[Ho Lee Kow]

I need a long background for my track and have some scenic downloads from various places but where is a cheap place to get them printed. I am thinking of five at 3 feet long and about 2 feet high. Only place I found online is asking £12 each...so £60, is that the usual rate?

[CMOTD]

Probably not too far out for one-off bespoke stuff but you could save money by using the commercially available model railway backscenes. I used THESE on my layout and they are priced between £15 and £17 for 10ft x 15in. Have a look at my track thread (Conington Park) to see them in use.

[woodcote]

The backdrops Brian describes are perfect. But if you want to print your own design, you should look at standard poster sizes. A0 is 33" x 47" - so not far off 4 x 3 foot. You could ask the printer to print two 3 x 2 ft images on one sheet and then cut them. Expect a price of £10-20 per A0 sheet, depending on the paper thickness used. You could even look at printing on PVC.

[Ntxslotcars]

Probably not too far out for one-off bespoke stuff but you could save money by using the commercially available model railway backscenes. I used THESE on my layout and they are priced between £15 and £17 for 10ft x 15in. Have a look at my track thread (Conington Park) to see them in use.

Wow!  Thanks for posting these CM!!!

I used a wallpaper border for my track.  Not very tall, and repeats every 18", but was effective...





I will definitely bee looking at these for my next layout!


So many cars...   So little time...

[Kevan]

I'd love to add a local scenic backdrop behind our Rally track.

I have a photo and a bit of googling found the answer I was after to be able to print this in A4 sections.

It seems easy enough (famous last words)...

• Open a blank Excel sheet (I use Libre Office Calc)
  
• Define your print page size (mines A4)
  
• Click in the A1 box to highlight it
  
• Click insert>image then find your preferred image
  
• Zoom right out until your preferred poster width is visible - you should see the 'page printable' boxes
  
• Drag the bottom right corner of the imported image down and out to your preferred poster size
  
• When you choose 'print' it'll print your now huge poster in A4 sections
  

I intend covering an area about 2m wide by 1.5m high which my printer tells me is 42 sheets of A4

I've not tried it yet but it should work...

[JasonB]

I'd be interested to hear how you get on with this.

I assume you'll have trim each page?

[Kevan]

Even with zero border widths there's bound to be some trimming but a huge scene like that would look brilliant.