1) The theory.
If you get an old 2000mm by 800 mm door, put an oval of OO track around its perimeter and put a tunnel over the track at some point, then you have “sceniced” it. That is, you have created a scene (however simple and basic) that is a reflection of reality – trains go through tunnels. Not only that, but the loop with the tunnel looks different from the loop without it. The tunnel has changed the perspective of the viewer. A complicated layout in a bedroom or a garage (like mine), or a very large club layout still has the same need: to lift the model from just being track with trains going around and around to a representation of the real thing. In other words to add another dimension: that of going some way toward reality.

There are three main aspects of “scenicing” model railways: (1) what you want the landscape through which your railway runs to look like (2) how you achieve the effects that you want, i.e. the practical aspects of making it and (3) the ‘artistic’ or aesthetics of the finished product, which includes perspective, depth of field and so on. A possible fourth aspect of this topic is that the model landscape itself is the object, such as in the creation of a diorama of say, Paddington GWR station, and the railway running through it adds another aspect of ‘reality’ to the scene. An example of this is the display at Pendon, just outside Oxford in the UK, where the railway is secondary to the model villages. (www.pendonmuseum.com) In this latter concept, it is the scenics that are of major importance and the railway is secondary. However, for most railway modellers it is the railway that is of prime importance and the scenics added to the look of it so that it resembles the real thing. This article examines some aspects of the underlying ideas – the theory if you like – of scenicing.

Model railways may be of two types. (A) One is where track is laid to suit the size of the baseboard, such as a standard door, or a sheet of chipboard, or even a large layout the size of a room. In other words starting off with a basic loop with a siding, or an end to end, then progressing on to a configuration that is essentially random, i.e. not a particular place and/or time. Alternatively, (B) at the other end of the scale, a railway based upon a prototype, as mine is. This means that a particular place is modelled on a large scale, e.g the main line from London to Edinburgh. To this idea may be added the dimension of time. For example, a layout may be the London, Midland and Scottish Railway (LMS) between the First and Second World Wars, (as mine is) or contemporary (modern) Britain, or whatever period the modeller chooses.

Above: an example of scenicing using bought materials - the backdrop - and ‘hand made’ materials such as the
wall (mdf) and the platform (2”x1” - 50x25mm) pine.

A railway modeller friend of mine of many years’ experience has said that: “…railway scenicing is principally about perspective.” To understand this comment, consider the following. A model of anything – trains, cars, trees, people or whatever, is a representation of reality. A full scale mock up of a car made of modelling clay may be the same size as the real thing, but it is a model, i.e. it represents a real car and as such will have all of the detail of it, but not the steel, glass, rubber and so on. A full-scale model would have the proportions of 1:1. One-tenth scale would be 1:10. In railway modelling the three most used scales for commercially bought track, locomotives and rolling stock are N gauge 1:148; HO 1:87 and OO 1:76. (Although HO and OO really refers to rolling stock since they both tun on 16mm track this is actually HO scale. (See below) There are variations with the application of these scales as we shall see later, but for the purposes of this article, these are close enough. In the application of scale, a standard gauge track measuring 4 feet 8 1/2 inches or 1,435 mm in HO is 16 mm. In OO, it would be almost 19mm. In N scale standard gauge track is 9mm. A 70-foot coach in HO is 245 mm long. In OO, this coach would be 280 mm. The same coach in N would be 144 mm. Most modellers who are starting out in the hobby do not concern themselves with the intricacies of scale – they just buy track and rolling stock in either N or OO, lay it and run trains. However, when the time comes to go to the next step and scenic their railway, scale does play a part. Any railway layout is a compromise. If, for example, it were based on a prototypical place like the main line from London to Edinburgh, some 393 miles or 636km, then true to OO scale it would have a length of 7 kilometres! So plainly linear scale must be compromised. Secondly vertical scale must also be compromised. A mountain with a tunnel passing through it looks really good on a layout both as a scenic break between two areas and also as an aspect of the real terrain being modelled. However a mountain (or large hill) 1000 metres high scaled to 1:76 would have a vertical height of 13 metres. Even a mere hump at 250 metres would be 3.2 metres high scaled at 1:76. Conversely, a modelled mountain with a tunnel through it 300mm high from track to peak measured vertically would in reality be only 23 metres high – only a pimple! Even a 60-foot pine tree or a three-story warehouse at 1:76 would be 240mm high. The tree and the warehouse might be technically right, but it wouldn’t look right against everything else around it.

