Ruston Layout Scenery

Adding realistic scenery to a micro model railway layout gives the miniature trains some scenery to run through, and increases operating pleasure.

On micro layout, scenery seems to be more important than it might seem to be on a much larger layout. This might be partially because of the sense of a micro layout having less operating interest, although that somewhat depends on the attitude of the one who operates it, and how it is operated.

The good thing about adding scenery to a micro layout is that it often takes a lot less time to add reasonably good scenery than it would to a much larger layout. I will admit to enjoying operating, or watching trains moving, on a micro layout more if it has reasonably good scenery than if it doesn’t. And so when scenery gets to a certain stage of realism I find it much easier to engage in operating a micro layout. This has been the case with my OO scale Ruston Light Railway micro model railway layout. I had been concentrating on getting the layout operational, but as the electrics and track has been finished recently and the layout is now operational, it has become time to concentrate on the scenery. So that is what I have been doing lately. The last blog post about the Ruston Light Railway layout showed that the base color had all been added, along with platforms and buildings, at that time. Since then the following has been done:

• Track ballasting, all 40 or so inches of it.
• A first layer of ground color.
• Trees added.

The following photos show the progress visually.

As can be seen from the photos there is still more scenic work to do. Following is some photos of some trains on the layout, shot during an operating session after the scenery work shown in the above photos was completed.