Telling a Story

With all the bench work, track laying, electrical gremlins, freight cars and trucks, and now you tell me I have to tell a story too? OK just kidding. Isn’t model railroading a diverse hobby!

One of the aspects I like about the O scale compared to my earlier forays in smaller scales is the larger figures allow one to tell a story. I am designing small mini scenes throughout the layout to tell the big picture. Too many layouts approach the detailing stage without a clear story. I think you need to leave "blank" space between scenes to better frame the story.

Another point occurred to me as I model the USMRR in occupied territory. To some extent I get short-changed in my ability to incorporate some of the normal everyday events of bucolic life. Since the civilian population has largely fled the area I model, what is left is akin to swarm of locusts trying to augment their army rations with local plunder.

This point really came to me when I visited Thom Radice's layout and saw many more trappings of regular life modeled on his layout, things like farms and busy town scenes. Even female figures would be rare in my layout, though the ones I do depict will have interesting stories. For example, this family of freed slaves heading north at Falmouth.



Hopefully the military activities I have to portray will be interesting enough. But I would love to try modeling a bustling town.  Now what was I working on....