Wildest foam in the wilderness

In my previous post I wrote about my fathers’s life long model building hobby and how his use of found objects for his models inspires me. So lately I have enjoyed as a hobby making Disney attraction models at approximately HO model railroad scale. 

My current medium is carved packing styrofoam; and in tribute to Dad the more I can do with things I repurpose the more successful I consider the model to be. The overall project is my “Scottland Kingdom Castle Railroad” (Note: Scott is my name and SKC are my initials) a slightly larger than a twin bed layout of Disney Parks toys augmented by various little treasures I have acquired along the way. 

This post’s focus is my interpretation of Big Thunder Mountain in the form of a tunnel for the toy train that runs through it. It combines Big Thunder Mountain with the trip through the Primeval World…the Dinosaur display form the 1964 New York Worlds Fair that was relocated to the Disneyland Railroad in California. 

The tunnel is made from corrugated styrofoam packing inserts that are arranged and carved into the shapes reminiscent of Monument Valley and Bryce Canyon that the real Big Thunder Mountains take their inspiration from. 

My Scottland Magical Kingdom Railroad is for the most part more Magic Kingdom than Disneyland, but there are a few mashups here and there. 

The size of the setup were dictated by a Monorail Toy Playset and accessorized by a toy playset of the Contemporary Hotel and EPCOT’s Space Ship Earth. 

So overall the layout will have a very toyetic quality inspired by Post War Lionel layouts and the Tyco Train sets of the 70’s & 80’s. The toys were a fun foundation and they have been accessorized with scratch built styrofoam set pieces and small structures from flea markets and even Dollar Tree! (Well Dollar and a quarter Tree as I like to call it now.). In some of these photos you will see various additions in different states of production ; the carving has been done but it has yet to be painted. To paraphrase Walt Disney: Scottland Kingdom Castle Railroad “will never be completed as long as there is imagination in the world.” 

Future additions to Scottland Kingdom Castle Railroad can be seen in this augmented photo, stay tuned!