When it comes to model railroad scenery, Pelle Søeborg takes the cake. The man has written five model railroading books on scenery, layout construction, weathering, and more. He is a contributing editor to Model Railroader magazine. His scenery work elevates model railroading to the level of art. What’s really amazing to me is that he models the Union Pacific Railroad, and he somehow manages to recreate the scenery and landscaping perfectly – even though he lives in Denmark!
His latest book, Building a Sectional Layout, outlines how to build a modular layout, and follows Pelle as he builds his latest layout, the Daneburg Sub.
I recently discovered that for reasons I’m not aware of, Pelle’s Daneburg layout has been relocated to trainlife.com‘s physical location in Provo, Utah! We had been planning a trip to Utah for my mother-in-law’s birthday, so we made the quick 15 minute trip from our Hotel in Lehi to trainlife.com’s store to see the layout!
Unfortunately, they are in the process of moving the layout to a different part of the building, so it wasn’t completely together (I knew this ahead of time). However, the majority of the modules were on the benchwork, and even though there weren’t any trains running, it was amazing to see Pelle’s scenery work up-close. It’s every bit as realistic and convincing in person as it is in photos.
I’ve put together a photo album of images I took during the visit. Feel free to check them out.
If you want to see more of Pelle’s work or learn more about trainlife.com acquiring and moving the layout, check out these links:
Pelle’s work on modelrailroader.com (some are only available to magazine subscribers)
Pelle’s Youtube channel (includes video of the trains running on this layout as well as his other layouts)
Trainlife.com’s video series about acquiring and moving the layout
My Photos of Pelle’s Daneburg Sub
