This provided a very effective view block whilst still allowing space for airflow. A good friend, Rod Wyman then painted the backscene for me. He does a much better job than I could ever do. On top of all this goes a layer of plaster and rock castings for texture. A clay type kitty litter is used to represent the talus and gravel, with Woodland Scenics ground foam for the grass.
Water is created by painting the river surface, and covering with layer of gloss meduim.
Nearly all of my structures were scratchbuilt using plans from Mike Blazek, or from those published in magazines. They are all constructed using Evergreen styrene, Grandt Line details and Campbell's shingles. The only non-scratchbuilt item so far is a Durango Press water tank. This gave the locomotives a much smoother performance, and more importantly, a top speed of about 20 scale mph. It took my locomotives about a full minute to travel 10 feet flat out.