Mike Confalone's awesome Allagash Railway

[velotrain]

I chanced upon a photo of this in image search (I forget my original target), and instinctively thought it to be a model, but was impressed with the overall realism of the scene.  Searching for the Allagash Railway brought up a few sites and a wealth of images.  This line is set in the Northeast Kingdom area of far northeastern Vermont (and nearby regions) during "mud season" - the tail end of winter to very early spring, with the last of the snow still melting off.

 

To me the most striking aspect is the effort he makes to match up the modeled scene with his custom photographic backdrops.  Even a skilled observer will have a hard time determining just where 3D becomes 2D.  I also enjoy the realism of his scenes - as someone quite familiar with the region they just "feel right" to me.  He appears to have almost all of the track laid, and there are still many areas with no scenic work - but those that are complete are just spectacular.

 

 

A good set of photos:

http://model-railroad-hobbyist.com/node/15291

 

Video of an Op Session:

https://trainmasters.tv/videos/ops-live-5-op-session-mike-confalones-allagash-railway

You can pay to watch the whole thing, but I found the Preview from 0:40 quite satisfying, particularly the scene from 2:00 to 2:30.  Only a large model railroad can afford to devote so much territory to a single open scene, but it's well worth it here - also seen on the right side of Panorama #2.

 

RR Line Forums Gallery forum:

http://www.railroad-line.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=45876&whichpage=4

This thread was impressive enough that I signed up for this Forum, knowing that I have many month's worth of Gallery to work my way through!  I love the image of the dock scene at night, and feel there is only one entry whose quality is not up to snuff - or, at least not in the same league as the others presented.

 

 

The links above are just a sampling from the results of a search for "Mike Confalone  Allagash Railway", and the Image results will provide many more amazing views of this masterpiece of a model railroad.  I do realize it's not the sort of thing that everyone on this forum will appreciate, but I trust that those who can will agree with me.

 

Now to find out if it will be open on any upcoming layout tours ;-)

 

Speaking of layout tours, here's a great free one for anyone living in northern New England:

 

http://www.tourdechooch.org/wp/

 

[cteno4]

Indeed matching up an background photo like that is very hard! I've seen a couple of these pictures used as examples of this before.

 

eff