Narrow gauge modeler Bob Brown is often asked why there are no mountains on his Tuolumne Forks model railroad when it is a mining and logging layout. The answer is that mountains take up a lot of space on a ¼ inch scale model. What Brown enjoys most about his scenery is the buildings, so he has kept his layout fairly flat for that reason. He enjoys most the building and running of nice trains through nice scenes. So far, he has not done much operation on his railroad, but may start operating in the future.
Brown goes on to discuss his scenery techniques. Brown believes that it is important to keep the colors muted in a layout and to blend all scenery together. Trees and buildings are used as scenic blocks. Brown uses standard scenery techniques such as crumpled paper in different components, but instead of hydrocal plaster, he uses textured paint. The papers are dipped in the texture paint and placed over the scenery shell. This material works like plaster but is not as hard. Dirt is mixed with water and white glue to create mud and brushed on to make a nice ground surface. The Tuolumne Forks model railroad scenery features a lot of loose poured on material that is after secured down with white glue.
