How To Expert Tips Make your layout tell a story

Make your layout tell a story

By Steven Otte | August 25, 2024

| Last updated on August 27, 2024

Use figures and details to draw viewers into the tale of your model railroad

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a steam engine pulls a short train around a curve past two workers conversing
Two roundhouse workers have an animated conversation behind the shop while old No. 7 chugs around the bend on Tom Staton’s On30 Narragansett RR (seen in the August 2023 Model Railroader). Well detailed scenes like these bring a layout to life and help make your layout tell a story. Lou Sassi photo

If you want to fascinate visitors and draw their eyes into your layout, make your layout tell a story. Many modelers put a lot of effort into making their locomotives, track arrangements, and operating schemes as realistic as possible. But not all of us put the same amount of thought into the little plastic people who populate our model railroads. We think of our railroads as representations of the real thing, moving cars back and forth to serve industries and stations. But railroads aren’t built to serve industries and stations; they serve the people who run those industries and the passengers inside those stations. 

Don’t think of figures just as scenic elements to be plopped down wherever there’s an empty spot on your layout. They represent people with lives the same as your freight cars represent the cargos they carry. By creating scenes that show those figures living out their lives, you can make your layout tell a story that brings it depth, history, and interest. 

Here are some tips on how to make your layout tell a story through placement of figures.

David Arrell: Use familiar scenes to evoke memories

City pedestrians congregate around an ice cream truck while a green trolley swings around the corner
Customers congregate around an ice cream truck that’s stopped outside the department store on David Arrell’s HO scale trolley layout (seen in the March 2022 MR). David built his layout and populated it with figures to evoke his memories of visiting bustling Philadelphia as a child. David Arrell photo

Hobbyists who model a particular prototype often put a lot of time, research, and effort into duplicating a particular area in a particular time. They seek to spark recognition in visitors familiar with the area being modeled. But freelance modelers can also evoke memories of a place and time by modeling universally familiar scenes. For instance, David Arrell built his freelanced trolley layout (seen in the March 2022 MR) based on his memories of visiting Philadelphia as a child. He didn’t try to reproduce actual locations, but rather populated his town with figures engaged in such universally familiar activities as getting a treat from an ice cream truck. Who doesn’t have such a childhood memory? Modeling scenes that viewers of the layout can imagine themselves taking part in is a great way to draw them into the story of your layout.

Clark Propst: Make industries look busy

HO scale figures with shovels approach a conveyor in a coal yard
That coal hopper on Clark Propst’s HO scale Story City Branch (see Great Model Railroads 2020) must have just arrived, because the coal yard workers are only just arriving to position the conveyor for unloading. Clark uses figures on his layout to connect the industries to the railroad. Clark Propst photo

In his article “Every figure tells a story” (December 2021), Clark Propst wrote about how to use figures to bring life to the industries on his HO scale Story City Branch (as seen in Great Model Railroads 2020). While the details surrounding a structure or a sign on the roof can help an operator know what business the industry is in, Clark wanted to use figures to show the result of the railroad picking up and dropping off cars there. So his coal dealers have workers moving conveyors to unload delivered hopper cars, an oil delivery driver is topping off his tanker truck, and a worker at a grain elevator is explaining to another how to add grain doors to boxcars. This gives operators on Clark’s model railroad a feeling that their trains are performing an important job.

Don Ball: Show the life of the times

A man stands atop a horse-drawn wagon hawking snake oil to an assembled crowd
Don Ball didn’t only ensure his figures were dressed in period-appropriate clothing, he also positioned them performing bygone activities. This scene outside a general store shows a traveling salesman offering bottles of snake-oil cure. A modern version of this scene might be a demonstration at the county fair. Don Ball photo

While it’s important to purchase and use figures whose clothing matches the time period you model, it’s also important to depict the figures engaged in activities appropriate for the era. The late Don Ball wrote about how to “Add interest with mini-scenes” in our March 2020 issue. Don modeled the Stockton & Copperopolis in the golden age of steam, 1895, so of course he made sure all his male figures were in jackets and ties and the ladies wore long dresses and bonnets or fancy hats. But it also added interest to the layout to have those figures engaged in interesting activities. For example, outside the general store, a crowd had assembled to listen to a traveling huckster offering snake-oil remedies. Elsewhere, gents prepared to ride big-wheeled “pennyfarthing” cycles and passengers boarded stagecoaches at the train station. Positioning these figures engaged in activities of the time helped make his layout more interesting.

Ron Lane: Better than fiction

Antique black-and-white photos of a young girl and a man are compared to model figures depicting them
When Ron Lane was writing the book that would inspire his HO scale Mann’s Creek Ry., he interviewed and researched hundreds of real people who lived near the railroad. He would go on to depict 195 of them as figures on the layout, including 6-year-old Rebecca Lawrence (left) and coal company superintendent Lewis Herndon (right). Model photos by Lou Sassi

Rather than make up stories to tell on his HO scale Mann’s Creek Ry., modeler Ron Lane used his layout to tell stories of real people who lived and worked alongside his prototype railroad. Ron and his co-author, Ted Schnepf, spent 15 years researching and writing a book on the history of the real Mann’s Creek Ry. During that time they made 25 trips to the area and interviewed more than 200 people about their memories of the railroad. When he built his HO scale version of the railroad, Ron made 195 figures depicting those real people, posing them around the layout doing what they really did: working the coal mines and coke plants, stocking and shopping at the company stores, and felling trees at the logging camp. Ron knows all their names. Though most visitors will never know the backstories of all those people, their presence brings Ron’s model railroad an unmatched level of realism.

Pacific Southern Railway Club: Model dramatic scenes

Firefighters work to contain a forest fire on a hillside above a railroad track
Light and sound effects bring a wildfire scene to life on the Pacific Southern Railway Club’s HO scale layout. A big, eye-catching scene like this can detract from what should be the true focus of the layout, the trains. But if the layout is a public attraction, a dramatic scene can be an effective way to interest visitors. Lou Sassi photo

From the subtle to the dramatic. One way to grab viewers’ attention is a big, flashy, dramatic scene. Some modelers do this with a main street parade, a carnival scene with animated rides, or a tall trestle over a towering waterfall. The members of the Pacific Southern Railway Club in Rocky Hill, N.J. (see the November 2023 MR), took the drama up a notch by modeling a blazing forest fire on a hill over the main line. A thin line of emergency workers stands against the ominous, glowing clouds billowing up from over the ridge line. Flashing light-emitting diodes below the ridge give the blaze a realistic flicker. There isn’t a place for a scene like this on every model railroad, but if you want to make your layout tell a story, there are few more eye-catching ways to do it.

 

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