@@PrinceStreet Thanks. There’s something rather special about railway stations with grand overall roofs. The way pools of sunlight form on the platforms and rolling stock shining through the skylights. (Even more so in steam days, when all the smoke would hand around in the air unable to clear out rapidly.) I wonder if it would be possible to recreate a similar effect with perhaps isolated tightly controlled single LED’s shining down onto the platform from above.
@@MicroModelRailwayDispatch I remember a 2mm scale layout RMWeb’s “bcnpete” was building, based on Thurso in Scotland, where he cut a hole in the backdrop, the shape of the train shed’s section, so you could look along the platform and the frame of that view matched the shape of the real life one. I love this “pools of light” idea. I always wondered about using very focussed beams of (LED?) light aimed at places where real life like fixtures would be placed to produce an effect like you’re describing? This way the beam could produce a lot of light but where it lands results in the focus like you describe. I don’t think we use shadow enough in our modelling and I love the way your lighting idea would create a pattern of shadows and silhouettes within the scene. This morning, I was also thinking how realistic feeling the S-curve entry into this scene could feel: how often the train entering the platform has to negotiate a series of turnouts and crossovers and how this is the look you’d have. This is so easy to be excited about and get carried away with. Chris
To provide power to the cassette track, I suggest soldering a length of paperclip wire to the outside of each rail on the scenic track with the protruding length being suitably bent to make positive contact with the cassette track rails.
This is an interesting idea which I think would only work if the layout was at eye level. When I stand at the end of my layout and watch the trains coming towards me, I am looking down on the the train and the track. This does not give the view that you are looking for. With an exhibition layout it would mean that only two or three people could view the layout at any one time. I do like your idea and I may steal it to build a London underground layout or a large engine shed. The trains would travel from one short fiddle yard past the viewer and into a second short fiddle yard. Time to fire up AnyRail. Thank you.
@@KennethRankin-r2z Absolutely. Eye level would be the only way to get the desired effect. The more you can constrict the viewpoint to increase that effect the better it’s could be. A London Underground location would be perfect.
Hello Ian. I have designed a layout that is seven foot long and one foot wide. there is a narrow three foot cassette at each end. The layout can be viewed from each end. Just past one cassette there is a point leading to a narrow platform edge and the right hand switch side crosses the board at an angle to the other cassette.
I built a layout designed to be viewed 'head on' in 2011, it was called "Schiller Point" and was supposed to be a small Soo Line stabling point on land that really exists north of the real Schiller Park, that was Soo Line's Chicago gateway for many years. The only video clip is here on my RU-vid channel - ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-azLZLFQjr4g.htmlsi=JxnQiX_hQG_IAcXh The switches were 2ft radius (yes, RADIUS) and all track hand laid.
