Telltales

[jeffers_mz]

He touched his nose, he's got a full house.

I fold.

Nope, wrong sport.

We all try to build as real as we can, within the constraints of time and money, and since no layout is ever really finished, it's hard to label any technique a "mistake", but we all know that there are some things, big or little, that scream "toy train". Sometimes they don't scream, sometimes it's a lot of tiny clues, unnoticable by themselves, that collectively add up to give you that "I'm not sure what's wrong, but it just doesn't look real to me" feeling.

Sure, horn hook couplers, train speeds that could qualify on the front row at the Indianapolis 500, jackrabbit neck-snapping starts and stops, but these are so basic as to not be worth mentioning. I'm looking for the next level, intermediate or even advanced things you look for or that grab your eyes, things that might be easily fixed or things nobody can do anything about, because you never, know, somebody, somewhere might just have a solution.

I'll start it off, but this is by no means a complete list, and isn't in any particular order.

1. Trains or buildings throwing dark shadows onto the "sky" (backdrop).

2. A large area or quantity of those little spiky peaks you get when something sticky is de-adhered to something else, like sloppily applied plaster or paint.

3. Brush marks in "rock" (plaster).

4. Flowing creeks and rivers that appear out of nowhere or disappear without explanation.

5. Mountains or hills that stop or start without rhyme or reason, not a road cut, more like, "well I need a town here, end of mountain".

6. Bridges to nowhere. Bridges aren't cheap, and I have yet to hear a civil engineer saying, "well we could grade this out, but a bridge would look prettier, let's burn a couple million bucks".

7. Tunnels through mountains that aren't big enough to have tunnels in them, essentially quonset huts made out of "rock".

8. Painted plywood or flat foam. Yes, it's a great improvement over bare plywood, but seriously, you aren't planning to leave it that way, are you? Unless it's a parking lot, even Indiana and Kansas really aren't that flat.

That's a start, a few of the things that really jump out at me, whether in pictures or while standing next to the layout, what are "telltales" for you?

[Anonymous]

Model RR are like theatre... you have to "suspend disbelief" to some degree to enjoy the obviously false scene you are looking at.
This side of the pond (UK) we tend to go a lot more for modelling a small piece of railway to an extremely high level of detail. A well taken photo could easily have you looking hard to see whether the subjext is real or not. So, from where I look at it, a big part of the issue is to not try to get too much in to too small a space.

The issue is, however, what the modeller wants and what he/she is prepared to put up with. If you are content with 1:87 trains running in front of a 1:1000 Mount Shasta ... well, it's your RR... Good Luck.

There are also questions of time and cost. We might landscape that area of ply one day but there are a lot of things to get done first.

What might be really useful (and a rather more positive approach) is a list of ways of quickly and cheaply providing a temporary solution that looks good enough to get by without detracting too much from getting the final finished product.

[:P]

[ARTHILL]

Cleanliness and neatness seem strange to me. Random mess is the fastest, cheapest and most effective way to add reality. The real artists can do organized mess, but that takes talent and time. Some of the posts show great skill at this, but just being random and a little careless does wonders.

[SpaceMouse]

Lately, it is plywood empires that have no possibility of any type of realistic landscape.

Unpainted plastic structures, especailly those with colors like orange, red and yellow that you can practacally see through.

EZ track. It is so hard to make look right.

[Anonymous]

Buildings should look like they are in the ground not on it, everything should have a degree of weathering, nothing kills a scene like shiny plastic.

[tomikawaTT]

Before heaving a rock at the old Lionel tinplate tunnel, be aware that it has a prototype!

The JNR Hachiko line crosses the approach path to the runway at Yokota AB in a shallow cut about half a kilometer beyond the end of the paved overrun. The 100 meters or so of track directly in line with the runway has been roofed over and bermed so that any aircraft that has a misadventure will not end up stacked up in the cut.

The Hachiko line has frequent passenger service (DMU cars in the 1960's,) and didn't have ABS. The intention was to prevent a crashing aircraft from adding the passengers of any passing train to the casualty count.

