What sets apart a great model railroad from just another layout?
Mood.
It's a feeling you get when you
look at the overall layout. Does it all work together blending into one
cohesive package? Do the scenery, structures, rolling stock and track plan draw
you in and tell a story? It's the “story” the layout tells that makes it
believable, conveys a feeling, keeps you going back for more.
Stop and visualize for a moment
some of the truly great model railroads of our time: Virginian and Ohio, Red
Stag Lumber, Utah Belt, Muskrat Ramble, Downtown Spur, and The Coast Line, to
name but a few. For me, these great layouts create a certain mood, a sense of
place, a new reality, if you will. We are wonderfully sucked in, believing that
these models are actual railroads.
How does that happen? It goes
without saying that the builders of these model railroads are very talented but
even more, they are storytellers. Their layouts clearly portray a place, a
mood, all within a certain time frame. They accomplish this with “believable”
scenery for the location of the railroad, correct choices for locomotives and
rolling stock and industries that reinforce the need for a railroad in the
first place.
Notice I said believable
and not “unbelievable?” They look like “every day” not
Disneyland. When you view their layouts, you are transported to that place and
time. You get the story, the feeling of place, the mood, if you will, and you
believe it’s real.
I want the new versions of the On30 Mosquito Creek Lumber Company and my HO
scale Big Island Rail, both currently in the rebuilding process,
to each tell a clear and concise story. I am again building two separate, stacked
layouts, in two different scales, with two different themes, eras and moods.
I've done a lot of homework before any of the construction began to make sure
each layout will tell the story.
For the MCL Co., this is the feeling I’m wanting to create:
The air is heavy with moisture. the humidity
makes it hard to pull in a deep breath. The sounds of bull frogs, birds, and an
assortment of flying insects also fill the air. As dusk settles over the bayou,
hundreds of fireflies add a touch of mini pyrotechnics to the dark, still
surroundings.
Suddenly the drone of all these creatures is
punctuated by the clanging of a bell and the shrill of a steam whistle. The
mechanized drumming, clanking and squealing of steel wheels on light rail. The
whistle grows louder. A yellow beam of light pierces the mist as a steam logging locomotive swings around a tight curve and rumbles across a low
wooden bridge spanning a green stagnant swamp.
All the commotion prompts a gator to slip silently from shore under a thick patch of floating lily pads. The bridge strains and creaks under the weight of a dozen loaded log cars clacking over the rail joints. As quickly as it came, the train disappears into the dark waterlogged cypress forest with only the marker lights on the swaying crummy still visible through the moisture-laden evening.
I want my
On30 swamp logger layout to ooze with deep south bayou mood and give viewers a feeling of being in the swamps of Louisiana.
A big part of the whole package of modeling a convincing railroad is to
convey a specific locale. And I plan on really going all out creatively to
bring the swamp layout. As much as the swaying palm trees, appropriate scenery,
locomotives, rolling stock and tropics related industries reinforce my
lower-level Hawaiian theme HO scale Big Island Rail layout, I want to set the
right mood for my narrow-gauge logging operation as well.
Even though the new swamp logger layout is much smaller, it will have at least a couple “signature scenes” from the former layout to set it apart and really hammer down that mood. One is the railroad's lift bridge over the Green River. Another signature scene will be the tractor logging transfer spur. A new scene planned for the layout will be the Mosquito Camp water front, featuring camp buildings on pilings over the bayou and lots of funky logging company watercraft moored along the swampy banks.
Of course,
there are other methods to come for creating that special mood on the layout
and I will discuss those in future posts as the layout construction progresses.
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