Hemlock Street Part 1 - Inspiration | 5 Comments - Click Here :

    Keith Hayes - Every layout has a corner, and mine is no exception. Usually, the outside of a broad curve  is the site of a hillside or pasture, or an occasional industry. Adding more track or an industry is always a temptation. When planning my layout, I don’t know that I had anything specific in mind for my corner condition. Then, I saw the photo; In about 1915, George L. Beam journeyed to Leadville and took some photos of town looking west. In the foreground are the residential neighborhoods that stretch downhill from the mines on Carbonite Hill towards the C&S depot and Harrison Street. The streets are lined with shotgun houses with board walks and picket fences in front. What a great scene. My corner problem was solved!

Hemlock Street homes being delivered at Leadville.

    About this time, I was wandering in the HO kit aisle of Caboose Hobbies and spied the Grandt Line Gold Belt kits. These are some neat styrene models of small homes and mines available in HO and N. I bought the Reese Street Row Houses, and quickly assembled a couple with the intent to modify them with S scale windows and doors. On a whim, I bought the N scale Reese Street Row Houses too. Once I assembled one of the three homes, I thought to place them on some foam to study the street scene. Then lightning struck, and the thought occurred to me to create a forced perspective scene with this residential street. Hemlock Street was born!

The problem condition; that area outside the curve and at the corner of the room.

    Forced perspective uses scale and compression to enhance the depth of a scene. Think of standing between the rails and looking at the horizon. Many modelers have placed a smaller scale structure in the background to achieve this effect. By placing the larger models in the front, and having the street extend to the backdrop uphill and get narrower where it meets the backdrop, it is possible to create the impression of distance in a small space. Initial experiments made this look like a winning strategy.

A preliminary mock-up, with the wedge-shaped street and preliminary building placement.

    The street is a key part of the deception. The valuation map indicated the streets were 70 feet wide, which seemed wide. So I made the street 25’ in S scale at the front, and the same width in N scale at the rear of the scene. I angled the street a bit to the left, and created a crest a few inches in front of the backdrop to hide the joint.
To be continued....
Keith Hayes
Leadville in Sn3