I planned to use photos from the Internet as backdrops. I found a good panorama photo of Mt. Fuji to use on one side, and a good one of downtown Tokyo for the other side, then used paint.net photo editing software to size them appropriately. I also split the images into 8-1/2" x 11" size sections so I could print them on standard copy paper and splice them together onto the backdrop.
On the city side, to give some depth to the scenery, I planned to use a couple of rows of 2-D building photos in front of the backdrop, with some 3-D building models in the foreground. The 3-D buildings would be simple shapes made out of printed images laminated to foam core. (More on the 3-D buildings in a later post.)
Before my business trip, I scoured the Internet for appropriate building photos. I then used the paint.net software to straighten the perspective where necessary, re-size the images for N-scale, and arrange them in 8-1/2" x 11" groupings to make them easier to print. Once I had all my backdrop and building images in order, I saved them to a USB drive and printed them out at Staples while in the US.
After returning to Bahrain, I started work on the scenery. To make the center divider backdrop, I first had to mark off the clearances for the track and the train as it rounded the corners.
 |
| Checking clearances for track and trains. |
 |
| Overall shot of the un-scenicked layout. This stage is known in the model railroading community as the "Plywood Pacific" Railroad. Alas, many model railroads never make it past this phase! The boxes for the train set and Kato Unitrack set are on the back side. |
I made the center divider by laminating four layers of corrugated cardboard from large boxes together using white glue. I then used a glue stick to attach the background images to both sides. In retrospect, I could have just used two layers of cardboard instead of four. The extra thickness makes it almost twice as heavy, but does add a lot of sturdiness and stability.
To make the center divider easily removable, I glued three long, 5/16" diameter craft dowels between the middle layers, and drilled corresponding holes in the top of the plywood. To give extra lateral stability to the backdrop, I made sure to place the dowels and holes so they would go through the intermediate support stringers under the plywood.
 |
| City side up showing the 3 mounting dowels and their corresponding holes down the layout centerline. |
 |
| Backdrop in place, showing the country side and the Shinkansen in front of Mt. Fuji - the way it was meant to be rail-fanned! |
I decided on two rows of 2-D buildings on the city side, with about 1.5" spacing in front of the backdrop and between each row. The back row would be individual high rises, which I printed to smaller than N-scale and roughly the same size as the foreground buildings on the backdrop. The front row would be mid-rises, roughly to N-scale. I wanted the mid-rise row to form a continuous line all the way across the layout to help hide the transition between the layout surface and the backdrop. My solution was to fill in the spaces between the mid-rise buildings with images of Tokyo city streets.
I glued the images of the buildings and the gap-filling street scenes to foam core using a glue stick, trimmed around the edges, then tested them out against the backdrop.
 |
| Making 2-D buildings. A finished high rise is on the far left, a finished mid-rise is left of center. Street scenes will fill the gaps between the mid-rise buildings. |
 |
| Testing 2-D building positioning. |
Once I found a configuration I liked, I glued the mid-rise buildings and street scenes together in groups of 2-3 for ease of handling. Then I marked the location of each high rise building and each mid-rise section on the plywood and drilled 5/16" holes for mounting dowels.
For ease of transportation and storage, I didn't want to permanently attach the mounting dowels to the layout surface. I was also afraid if I glued the dowels to the foamcore buildings, the buildings would get destroyed during the process of installing and removing them from the layout. To get around this problem, I glued pieces of soda straw to the back sides to act as sleeves for the dowels to slide into. The dowels themselves are just held in place in the plywood by friction.
