Sliding into Staging

In response to the thicket trial run, @bawdsey of Albion Yard asked about the window and how it relates to the layout:

Does the window and it’s exterior background factor into the ‘picture’?
The reason I ask, I had a similar experience though my window was frosted. To get round the backlighting and distraction of the exterior I covered the window with card, and moved the layout a bit. With a Shelfie layout that’s relatively easy of course. I wonder if you temporarily blocked the window with card, whether sight lines and lighting might give you a different ‘answer’? I do like the look of the single specimen foreground and thicket at the rear.

The short answer is, no. The window is not meant to factor into the picture, but Paul’s question makes me think about the whole transition to staging. Honestly, I’ve not thought about it much since the decision to put scenery in the place to put your tea.

Transitions into staging are always considered tricky, and Pembroke’s integration into our home makes it doubly so. My darling wife barely tolerates trains parked in staging, and asks they be removed when the family room becomes a guest room. The deal I struck was that there would be no buildings on the window sill. The water tower is bending the rules and the two sheds are almost certainly not compliant, but haven’t been quashed outright yet.

So, blocking off part of the window is not in the plan. Indeed, the backdrop stops short of the window opening, making an abrupt transition. The buildings of Lee’s Manufacturing are beyond this boundary, and will not be modelled, even though there is at least room for the coal shed on the spur. The original plan was for the layout to peter out at this point. More accurately the layout is meant to peter in, and build from the agrarian calm to the bustle and excitement of Canada’s newest city.

Having said that, the fields and the proposed spinney or fence tree certainly break out of the frame, at least from the main viewing angle in the centre of the room. From the staging yard itself, there is also a bit of a spill, though it is not as pronounced.

What does this do to the central idea of the layout, that “The 20th Century shall be the century of Canada…?” Could it speak to the unruliness of nature, and the difficulty of bringing the wilderness to heal? That would be an argument for an especially gnarly spinney, perhaps including an erratic at the corner of the hay field, rather than an elegant elm tree.