.

Could you put glued fake snow on the felt and would it make it look good?

[Anonymous]

I model spring myself. I prefer the lighter green tones one finds them. And yes, I avoid autumn and winter because I find them too time-consuming. I think I'd never get to actually running trains if I tried.

[pcarrell]

QUOTE: Originally posted by LSIModeler

QUOTE: Originally posted by pcarrell
I do think that you won't be satasfied with the look of felt. It will be difficult to make it look like anything other then what it is.

Could you put glued fake snow on the felt and would it make it look good?

That would probably work for the most part, but the real problem is two fold. 1) How do you keep the "snow" from looking like it's floating or hovering over the ground. Not an impossible problem, but worthy of some concideration. 2) Hiding the edges of the felt, and not being obvious that you're hiding the edges of the felt. That is a much tougher problem. Again, not impossible, but tough indeed.

Now if you're really set on being able to change the seasons, why not concider baking soda for temporary snow? Just plant your winter trees, sprinkle so baking soda around, and it's winter. When the "spring" comes, pull up the trees, use a small vac., like the kind they use to detail a car, plant your trees with bright green leaves and flowers and stuff, and it's spring.

Now if you decide to use baking soda for snow, it has some drawbacks. First, it doesn't like humidity at all (It'll turn into a rock). Second, only leave it down for short times as it can attract unwanted "visitors" (bugs) if left down for lond periods. There may also be other drawbacks that I'm not aware of, but I'm sure that somebody here has some more experience with this.

Another option might be marble dust. It can be had in white and it has a certain luster and sparkle to it. It is expensive though. If you go this route you might buy a vac just for this and nothing else so that you can reuse the dust. Humidity and bugs would not be an issue with this option though.

Just some ideas that jumped into my head.........[8D]

[nbrodar]

I model summer into fall. Some parts are summer green, and others are in full autumn splendor. Orignally, I was going to have a winter section too, but now I'm not so sure.

Nick

[tangerine-jack]

The best option to change seasons is to sell your current inventory and invest in G scale equipment and build outdoors like real railroads.

(Sorry, I couldn't resist![:o)])

[GAPPLEG]

Being a desert road, who can tell what season it is ?[:D][:D][:D]

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by tangerine-jack

The best option to change seasons is to sell your current inventory and invest in G scale equipment and build outdoors like real railroads.

(Sorry, I couldn't resist![:o)])

They barely have anything in HO scale for my railroad let alone G scale.

[pcarrell]

QUOTE: Originally posted by GAPPLEG

Being a desert road, who can tell what season it is ?[:D][:D][:D]

It snows in the high desert, I've seen it.

[GAPPLEG]

Yeah, as a kid in El Paso we saw snow once, closed the city for 3 days. Despite the present location on my bio, I sent the first 17 years of my life in El Paso., Hence the SP connection.

[trainboyH16-44]

QUOTE: Originally posted by LSIModeler

How do you which season to use on your model railroad? Being in the great white north, I get a lot of snow which would make a lot of snow plows and snow runs. How do you choose which season to put on your railroad?
Thanks

I'm in the Great White North too, eh? So I want to winterize my railway. Want to know why? It's January, it's -10c, and trhere hasn't been snowfall in weeks. The grass is greener on the other side of the border, eh?
Currently my layout is in a late summer/early fall, but I expect that to change.

[CrossTrack Trains]

Hey, you could have a portion of your layout go up into the mountains with snow then transition to late spring or fall with they greenery of pine trees, grass, and/or maybe some fall color decidious trees. That way you won't get bored with the snow if it covered your entire layout.

[twhite]

The seasonal setting for my Yuba River Sub is mid-October of any given year, and since I model the Sierra Nevada mountains of California at varying elevations from 3,000-6,000', I can model all kinds of deciduous trees in varying shades of fall colors. Sticking to history, many of the original settlers of the California Northern Mines area were from the East Coast and southern Europe, and brought a lot of their native trees across as seedlings. So it's not uncommon to see Italian Spruce alongside Vermont Maples and New York Poplars. Generally speaking, the Northern Mines area of California is almost as big a riot of color as New England during the fall. In fact, the mining town of Nevada City (which is in California, BTW, despite the name) is famous for its "Fall Tree Tour" all over the country. Tourists swear they're in Vermont!
Tom

[Texas Zepher]

Winter deciduous trees are very hard to model and make look right. For summer time we can cover up the improperly arranged branches and lack of fine branches with foam "leaves".

[tomikawaTT]

Many moons ago there was a photo article in MR wherein the author stated that Autumn is the most interesting time of year, based on the changing colors of vegetation and such.

Then I went and picked a geographic area to model that is forested almost totally in cedars!

It really is September (1964). Says so right on the timetable. It could just as easily be any other month from April to November, or even some time in winter when the sun has melted all the snow.

An interesting possibility would be a moving snow scene. The train just came over the Sierras or Cascades, so all the open-tops are full of white, fluffy stuff and there's a lot more stuck to house cars and crusted on the pilot plow of the lead loco - but not a flake on the ground!

[loathar]

Spring/ summer green. If I want to add color I can do it with flowers or flowering trees and bushes. I've never seen fall color trees that looked very real to me.(and I don't like snow.Brrrrrrrrr.)