Coxy's N Scale and Railroad Blog

View down the secondary track as the last car of the autorack move glides behind the support wall. Note how the freeway supports behind the autorack could easily be a photo backdrop. You might have to wrestle with visual perspective a bit, depending on your viewing angle and it would be very important to get your lighting correct to match the deep shadows under the freeway.

From a modeling perspective the real area of interest is close to the track, everything else, particularly backdrop puts the track scene in context adding drama, interest and flavor.

The scene is basically flat but there are many colors and textures in this simple scene. In modeling a flat scene, there has to be variation in color and texture, without it, the scene will always look like colored plywood. Note how there is no actual road next to the track but it is clear that vehicles have been driving beside the track from time to time.

The noticable ties, i.e. the ones your eyes are drawn to and will examine, are the dark ones. These happen to be newer ties though all ties were pretty bleached on the top. The newer ties had less mud accumulated on their sides too, so generally appear darker than the older ties.