39 - O Scale Trains Magazine Online

3
6
4
taboo; modelers seldom place objects between the tracks
and the front edge of their layouts. I guess the issue must
be fear of things getting damaged or interference with
operations.
Take a look at this cluster of trees near the Mill St. crossing.
There are four turnouts with groundthrows in this area.
I was careful to place the trees so they wouldn’t obstruct
my reach when throwing a switch. This grouping of trees
helps divide the layout into two distinct scenes at this
point. This is even more effective when you get closer to
track level as in Photo 7. Mill St. itself also acts as a divider
by interrupting the flow of the track lines. I used the same
7
5
tree; therefore, the trains appear out of scale to their surroundings
(Photo 5). You can get away with modeling tall
objects on a shelf layout because of the narrowly defined
cross-section of a given scene. As mentioned in Part II, the
24” depth of the benchwork only is only 96 scale feet. By
focusing on the track and immediate surroundings, you can
model objects closer to their actual scale size and let backdrops
fill in the rest of the world.
Puzzle Piece #8: Viewblocks.
Photo 6 introduces another important scenic feature – a
viewblock. On a long horizontal shelf layout, having something
to block your view of the train, however briefly, helps
to divide the layout into distinct scenes, making it seem
larger than it actually is. It doesn’t take much to do this.
Even a single large tree could effectively serve to divide a
scene into two separate areas. This seems to be another
38 • O Scale Trains - Jul;y/Aug ’08
trick (a dense cluster of trees) to hide the entrance to the
staging cassette. The train simply disappears gracefully just
as you might see in real life (Photo 8).
Puzzle Piece #9: Mini-scenes.
In addition to dividing the layout into different scenes, I
like to create mini-scenes that help hold the eye in a given
area. These can help reenforce the character of your rail-
8