Well the dismantled steelworks is now in place on the layout but i need help / advice as to how to dress the area as everytime im in cleveland ive never photographed them as im too busy with the trains! What kind of junk/ scrap/ vehicles do you think will help finish the scene? http://www.railimages.com/albums/paulkray/aao.sized.jpg whoppit
Having been thru Pittsburgh many times, I can say that a moderate amout of grass would go a long way,
I've got family still just outside Cleveland. If you want I can see if they can get somewhere specific and get some shots. They cn send the digital images to me and I'll send over to you.
I don't remember all that much junk sitting around, not with those monster recycling kilns right over there! The dirt in Pittsburgh is a beautiful black in color. Right after a snow, there would be back dirt on the piles along the road. Spray the ground black, maybe very dark brown in some places. I don't remember any rock castings, too many trees. Dark & gloomy, that's Pittsburgh. We have about a week of summer, then back under the clouds for the rest of the year. Huge piles of coal. They'd keep a stockpile in case something went wrong, since the furnaces could not be allowed to go cold. Weeds everywhere, we don't have gardners! Pretty green weeds, no lawns or anything, just weeds. Even the trees look like weeds. Static grass? Never brown weeds, things grew too fast to let that happen. Dark colors for the greens, perhaps as a defense to stop from rotting? Misty rain all the time. Once we had green snow! Looked pretty next to the florescent-orange Saw Mill Run (creek). The smell of sulfur, thick tendrils of orange visible in the air. Invite your friends over and feed them beans, helps with the ambience! The works used to sound like a jet engine, and would glow at night. I remember the steel mills as being dark grey or back in color. You just don't get bright red rust in areas that use lots of coal. http://www.hfinster.de/StahlArt2/archive-Pittsburgh-en.html Friday nights when I was a kid, we would stop off and watch the slag being dumped. Sounds dumb, but it's extremely impressive. Long fingers of lava being dumped from rail cars down the side of a man made mountain. Folks fly to Hawaii to see this kind of thing! Duquesne is pronounced Du-Cain (emphasis on the second syllable) Tony Burzio San Diego, CA
I photographed an old steel mill in Gary back in the 60s. As Tony pointed out, just about everything was black--the structures, the ground, even the glass and trim on the few windows. There were man-eating weeds everywhere. They were greenish-black from the soot from active mills. The surrounding neighborhood was also pretty grimy. The one thing that struck me--people hanging laundry outside. Nothing like gray sheets flapping in the breeze!