Chuck

[Anonymous]

Adding to TomikawaTT's thread... many small airfields where the flight path crosses a rail line have trip wires that will put the approach signals to stop if a plane touches them. Similarly in locations where bad rock falls occur there have been trip wires and even trip fences... rocks hit the system and the signals go red until the line has been checked and they are re-set by hand. In Scotland this was even done very early with mechanical semaphore signals. In that case the trip fence held the signals "Off" so that when the fences was broken (it included weak links) the signals dropped to danger.

I believe that there was also a Swiss line that had no tunnel... so as not to be the odd one out it built a diversion through a short tunnel.

Again, in the UK, it wasn't uncommon for the big landowners who received shares in place of cash for the land railways went through to demand that the line was in a cutting or tunnel through all of the route that was in sight of the big house. I don't think that any of these were built up but there were certainly several where the tunnel seemed to be in an odd place unless you knew the history.
One thing that does make a difference with these tunnels is that they very soon blended into the lanscape. As has been said... buildings should be in the landscape not on it. That is unless they are brand new and / or miitary facilities where the troops are kept busy in slack periods cleaning out the corners between the buildings and the planet.

[MisterBeasley]

I like to see people who look like they belong there, not just plopped down and posed for a photo. Bob Grech is particularly adept at this, as is Cletus Waldman (cwaldman to us.) If you look at their work, you'll see everyday folks going about their business.

[jeffers_mz]

Before this goes any further, I want to add that if someone likes a Lionel style tunnel, or painted plywood, or anything else which points up the non-prototype aspects of a layout, I'm fine with that. I have used cigarette packs and food item boxes as stand ins for buildings, scrap wood stood on end to simulate ridgelines, and still have bare plywood where the town is going to go.

The reason I posted this thread though, is so I can hopefully avoid simple mistakes that ruin the mood or prevent immersion when we are running the trains here.

Some good stuff so far. Buildings in the ground, check, and that solves a problem I was looking at, how to integrate terrain right up to a foundation. If real buildings have foundations, they are also at the very least, over dug, and at best finish graded with a swale away from the building to drain the foundation and to control runoff and prevent erosion. So natural grade has no need to intersect the foundation undisturbed, which makes it easier to get the foundation in the ground realistically.

Cheap plastic, check.

Strange looking tunnels ok next to runways, check. (Amusing story here, I used to work for an airline whose headquarters was very near to a place I had lived years earlier. While living there, I wanted to put up an antenna tower and called the FAA to find out what was legal, being so close to the approach and departure zone. The person I spoke with hemmed and hawed a bit and then said that when the trains passed on the embankment off the end of the runway, the tops of the boxcars were two inches up into controlled airspace, and that I could use that as a reference.

Much later, the network guy in our datacenter was looking to connect headquarters on one side of the tracks, with our hangar, over near the runway. We got well into negotiations with various companies looking at wireless solutions, microwave, terra-beams, etc. Then we realized that we would have to clear the trains on the embankment, or else lose the connection every time a train passed by. The problem with that was then we would be subjecting commercial passenger aircraft to mega-watts of radio energy on final approach, not a recommended practice. We ended up running a 24 core fiber optic link, buried under-ground.)

David, positive solutions are what I'm looking for in the end, but I want to make sure I'm aware of the problems before trying to devise ways around them.

Onward. If you know of telltales that really ruin the mood or overall effect, post them up.

:-)

[SpaceMouse]

I want to mention that two of the three on my list are on my layout.

I am plywood free, but landscape has always been pretty obvious.

EZ Track--I spent 6 months not-running to fix EZ track--to make it look right and be the right height for freight docks and passenger stations.

Cheap plastic. My daughter mentions it every time she comes in the basement. "When you going to paint those doors?" I have big Round Tuit hanging on each of those suckers. I'm working my way West to East. They'll each have thier day.

