John, Some scenes will just be nature (trees, rocks, etc) like the section I posted yesterday. That one may never be changed out for another one, but only removed if I need to get at the wires for the track above it. I am certainly not done adding and forming foam, but this one will be about 2 feet long and less than a foot deep. I roughly drew the outline of it in red. (Boy so I have a time drawing with the mouse) I may put in a trackside shed or service road, or it may just be rocks and a hillside.
In this one I had initially planned to have a town on a hillside. That was before I acquired the model of the Thomas, West Virginia engine house. It is about 4 feet long and a foot deep, and has a lot of work to be done before it takes it's final shape. I still plan to put some buildings on it and trees to partially hide a power station backdrop making it look like it is in the distance. For my thinking, this one lends itself more towards building more than one at some point to change out scenes. Regardless, the first reason to have this one removable is that I can build and scenic it at a convenient table instead of reaching over the tracks at 50" high.
In the second photograph, I need to raise the backdrop since I am covering up the trees. Fortunately, it is not attached to the wall yet, since I thought I would be altering it. I also need to pull out the right hand section and paint it. I ran out of backdrop that I bought from a forum member.
You raised a good point about how to hide the joint. Planting bushes or trees along the seam is the easiest method. Where that isn't available, I have seen where modelers have used the edges of buildings, stone walls, or some overlap of scenery. Sometimes, it is difficult to hide the seam, like if a road crosses it. I think there you could rough in the road, the with the removable section in position, you could match up the scenery pretty closely. Visitors would hardly notice unless the seam is pointed out.
