Detailing a Model Railroad Yard Scene

Photos by Gregor Moe

I started with a control tower and speeder shed I’ve had installed for some time. The scene is nice but it lacked anything to draw the eye to it. I looked at the area for about 3 months before doing anything, trying to decide what I wanted to do. I try to make the scenes look as believable as I can and as if there is something going on in the scene.

There was no way for the people to get to work in the tower, speeder shed, or to the work crane parked on the siding. Since the yard office is only about 300 feet from the tower I figured the workers could walk to their jobs from the yard office area. Since the work crane in normally parked on the siding the workers could not take a straight path from the yard office to the tower and the high ground and trees in the drainage ditch dictated a route around the end of the work crane. I took some ties and laid out crossings for a walk way and the location of the bridge across the marshy area to see if it looked reasonable.

Next I went looking for items to detail the scene in the detail box and the junk box i.e. speeder, people, tools, junk, benches, chair, drums, welding tanks, and anything else I thought might work. I started by putting in the walk ways and the bridge and painting the unpainted items while the glue dried. The path between the railroad crossings was graveled in to form a level path between the crossings. The raw wood was stained with mixtures of various proportions alcohol and black shoe polish.

With the walk ways in I started putting in the rest of the people and material trying it out in different places to see how it looked. I settled on putting the trash piles and burn barrel to the left of the speeder shed rather than between or behind the shed and control tower so it could be seen and was convenient for work crew to throw junk in when they returned from working.

With figures I try to get them to appear to be doing something when I put them in place. The two figures by the speeder appear to be talking about the speeder and the three in on the bench and chair could be talking about the upcoming day’s work or the bar they are planning on going to after their shift. The guy on the path with the shovel could be the last guy to work or the first one for the next shift. The one on the bridge is tired of fighting the tree limbs hanging over the bridge and is going to trim them. The figure at the top of the control tower steps is watching to make sure the three railfans on the hill stay out of trouble.

I feel that the new details improve the scene and draw your eye into the scene that the original scene didn’t.