Turns out crabgrass'll grow almost anywhere. At least, there's finally grass on the slopes of Shokenaw Mountain... Here's the grass going on. If you wanted to know what color paint I use for central Illinois dirt, this is a good view of it. And here's the completed hill, sitting in its assigned place on the module. The low-angle shot definitely looks better with grass instead of styrofoam. Now all I have to do is figure out what, if any, details I'm going to add. Some sort of interlocking/observation tower, perhaps? Any suggestions?
Looking good...Speaking of central Illinois dirt (and it does look that dark!), your mountain (before adding grass) looks like one of the slag heaps that can be found in Illinois. Some of them are near railroad tracks (I think they are leftovers of coal mining), and I wonder if anyone who models the flatlands ever thought of modeling a slag heap as a way of dividing the scenery. I imagine one could pull it off. Where there are no natural hills, model an aritificial one.
The slag-heap idea is a good one, though I can't confirm the coal-mining explanation. I don't recall mining of any sort being a significant industry in the area. (Quarrying, yes--mining, no.) Then again, there are occasional oil wells in the region, so there's definitely former organic matter down there somewhere. In this case, though, I'm modeling (or at least claiming as a prototype) a real live "mountain," as seen in this Terraserver link: http://terraserver.microsoft.com/image.aspx?t=2&s=14&x=136&y=1420&z=16&w=1 Mount Langham, even though it's only 50 feet or so high (plus trees), is visible from quite a distance across the cornfields. Of course, it's just a hill--I never knew it had a name until I got into model railroading and started reading topographic maps. You'll note the railroad line running immediately to the south of the hill. That's the Kankakee, Beaverville, and Southern, the railroad I nominally model. For the module, I'm invoking modeler's license to shift the hill a bit to the south, so the railroad (which was originally the main line of NYC's Big Four) would do a slight turn and cut to keep the route level. The junction on the module, however, is totally fictional. It serves a configuration need for our modular group, to allow us to use three "balloon" modules at once.
How about adding a couple of hikers and photographers (a.k.a. railfans) on the hillside watching trains? You could probably put a switch tower in the middle of the wye, someone to protect (and throw) the interchange switches.
