Helpful Hint - Innovative Layout Skirt

Innovative Layout Skirt

2023 Photograph by Bernie Kempinski

Used with permission by Bernie Kempinki

As my readers know, I have a great deal of interest in the presentation aspects of a model railroad. Today, I read in Bernie Kempinski's blog about a technique John King uses on his B&O layout in HO (see photo above). Depicting an area of Virginia known for apple orchards, King models Winchester, Virginia known for cold storage facilities for the fruit industry. So how does King accomplish this? Instead of a nondescript skirt, John fills the area under his layout with "antique" wooden fruit boxes (each labeled as such by the fruit company). Now I recognize that some might quarrel with my description of his fruit boxes as a skirt, I will stick to my guns unless some can argue persuasively that I have missed the mark in calling them so. There is even a chance that King did not intend his wooden fruit boxes to serve as a skirt - that he only intended them for storage - yet skirt they did become. Perhaps King will reach out to me to fill this blogger in?

Kempinski tells me that these fruit boxes also do double duty as storage for King's railroad supplies.

How we surround our layout with fascia, valance, skirt, and in some cases, wings (a term applied to model railroads by the late Iain Rice) can have an important effect on our layout's appeal to visitors. Long gone are the days when many layouts sported a fabric skirt adorned with various locomotives (peruse old issues of our hobby press from decades gone by and those who do not recall these will see what I am referring to). The general rule seems to be that these elements should disappear visually so to allow the visitor to focus on the layout scenery and trains themselves (a technique also employed in museums). An important exception to this rule is when those elements can convey messages that enhance the story-telling our layouts perform. John King demonstrates this exception to the rule (as do those layouts that have employed surroundings painted to mimic steel girders with their associated lines of rivets).

While it is unlikely that any model railroader will duplicate King's efforts, his example surely can inspire others to create an interesting skirt (or even a valance and/or fascia) that tells their layout's story.

For those interested in my musing about layout surroundings, search "fascia" within this blog to learn more. This topic is also covered in an area of the Layout Design SIG Primer authored by your blogger.