SCENERY PROS -- I NEED YOUR ADVICE

I have mixed feelings about the issue of people on my layout. They absolutely add interest.  But, the sad fact is that it is well-nigh impossible to acquire or make human figures that look natural. This is the "uncanny valley" issue that computer animators talk about. The inherent "strangeness" of even near-perfect human figures is just distracting. There are a number of hyper-realistic modelers who flat refuse to include human figures in their scenes for just this reason.

My modeling is far from "hyper-realistic", but I try hard to make scenes that look "right" on casual inspection. Figures tend to work against this goal.  So, I compromise.  I include figures when they serve a purpose in a scene, but I do so sparingly, and never stick them in "just because".

Just my opinion.

Mario, the oil column is next to one of the water spouts. There are just as many coal fired engines, but for this video I staged everything for an SP run.  

The storage tanks are the silver ones over by the diesel building. I have NOT found an acceptable pump house to place there to pump the oil over to the column. I haven't found any acceptable tank cars for oil delivery either, although I haven't spent much time looking for a few.

Even if I "painted" pit floors in the RH, unless you're about 6'8" or taller, you wouldn't see them anyway. I contemplated the pits for a long time because I really wanted them with lights and all..... this is just not the layout for it. Need a bigger room where we could put the RH & TT on a peninsula.

Because of space limitations, the coal is delivered and dumped directly under the coal tower. There is no chute for loading underneath, so we shove the coal cars under there and dump. This is an old picture but in the video you see all the coal that's all over the ground under the tower. So the service employees will ask for coal and sand to be spotted at the same time because they use the same track. It also happens to be the "inbound" track where the ash is dumped (if applicable) so it can't be out of service for too long.

We knew that space was going to be tight, but the entire layout/track plan was designed around this TT and RH. It's placement is so that when you walk in my parent's house, you have a full view of the RH & TT with all the engines sitting around the area. Because of their placement, we had to compromise with several things just to make this the center piece of the room.

To do this properly, with everything where it "should" be based on various photos from the early 1900's to the end of the steam era, we would need at least 10' of straight track leading into the TT... at least!. We have about 4', and it's on a curve.

So we just have to remember it's Hi-Rail, and your imagination has to kick in just a bit.

LOS-

Perfect!  Thanks for pointing those out!

I didn't think you would overlook said things, and I need to pay more attention.

PS - there's some great shots of engine servicing facilities on "Last of the Giants", both Volume 1 and 2.

That brass water tower is SICK!

TTYS!

Thanks,

- Mario

Some very fine advice here. For more inspiration, go to shorpy.com, then railroads, then jack delano. Here's one of his photos that illustrate many of the suggestions you've received:

That is an excellent photo above.  It's all there.  This is a workplace, run by people who care about efficiency, not esthetics.  Truly, this picture is worth about two thousand words!

A couple more photos by Jack Delano:

OT, but if you work through the color photos by Delano, you will find a number of rolling stock showing how filthy cars were in the steam era. It's almost as if there is no weathering you can do that's too much...