Layout Construction: The Scene

When you start building your layout, you probably have a real railroad after which you want to model your layout.  This will help you determine what kind of scenery to add to your layout.



Many a layout are based around the idea of choosing a region around the U.S. (or Europe), adding the railroad and surrounding it with realistic and plausible scenery scenery and industries.  By carefully choosing these features, you can make your layout far more realistic and believable.

Although it may be tempting to try to emulate some of nature's wonderful and beautiful phenomena, don't.  No matter how gifted the artist, it would be impossible to perfectly recreate the Grand Canyon, Niagara Falls or any other natural wonder as it would look unbelievable (as in not believable) when compared to the real thing.  It is best to model your layout around more typical and regular scenery rather than fantastical anomalies of nature.  The more common the scenery is to real life, the more believable your layout will be.

Gathering Information and Inspiration

The next step in the assembly of your layout is to do your due diligence - research.  Ideally, you would be able to make the trip to your particular region of the country to see first-hand the region you choose to model.  However, for most of us, this is completely unrealistic, so that's where the internet and the library come into play.  Thankfully, as technology progresses, the internet is growing more and more with countless pictures of your region.  Make sure to check out Google Maps or Microsoft Photosynth for tons of detailed images, overhead views and panoramic shots of any particular region in the world.