Above: the viaduct referred to in the article (below)

So, while all this (the tree etc.) might be true to scale according to the strict rules, when this is done on a layout it does not look right. The reality is that it is out of proportion in terms of perspective. Because of this, some compromise has to be made in terms of height of buildings, trees, bridges, tunnel mouths and other vertical measurements. Therefore, usually, even though locomotives and rolling stock are the right scale length, trees are not “true” scale. They do, however, look like the real thing, because it is a representation that is close enough to reality for all but “rivet counters”. (A rivet counter is a modeller for whom no compromise may be tolerated. Such modelers usually make their own track, points and rolling stock and everything else, such as semaphore signals, telegraph poles and much else besides to true scale and they are very skilled (and dedicated!). In scenicing in terms of application, it is the apparent proportion that looks right, rather than the true scale, especially where verticals such as walls, trees, buildings, hills and other things are concerned. However, it can be about right ‘in reverse’. An example of this is the central arch of the viaduct on my layout The actual vertical measurement from river -bed to track-bed is 260 mm. Scaled up to 1:76 this would give an actual arch height of 19.7 metres. It is proportional to a real viaduct arch and it looks right with all of the things around it, including a train crossing it. In short, the loco and rolling stock look right in proportion to the background. This is the key to visually satisfying railway scenicing.

2) Contours and gradients
Let us assume that you want to build a model railway and that you have the time and the money – and you will need both! Let us also assume that you want more than just a loop of track with a train going around and around. In other words, you want to model a railway, with all that that implies. The first thing to consider is the substrate onto which you will build the model. The baseboard can be made of a variety of materials, such as a door. This will give a long, narrow base 2 metres by 0.8 of a metre. On the other hand, it could be a 1.2 metre by 2.4-metre sheet of chipboard, or it could be made of plywood or many other options that may be bought in standard sizes. These boards may, of course, be joined together to give a number of different shapes and sizes of layout. Be all that as it may, what you make the substrate out of will influence how you scenic the railway because you will have to cut it to create valleys or put in risers to gain height. Other influential factors are room size, prototype to be modelled and how you will fit the two ideas together - i.e. how you will scale the prototype to the baseboard and some intangibles, such as how you envisage the finished layout – how you picture it in your mind. (Some people argue that layouts are never finished!) Rather than talk about this subject
hypothetically, I shall use my own layout and experiences as examples in this article.

Consider first the prototype railway. The real earth has flat plains, hills, mountains, valleys, rivers, lakes and soon - geomorphology. For the railway engineer (and I don’t mean what the Americans mean by the engine driver) any part of the earth’s surface that is not flat and unbroken creates an obstacle to be overcome. Plains, even those the size of the Nullarbor, are good for laying railway track on so that passengers and freight may be moved from settlement to settlement. However, for the railway modeller and the viewer of such models, plains are just plain (!) boring. There is nothing more boring than a contourless layout. Conversely, it is hills, valleys, and rivers, lakes and mountains that make scenery interesting – just look at how many painters of all countries paint landscapes. Additionally, the idea of moving people and goods from place to place implies urbanisation – towns and possibly cities. These, too, add interest to a layout, mostly through buildings. Buildings add vertical scale and therefore add to the perspective.

