It's my dream to one day have a model railroad in it's own room, preferably with another room or an annex with a workbench and storage.
But I don't want to have just any layout room. I want an immersive train room, one that acts as a time machine taking people back to the steam era of the Black Hills in South Dakota. There's plenty on the topic of layout visuals, but comparatively little has been said about sound. Lighting, colors, fascia, backdrops, etc... have articles galore, but what about the sounds you'd hear trackside in the modeled area?
One thing that I think would add a whole new dynamic of realism for a railroad would be to have ambient sound. The Black Hills of South Dakota, being very rural, would have the ambient sound of creeks and streams, mild winds, birds, insects, grasses waving in the breeze, waterfowl and the rustling of trees. Some sounds, like those created by wind or birds, would be omnipresent, always there no matter where a person stands. Other sounds are localized, like those created by and around water, farms, livestock herds, etc... These sounds would have to be limited to only specific scenes.
Regardless of what type of sound, it would have to add up to an atmosphere of sound for the layout room, so nothing could be too distracting, repetitive, or annoying.
A surround sound speaker system mounted under the layout and in the ceiling might be the ideal, all connected to a computer or CD player set on continuous loop. In separate scenes on the layout, like a depot, would have the sounds of people and carriages moving about. A mine might have the hum of the new electric machinery at work. A sawmill might have a faint noise of saws moving, nothing too loud or piercing, just enough to add to the atmosphere.
An absolutely silent room would have a decibel level of 30db. Conversation is around 80db. So I imagine a point about halfway would be the perfect level for ambient noise. Enough noise that it sets the mood but not enough to be distracting. A background for the train noises, as it were.
I'd put up an example of what I'm talking about, but there's no video I've found yet that accurately demonstrates an immersive atmosphere in a train layout room.
But I don't want to have just any layout room. I want an immersive train room, one that acts as a time machine taking people back to the steam era of the Black Hills in South Dakota. There's plenty on the topic of layout visuals, but comparatively little has been said about sound. Lighting, colors, fascia, backdrops, etc... have articles galore, but what about the sounds you'd hear trackside in the modeled area?
One thing that I think would add a whole new dynamic of realism for a railroad would be to have ambient sound. The Black Hills of South Dakota, being very rural, would have the ambient sound of creeks and streams, mild winds, birds, insects, grasses waving in the breeze, waterfowl and the rustling of trees. Some sounds, like those created by wind or birds, would be omnipresent, always there no matter where a person stands. Other sounds are localized, like those created by and around water, farms, livestock herds, etc... These sounds would have to be limited to only specific scenes.
Regardless of what type of sound, it would have to add up to an atmosphere of sound for the layout room, so nothing could be too distracting, repetitive, or annoying.
A surround sound speaker system mounted under the layout and in the ceiling might be the ideal, all connected to a computer or CD player set on continuous loop. In separate scenes on the layout, like a depot, would have the sounds of people and carriages moving about. A mine might have the hum of the new electric machinery at work. A sawmill might have a faint noise of saws moving, nothing too loud or piercing, just enough to add to the atmosphere.
An absolutely silent room would have a decibel level of 30db. Conversation is around 80db. So I imagine a point about halfway would be the perfect level for ambient noise. Enough noise that it sets the mood but not enough to be distracting. A background for the train noises, as it were.
I'd put up an example of what I'm talking about, but there's no video I've found yet that accurately demonstrates an immersive atmosphere in a train layout room.
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