Here's an overview of one end of my layout. This is where I have been doing the most work the past few months.

While I don't have a specific prototype, I am trying to re-create the look of southeastern Arizona and towns like Bisbee and Tombstone. Scenery wise, I've been mostly happy with the way things have come out. I'm still trying to adjust colors or vegetation, and have recently put a tan wash on my rockwork to blend the rock colors better with the overlying ground cover. I've taken two business trips to the area this month, and each time I paid close attention to the vegetation and colors and thought about what my layout needs.

Here are three photos from a recent trip, showing scenery near Nogales, Arizona.

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I noticed a few things:

1) Most of the ground is vegetated, even if the vegetation is brown or yellow. The misconception is that desert ground is mostly sand and dirt, and these photos illustrate that is not true. During a normal March (this year was extremely dry), these hillsides would be green and covered with flowers. I need to add more grass to my hillsides.
2) I've been representing creosote bushes with olive-colored ground foam clusters. These clusters are too dense, and I need some more open bushes and some different colors to represent sage or brittle bush.
3) As you can see, there are many small mesquite trees (without leaves at this time of year). I need a few for my hillsides. I'm thinking of using wire armatures.
4) The water you see is someone's cattle pond, built around 100 years ago. Even in a dry year, it has water. I don't think I have room for such a muddy puddle on my layout, but this does illustrate the desert is not completely dry and there are places for water features on a desert-themed layout.

Kevin,
Thanks for the updated layout photo! I like that scene a lot and imagine it is a focal point as trains pop out of those tunnels on two levels. Great looking locos too!

Wow, that's a lot of vertical scenery! Looks great!

I've been busy with other projects, and just am now getting back into working on model railroad activities. Here's an area I started for the last challenge, way back when. It's the last scenery "hole" in my town scene. The hotel is kitbashed from a couple of Model Power kits, and is being bashed into something more of a
"mission revival" style. Still lots of work to do here, but at least it's progress!

Progress for sure, Kevin, and your take on "mission revival" looks good to me.

I'm wondering, though, where you managed to find those delicious Tree-Trunk-on-a-Stick treats: I thought they went the way of the Twinkie years ago.

Wayne

My deepest respect. You demonstrate how to do all the windows opening in a correct manner. Looks very good

Wayne - that's actually a tool I made for carving the rock walls. It's just a sharpened nail shoved into the end of a tree branch. It actually does not work that well, but for some reason I keep using it.

I've finally got this rock wall mostly done after much pain and effort. It is plaster smoothed over a foam form and then the rock were carved in it. This is actually a bad idea. The plaster did not stick to the foam all that well. and I kept chipping it off as I was trying to carve. Additionally, leaning over the layout to carve the rocks was a pain. In hindsight, I should have just bought rock walls, or cast and carved these things out of solid plaster on the workbench.

I'm mostly happy with the result, though. I really want to get scenery over this last corner of my layout. I need to finally finish up this hotel!

Good looking wall Kevin.

Hmmmmmmm,
M a a a y b e , I'll get to see some Palo Verde, and Creosote trees modeled here. Saw a bunch of those when I was out in Phoenix ( Chandler ). Very interesting, lots of fine branches, and tiny green leaves. A real modeling challenge, and one I won't have to face, modeling NE coast U.S..........although, I do want a few Willows, and they are an equal challenge to the aforementioned .

Thanks for the compliments -

Sumpter - I have some ideas for creosote bushes, but so far haven't tried making any yet. The mesquite trees would be a challenge. Since I don't need many of them, I was thinking wire armatures - but the foliage I have no idea.

Kevin
Have you seen any references to the "Mogollon Rim". Came across your topic recently & w/ so many pages here so don't know if you've discussed it. If not do a Google search & you'll get plenty of hits. It's a topographic feature in the area you're modeling & probably determines the location minerals your RR customers are after. First ran across it in my archaeology studies way back when. It's not only a topographic feature but also a socio/economic one.

lajry - I certainly have! My layout and railroad are named after the Mogollon Mountains, in southwest New Mexico, just east of the area in which I am modeling. There is also a ghost mining town of Mogollon in the area, and the area was also inhabited by the ancient Mogollon culture. All were named after a former Spanish governor of New Mexico. When I was creating my fictional railroad, I wanted it to be loosely based on various mining towns in the southwest New Mexcio, southeast Arizona, and Northern Mexico area, but not to faithfully model a specific one. I chose the name so that it identifies the region without being specific to the locality.

The first piece of rolling stock I made when I got into HOn3 was this combine. I think I found an MDC standard gauge combine kit on the discount table at a hobby shop that is no longer there. I found some kind of plans for a narrow gauge passenger car in Model Railroader, and some kind of article about kitbashing wood passenger cars in another magazine, and decided to cut down the MDC car into HOn3. I decided to make the baggage end without a vestibule, and somehow settled on a length of 42 feet, and a width of 8 1/2 feet. I mounted a pair of MDC HOn3 trucks underneath. For the record, the Colorado and Southern had a few combine cars with a closed vestibule on the baggage/main end. I think that is where I got the idea.

I was quite proud of my first HOn3 kitbash, or probably any kind of kitbash for that matter. But for some reason, the closed vestibule end looked odd and it just seemed too long. When I later kitbashed another combine from one of the 30' MDC Overton cars, I decided this car would look better if I made it shorter. So, out came the razor saw and it seemed the easiest way to shorten was to cut about 10 scale feet from the baggage end. This placed the baggage doors very close to the end.

I never liked the looks of this car after that. I tried weathering, adding a few details, but nothing seemed right. I pulled it out a few weeks ago and looked at it, and decided some stirrups and some details on the baggage end would help, in addition to some roof line details on the passenger end clerestory. Here is how it looks now, with a few more details to be added.

Here's the little combine after some more details are added and a coat of paint. It's a rather lousy cell phone picture that does not show the details, but I am much happier with how the car looks now. I still need to add the platform railing and lettering and then some weathering. I was thinking of improving the underbody brake details, too.