Need Some Layout Advice

How about taking the bases off and adding a thinner sidewalk?

Get some thin material and build up all of the thin bases on your other buildings, so they are all the same height at the MTH ones.  Then build up your road bed until the sidewalks look like they are at a normal height.  You can slope this down to the plywood as you get away from the streetscape.  OR, you could use EZ Street track in the roadway and fill to the sidewalks with foam or some other material.  

Another alternative; raise the bases on the other buildings and use a deeper road to hide the raising material.  Use some thick cardboard to do this that you can scribe to look like cinder blocks and then paint grey or match the structures "basement" color.

Chuck

Scott;

Might be a little late to do this for the whole table, but, if your buildings are sort of adjacent to each other, would your track plan allow you to make small "islands" of half inch homosote - that would allow the MTH bases to be recessed and the other buildings to sit flush.

Thanks for the ideas guys. Definitely some things to think about. 

If I were to remove the MTH building bases - would that impact the interior lighting? Some of my buildings have a connector on the bottom of the base, while others don't. 

Hi Scott,

Terrainscaping is best accomplished with a different style of table, deck, or baseboard construction.

An option now would be to "cookie cut" all of the sub-road or deck under any track and remove what isn't sub-roadbed. Raise the subroadbed 2" on risers or blocks. Then, use 2" foam everywhere not track subroadbed. Make 2 square access hatches that your shoulders will fit through.

Option 2

Trace the base outline for a building that sits too high. Cut out that space. Create something underneath that the building base will sit on and provide the proper height.   You should still have 2 access hatches for an 8 x 8.

An overall photo of the layout would help or a track plan with building footprints.

Many set the city areas with streets as , say 1/4" Masonite. Use another 1/4" for sidewalk and parking lots and such. It makes adding curb easy. Now there is a 1/2" on the inside of the sidewalks higher than deck level to play with for setting building heights.

I am sure there are other ways solve this. It will just take some time to find the solution that you will like.