Going Green
It was going to happen sooner or later, and when it comes to greenery, sooner is always better than later in my book. With a good chunk of ballasting done, there was nothing to stop me from breaking out the green stuff. It did take a while to get started, though, as I worked to establish a look and style for the Z Scale Gorre & Daphetid. As much as I wanted to keep it Southwestern, I also didn't want barren sand and dirt, with only a handful of weeds as the extent of vegetation. It did take some restraint, as I'm far more used to making Northeastern scenery, which is rich and lush and filled to overflowing with green.
While I wasn't necessarily looking for justification for a much greener palette, I did happen to come across a curious image of the first Gorre & Daphetid (after the engine terminal was tacked onto the front). It's clearly a tinted black-and-white image, but what's remarkable is the amount of green present. It conjures all manner of questions... in particular, just how much control did John Allen have over the coloring of this image? Was it something he did himself, and if not, was it something he'd have done? Is it representative of the G&D back then in any way, or more what he'd wanted it to be? If the original G&D was even half as green, it sure faded over the years, because it's nothing but brown in the color slides John took.
Anyway, it was in interesting detour as I headed down my own path. The toughest part was getting a decent ground cover color—a model railroad archeologist would find several layers of different materials beneath the surface, if they were to do a little digging. The recipe I settled on is a mixture of JJT fine burnt grass and fine yellow straw, plus Highball fine earth, applied over a base of ground sawdust (yep, good old ground sawdust—still a useful scenery material). Upon this combination I applied Silflor short and long autumn tufts. For scrub growth I used JJT branch pieces. And based on my tree study, I used JJT generic pine, cedar and mountain gum trees.
This is just a kind of "anonymous" snippet of scenery, the specific style of which is unimportant; there will be variations across the layout. The scenery around the lake will be much more lush, and the rugged terrain across the back will be a bit more barren. In the meantime, I'm madly ballasting more track so I can make more scenery!
Original Gorre & Daphetid image courtesy of Peter T. Prunka.