[tatans]

I am going to keep my eye on this post, as I can just imagine some of the upcoming responses, how about 50 unpainted plastic figures with square plastic around their feet milling about a corner store? and those Arizona rock cuts 8 inches above every foot of mainline regardless of where the layout is supposed to be. I think you are off to a good start.

[ModelTrainman]

interesting!

[tomikawaTT]

Going back to the basic title of this thread, for all who model eras prior to the banning of roof walks - where are the telltales?

When I was railfanning in the New York Metropolitan Area, about a half-century ago, there were telltales everywhere, warning unwary trainmen about tunnels, bridges, building entrances and even telephone lines. Yet, when I look at layout photos I never see those dangling rope ends. Granted they disappeared along with roof walks, but no road running steam should be without them.

Chuck

[jeffers_mz]

I didn't even know that's where the term originated, I picked it up playing poker. I can see the point though, getting clotheslined off the top of a fast freight by a tunnel entrance would smart.

In all the pics I've seen of the railroad we model (Silverton), I don't think I've seen even one of the things you describe. No tunnels, at least on the prototype, but definitely bridges and telegraph wires. Since this was before the labor movement, I guess the RR just figured that safety was an individual choice.

[marknewton]

QUOTE: Originally posted by jeffers_mz

In all the pics I've seen of the railroad we model (Silverton), I don't think I've seen even one of the things you describe. No tunnels, at least on the prototype, but definitely bridges and telegraph wires. Since this was before the labor movement, I guess the RR just figured that safety was an individual choice.

What period are the photos? The ICC mandated the use of telltales fairly early on in the piece, so you'd expect to see them somewhere.

Cheers,

Mark.

[MisterBeasley]

The roofwalks on the tops of freight cars disappeared decades ago. For safety reasons, crews don't walk on top of the cars anymore. So, we no longer need the telltales because no one is supposed to be up there on a moving train.

[marknewton]

Context, Mr Beasley. I'm well aware that running boards disappeared, and why. Read Jeff's post again. He mentions a period "before the labor movement", presumably pre-1964, which is when the ICC mandated their removal.

Mark.

[Anonymous]

a huge pet peeve of mine is flat color in nature. tall and short grass, ground cover and trees. A little subtle color variation can make a huge difference...

[tatans]

I see we have two seperate topics here originating from the word "telltale" 1. telltale: a bar over tracks with ropes or small chains hanging down to tell someone on top of the car that a tower or tunnel is coming and to duck down or say goodbye. and 2.: telltale-look it up.

[selector]

I thought the original post was clear: what gives away a photo of a layout that tells you if is not a natural 1:1 scale scene? I would like to know. If I ever get to the point where I do my darndest to fool most people with a photograph, what, short of digital manipulation, must I do?

[MidlandPacific]

QUOTE: If I ever get to the point where I do my darndest to fool most people with a photograph, what, short of digital manipulation, must I do?

Figures always give it away - I've never seen a model figure that I would mistake for a real person, even at moderate distances (particularly if you can see the face).

[selector]

QUOTE: Originally posted by rripperger

QUOTE: If I ever get to the point where I do my darndest to fool most people with a photograph, what, short of digital manipulation, must I do?

Figures always give it away - I've never seen a model figure that I would mistake for a real person, even at moderate distances (particularly if you can see the face).

I agree, and the backdrop does it for me often.

[MidlandPacific]

Maybe I just need to have all the figures on the layout facing away from the control panel - I'll model a detonated dynamite igloo on a far corner of the layout, and have everyone looking toward it, cotton smoke rising from it, lots of wreckage all around, blackened guy emerging from the smoke with a cigarette, that kind of thing.

[jeffers_mz]

Mark, we model 1890-1895 right now. The railroad folded around 1911 and was was officially abandoned in 1924.

Rob, I agree about the figures. I've seen some that look a lot better than others, but none that look real to me. In addition to the faces, the poses and the clothes just don't look right.

Still, figures are a lot of fun, just as your sheepish smoker idea illustrates.

