HOW TO CREATE REALISTIC CONTOURS
Peter Marriott shares his methods for building railway embankments and landscapes.
Once I have completed a layout, I often begin to lose interest in it, consigning it to my garage for several years before salvaging re-usable elements for my next project.I don’t think I’m alone in finding that I get the most pleasure from the building of a model railway, rather than the operation.
For this new project, consisting of a double–track main line running through the countryside, I have recycled a baseboard from a previous layout, stripping it of track and as much scenery as possible to provide a flat surface on which to build the new scene.
The baseboard measures around 2m long and 0.5m wide and it took just 30 minutes to clear away almost all trace of the track and scenery – all that hard work gone to waste in less than an hour! However, putting a positive slant on this, I was full of hope that my new scene would be better,building on the techniques I’ve been learning over the years.
RAISING MY GAME
The purpose of this new diorama is primarily for displaying models, rather than as part of a functional model railway, which would allow me to concentrate more on getting the scenery looking as realistic as possible. The scene is inspired by several locations I found while visiting various locations across Europe, with the curved twin-track main line elevated on an embankment and featuring a stone and concrete underbridge as one of the key scenic elements. My aim was to also make the scene suitable for posing UK-outline stock, so that would provide an additional challenge.