By J. Joseph Bartczak

Lets get started. Plan your layout. Start with your track, and track bed. Don't forget your turnouts, to flow to different sections of your layout. Now is the time for your imagination to take over. Picture your layout, what is your scenery? Is it your home town, or a place that you have seen, or just your own imagination. Now imagine the buildings, trees, people involved in your scene, even the time it takes place. What season is your layout? Remember it is a picture frozen in time.

Now let your picture become a reality. OK, as an example....

It's your home town in the summer. The grass in green, the trees have leaves, and the people are in summer attire. The buildings are Main street stores, a Post Office, gas station, and a Town Hall, and of course, the train station. The town needs telephone wires, poles, and streets with automobiles. Maybe even a pond or a stream. Rolling hills in the background make it complete.

Or maybe a winter scene....

Snow on the houses, no leaves in the trees, children ice skating or even sleigh riding down a hill. Maybe the Town is getting ready for the Holidays, lighting, decorations, equipment, etc. These are some ideas in the types of seasons.

With the use of buildings, roads, hills, and people the sky is the limit. Just don't forget those little details that make your layout different from the rest. Put your own stamp on it, make it your own. Look at other layouts and get more ideas. You may see that "Thing" that you were missing. Train shows are a great place to get ideas, so don't pass them up.

By B. Murphy  

When you try to go about taking photos of your model railroads, you will soon notice that lighting is an essential part of photography, which is indeed an art that can be refined. Making lighting that appears to be realistic so that you model train comes to life as if it were real is no easy task, however it can be done. Consider the following ways to use lighting techniques to get great photos of your model railroad.

Placing your entire model railroad out in the sunlight would be the perfect way to get great photos. This is rarely possible for most people who build model trains, though, so you will have to design a lighting system that makes your railroad appear to be outdoors.

To begin with you need to think about whether you want your train to be photographed in direct sunlight, at nighttime, on an overcast day, or even during some weather event like a thunderstorm.

In order to make the model railroad appear to be outside under the sun you should use one lighting source. This could be a halogen spotlight. Try to place the spotlight as far away from the model as you can and then bounce other lights of the ceiling to make a diffused effect.

Work hard to not make too many shadows. If your diffused fill lights are too bright, they will make your scenic objects cast more than one shadow and that will not appear to be natural. If you use lots of different types of lights it will change the way that colors appear in your pictures to a point that not even photo editing software can fix.

Your pictures will also be greatly affected by where you place your lights. Just like the natural progression of the sun through the sky, the place where your lights are place will affect what time of day it appears to be and will change the way things in the background appear. Make it morning or afternoon by placing the light at a low angle from the model railroad. Placing your lighting source directly overhead will mimic the feel of high noon.

Advances in the technology of digital photography have made taking professional photos increasingly easier. Your model railroad photos will be truly great, though, if you can duplicate the look of the outdoors inside your home.