I guess mine is a prototype railroad model but suggesting typical scenery and track design. Also, mine is a photographic set. I planned as many typical scenes and with what appear to be greater distances than exist on my layout.
For a time period, I didn't want to do modern, but I also didn't want to do the same era as everybody else. I am modeling the Norfolk & Western RY in the mid-1930's. Because N&W didn't usually throw out older equipment, their engines were around til the end of steam. I picked a hilly terrain along Rte 81 as it snaked down the blue ridge toward Roanoke. This set up the roster. I worked at a larger local hobby shop in the 1980's-90's, and bought 5 of the Oriental Ltd/Powerhouse N&W Y-3's. I remotored them and added more details like tender chain hooks, tender brakes, condensing pipe and glass in the doghouse and engine. I put the DCC through a piece of shrinkwrap, but not shrunk, but disguised as the stoker pipe. I picked up brass models of thir small 2-8-0 class W2, two Sunset M class 4-8-0's, a Z1 2-6-6-2 and 4-8-2 K3 class, and two more Powerhouse Y3's and a Lifelike Y3 which I cut up and made into a Y2a heavy yard engine. I have a Bowser 4-8-2 which is a K2a 4-8-2, and a Bowser PRR K4 which I've turned into a psudo-E3 4-6-2. I have 2 Y5 2-8-8-2's I built from Rivorossi Y6b's All the engines have the 1930's era lettering, and real coal in the tenders. With all the loco's and track work looking like the 1930's I had to build 60+ vehicles from delivery types to cab's to the number of Ford model A's. Glad Jordan makes such good ones. I even got an Erie model B-2 Steam Shovel which is right out of 1915 or so. Weathered some by the 1930's.
The scenery is designed to block the various 'scenes' on the layout. I designed a four foot 'scene' which allows scenery and rail activity to share the scent to capture the look and feel of the area. Finding photos of the average rural road vs the highway surfaces and note the type of materials were being used to construct bridges and other road related structures. My scenery is screen covered with thinned spackling compound thinned with a little water and rolled on like thick paint. Trees are some woodland scenic trees mixed in with Seedam's which I grow in my yard, and cut a week or two after Thanksgiving. I paint them with rattlecan spray green colors using the military greens as they were to help hide to in the forests. I still used ground foam for the rest and the 'dirt rods' are done by rolling a matchbook car over the almost dried spackle, which leaves ruts. I fill the ruts with clear epoxy to look like water. The closer to the edge you get, the more stuff has to have details. I have two of Bachmanns Sears house, both built differently and both with interiors and slide glass windows. I have fiber optic porch lights and fiber optic table lamps. Most of the town buildings are lit with yellow LEDs. With the lights on, the LED's aren't really noticed, but as you turn down the illumination on the layout the LEDs start to show.
You can see some early video of the layout on Youtube as I tested camera angles and limitations as to how far back I can get and still have swing room in back of the camera. The shot is a BLI "A" and a Y6b climbing a 2.5 percent Blue Ridge grade. I syncronized a recording of the actual event and filmed it in Sepiatone to make it look more real. You can see the effect fading off at the end of the clip. Here is a linky:
http://www.youtube.com/user/LydeckerFan?feature=mhum#p/a/u/1/6iScOZrQ5yU