In model railways, undulations and cracks in the earth’s crust – hills and valleys - make for an interesting layout, but there is a snag. To railway engineers, who like their track to be predominantly flat, hills and valleys are a big problem because hills and mountains if they cannot be avoided have to be tunnelled through or made into cuttings if they are small enough. Valleys and rivers have to be crossed with viaducts or bridges. This is also true for railway modellers, but there is an additional problem: you have to create the hills and valleys first before you can bridge them! In short, you have to create the contours and the valleys in your head, then translate them into a three dimensional model. In reality, engineers cut trenches through hills and call them cuttings or tunnel through them (called tunnels strangely enough!) They put bridges over rivers or viaducts over valleys. Something else that they have to deal with is getting from low ground to high ground and vice versa. To do this is to create an incline, the most important part of which is the gradient. For example in mountainous countries like Switzerland or in the Canadian Rockies gradients of 1 in 33 are not unknown. This is very steep, meaning that the line goes up (or down) 1 vertical unit in every 33 linear units. On my own layout, I have a gradient of 1 in 56. The famous Shap Fell in the north of England is about 1 in 75 and the equally famous Lickey incline in the south is about 1 in 37. In New Zealand, the line from Arthur’s pass through the Otira Tunnel to Otira is 1 in 33. (See the article on
gradients.)

Now, when building a model railway either to prototype or purely imaginary geography, hills and valleys make it interesting to run trains through. However, if it is a short baseboard then gradients are a real problem because you will not have enough length in which to raise the track from base height to the higher. In mountainous countries, civil engineers solved the problem of gradients by spiralling the track around and up at the same time, or by zigzagging, but the problem of gradients will not go away on a layout without length in which to do it.

Bearing all of the above in mind, the modeller who starts his railway from scratch has to think in three dimensions – length, width and height – before he puts a single centimetre of track down. The size and shape of the baseboard will determine the length and width, but the height of it is another matter. The higher the contours the steeper the gradients unless you have enough length in which to achieve it.

Above: Lambert’s brewery at Trent on my layout

3) Scenic breaks and industries
I have looked so far (above) at the ideas of linear and vertical scale, geomorphology – the shape of the earth in the form of contours, hills, valleys etc. and the compromises needed by the modeller to achieve his end: to have a visually satisfying layout on which to run trains. At a very basic level, a train disappearing completely into a long tunnel creates a sense of expectation: when will it come out again? (On some layouts it doesn’t. It falls off and you have to go underneath, put your hand in, take it out and start again! To do this you will need to create access holes under the scenery.) However, the position of the tunnel, say going under a hill or through a
mountain, will create a scenic ‘break’. This is because the tunnel separates one ‘mini-scene’ from another.

How do scenic breaks work?
My OO layout is based on an English prototype and has two levels in a room (ex-garage) about 5 metres by 5 – 16 feet by 15. There are five stations on the upper level and two on the lower. (The branch line is also on the upper level.) It is prototypal in that each station represents a real geographical location. Five of the seven stations are urban and two are rural. The fact that there are urban settlements (towns and cities) and a rural village gives the layout its operation rationale. Each of the settlements has industries and people. The railway services the populations with passenger trains and also transports goods to and from each of the towns and the village. For example, one town has coalmines, a coking plant, an oil depot, a salt depot, and a goods depot. Another town has an oil refinery and a steel mill. Yet another has the docks and is an important terminus. Another station is also a terminus and locomotive-servicing centre. Both lower level stations are termini. The branch line has a quarry, a copper mill, a saw mill and cattle dock (as does one of the other stations and the marshalling yard). The remaining upper level station is a halt attached to the marshalling yard. So much for the prototype.