The funny thing is, some animals look remarkably realistic. (I have to make an exception for WS bears, even though the package clearly shows black bears with brown eyebrows and black eyes, the actual figures have comically huge white eyes with black pupils. Yogi lives!)

Why can the companies that make figures get animals right, but not people?

[MidlandPacific]

My guess is that your eyes are capable of better resolution than the molds. You could see fingers, eyes, noses and mouths on 1/87 scale, but I've not seen anyone cast them successfully - usually if they attempt it they appear to be outsized.

Best anser - probably positioning figures so the viewer doesn't get a direct face-on view - a slight angle, back or side view - some position where you aren't looking directly into the face.

MR has done some great stuff in the past on making period figures - I have the project book downstairs with the old Portage Hill & Communipaw project layout - they explained how to backdate typical figures. Haven't done it myself, but I'm keeping it bookmarked

[jeffers_mz]

I think Preiser sells a big bag-o old time figures, unpainted, for a reasonable price, but I don't remember the details and haven't seen the figures up close.

I have a few Priesers and they are nice, but I have a few DPM's that are very, very nice. From what I hear though, they are going out of business.

:-(

[marknewton]

QUOTE: Originally posted by jeffers_mz

Mark, we model 1890-1895 right now. The railroad folded around 1911 and was was officially abandoned in 1924.

Interesting - I thought had been mandated by then. Perhaps I'm mistaken about the dates?

What happened, that your railroad folded so early?

Cheers,

Mark.

[MAbruce]

If I’m looking at a model photograph, then the giveaways to me are:

1. Lack of depth of field. Out of focus areas in the background seem common in many average model photographs I’ve seen. Especially close up shots. In general they are the toughest because the detail needs to be nearly perfect. I think that panoramic landscape shots are often easier to pull off.


2. Figures. As mentioned before, they can ruin a perfectly modeled scene.

3. When the paint jobs look too fresh. We live in a faded world. Other than a late model freshly washed car, colors on buildings, trains, etc. are not often faded enough.

4. Track weathering (or lack thereof). This is something I plan to pay far more attention to on my next layout. It’s not only the color of the track, but in most cases it’s about making it look like it’s been there a while.

5. Lack of color variation in vegetation. Not everything is always a lush green. Sometimes tress and grass should be in varying states of burnout.

6. Lack of extra details. Signposts, cracks in the road, signs on building windows, litter, rusted fences, etc. Often times these little extras make a scene.

7. Using and positioning the correct lighting. Noontime shots are nice and easy, but the real skill comes with well placed shadows.

[Anonymous]

One I've seen many times, some one hase put a great deal of effort detailing, painting and weathering but no effort was made to remove or knock down parting lines and flash on the parts. Most often, the techniques used that usualy make a model look realistic, like drybrushing, only enhance the chunks making them look even more unrealistic.

As for the eye detail on the figures, or any minute detail on a model, it is a fine line ( no pun intended ) that has to be worked out in the tooling vs. paint. Just like the wood grain in the tack boards on some of Athearn's newer 50' HO & N box cars. On the test shots at the tool & die shop they looked good, but that fine detail was lost under the thicker coat of paint applied in production. The tool and die people have to try and predict the thickness of the paint that is going to be applied in the future and adjust. Not an easy task.
One othe thin I just thoght of is trees being to uniform and the absence of under brush in wilderness settings. May be there are fairies in the woods keeping the forrest floor neet and tidy?

[MisterBeasley]

QUOTE: Originally posted by jeffers_mz
I have a few Priesers and they are nice, but I have a few DPM's that are very, very nice. From what I hear though, they are going out of business.

DPM? I hadn't heard anything like that. But, to my knowledge DPM doesn't make figures, either. I just checked their web site, and a search for "figures" comes up empty.

Edit - This was a misunderstanding. See below. DPM, as far as anyone knows, is doing fine.

Most of my little folks are Preiser or Woodland Scenics.