Dramatic landscapes

Paul A. Lunn and Dave Lowery join creative forces to model dramatic and imposing terrain, but with a compact footprint.

Paul Lunn and Dave Lowery create a landscape layout that’s compact yet epic.

Model railways are often described as 3D paintings, but we modellers tend to view them in two dimensions – length and width. We focus purely on those to work out what will fit into the space we have available. But what about other dimensions, such as height and depth? Railway builders were men of vision. When faced with a seemingly impassable range of mountains, the Victorian railway builder would see a tunnel or a cutting. Water courses and valleys could be bridged, featuring impressive spans or lengthy viaducts. Most railway builders would follow the easiest possible route, with the shallowest gradients. It’s why many railways follow rivers or canals. There were times when the only option was to punch through mountainous terrain, which has left us with a legacy of some truly spectacular stretches of railway, where height and depth come heavily into play. The micro layout has many qualities but, visually, they can look a bit, well, samey. A branch line terminus, no matter how beautifully modelled, is still a branch line terminus. Is it possible to build a micro layout that has height and depth? If anyone could pull this off, it would be layout design guru Paul A. Lunn. Paul didn’t disappoint,. He designed this 3ft by 2ft many-level scheme with mountains, cliffs, a deep cutting and a fast-flowing mountain stream. It’s all very well coming up with a concept. But will it work in reality? There was only one way to find out: we gave Paul’s plan to Dave Lowery to see what he could come up with...