The vertical differential between the upper and lower levels is 100mm. Scenically, where the branch line leaves the main line there is a hill with a church on the top. This hill is at the juncture of two of the ‘arms’ of the layout that are at an angle of 90 degrees to each other. One of the ‘arms’ carries the branch line and the other one of the industrial urban scenes. There is a tunnel through the hill through which runs the branch line and beside it the canal. The railway line and the canal enter the tunnel together, but only the railway line emerges. The branch line represents a rural scene and is predominantly flat, green and peaceful with a few trees and still
water. At the end of the branch line is a quarry and a small village. Conversely, at one end of the urban scene (the left-hand end) are coalmines, a coking plant, an oil depot and a goods depot, all of which have associated sidings. Even though in reality urban settlements eventually thin out and become rural at some stage, to achieve this on a model needs ‘trick’ of perspective - a scenic break. On my layout the tunnel allows the trains to move from one part of the layout to the next – i.e. maintains the continuity of the track, but the hill through which it runs breaks up that same continuity. The train goes from the rural scene, into the tunnel and emerges into the industrial scene. In short, the hill in the corner creates two ‘mini-scenes’ at right angles to each other, one rural
and the other urban.

Above: the rural (but busy) scene at Oakamooor on the rural branch line

At the other end of this same industrial scene (the right hand end), at the centre of which is the town and its station – is another ‘arm’ also at 90 degrees to it. Trains that leave this station have to cross a viaduct. The viaduct crosses a valley with a river running through it. The viaduct is, in effect, another scenic break. On one side of the viaduct - between the station and it - is a semi-rural scene that represents the transition from outer suburbs to countryside. The train, having crossed the viaduct, enters another scene. This next scene is a long marshalling yard that has a small station that is only a single platform halt as part of it. (Trent) Just beyond the halt is another corner. In this corner there is another scenic break – another tunnel. When the layout once again turns through 90 degrees the industrial marshalling yard is left behind and the train emerges into a rural scene which has its own station. Because this station is in the middle of this 4 metre long ‘arm’ of the layout, it is, in effect, another scenic break. The reasons for this is that the train leaving this station passes factories, the steel mill and oil the refinery and their yards and associated sidings which are definitely urban industries.

Above: the rural station at Corby & Weldon (the height differential between the upper (station) and lower (bottom left) is 100mm

It is just beyond these yards that another scenic break occurs. Rounding a wide radius curve the gradient of 1:60begins and the track runs down to the lower level which it reaches almost 5 metres later. Between the upper and lower levels the track there is a differential it its highest point of 100 mm. Scaled up 1:76 this is of course only a real height of 7600 cm or 7.6 metres or 24 feet. It may be seen as track running parallel with a cliff face that height, or through a deep cutting.(See above) Whichever is chosen, this long scenic break separates the upper level industrial scene from the lower urban one by having the track pass through countryside which is predominantly green and treed. The sides of the cutting are contoured and are essentially rock faces. Once again, as the viewer watches the train leave the upper level and descend to the lower over some 5 metres, the scene changes almost every metre.
When the train goes in the opposite direction and climbs the gradient, surprisingly, the effect on the viewer is different. At the opposite side of the layout there is almost a mirror image of this scene. The track rises in a 1:60 gradient from the lower terminus station to the upper level where the coalmines etc. are, but the natural rock face wall is replaced with a man made brick wall. Additionally, at the top of the rise the train goes into a tunnel and emerges on the top level and goes though the yards and into the station.(See picture below)

Above: the brick wall between the two levels

Finally, there is another type of scenic break. Scenic “wallpaper” is available from model shops. All around the walls of my layout is a continuous scene where fields and so on merge into townscapes behind the stations and then become countryside again between towns. In the centre of the layout – between the two terminus stations there is a board also containing scenic ‘wallpaper’. At one end of this 3 metre long section is a terminus station. At the opposite end is a dock scene. Between the two is a mini-scenic break of rocks and trees. The station end has a cityscape. The dock end has a waterscape with a dock, ships and so on. On the other side of
the divider board is the other terminus station. This has town ‘wallpaper’ all the way along and it, too, has a break of rocks, trees and a bridge over the tracks in the yards and sheds where locomotives are serviced. Thus, it may be seen that scenic breaks come in many types and have a variety of functions on a layout, but mainly to give the viewer a sense of reality and also to allow the modeller some ‘room to move’ scenically.

Above: an example of the application of the techniques and material mentioned in the article.

Copyright © Peter J. Baddeley 2004