Model Train HO Railroad HO Scale

Creative Ideas for Making Model Railroad Scenery

There are plenty of places to buy ready-to-use models for your model railroad – building, scenery, etc. – but making your own is often a better way to go. The do it yourself method gives you much more freedom to design exactly what you want. If you’re prototyping your favorite railway, in your favorite little town, it’s going to be next to impossible to find a ready-made model that matches the buildings and other scenery exactly.
Making your own gives you complete freedom to duplicate the scene the way you want or to make whatever changes you feel are necessary.
A lot of model railroaders shy away from making their own scenery, thinking they’re not crafty enough or artistic enough. The fact is, it doesn’t have to be that complicated. There are plenty of common household items that can be used to create scenery for your railroad.

Some of these items include:

Plastic Flowers

I will upload some photos to show how I use them in the photo gallery under flowers kevin

Heavy Typing Mated Paper 120 lbs

You can make all kinds of brick walls glue it to wood for buildings or make road signs, street signs, building signs all sorts of stuff you can print for you display even floors I am working on a large building ill up some photos soon and show you some brick walls and floors made of paper don’t underestimate it laughing it look good.

Home Printer

Decals look cool also you can buy printer decal paper at hobby shop or buy online. I will be using them for some windows
for example one of my building will be a McDonalds and I will print some photo of french fry’s to put in to window ill put some photos up when i get that far kevin

Rocks

Small stones and rocks used judiciously and embedded into mountains as boulders to add realism – just be certain the stone matches the miniature environment you are trying to create. Crystals or granite in a meadow for instance will ruin the effect immediately.

Rubber Gloves

Items like raincoats and umbrellas can be made by cutting and fixing rubber from gloves and are available in a variety of colors.

Talcum and Baby Powders

Baby powder, especially when mixed with colorants can be a wonderful substitute for substances from snow to dirt or even sand. Use of real dirt or sand in miniatures is often discouraged due to the ‘graininess’ being too large giving a false look to the substance, but the fine nature of baby powder is an excellent substitute.

Tissues

Various tissues such as toilet and hand-tissues can be very useful for textures such as stucco on buildings or projection screens for drive-ins.

Twigs

Available in almost any yard, small twigs make excellent trees when herbs are glued to make the leaves appear. Using small ‘hanging wire’ to create the smaller leafing braches can create a very realistic approach, as can a light dusting with ’snow’ for winter scenes.

Wax Paper

Wax paper can be used for a variety of purposes anytime a slick-appearing surface is needed. For instance, properly painted it can make an excellent pond or coated with crushed nuts and painted a road surface.

Egg Cartons
Properly cut and textured egg cartons can make excellent stone-work, and even be used to simulate stone flooring.

Golf Tee

A Golf tee with it’s built-in flare provides an excellent starting point for free-standing posts or hangers and can be carved and painted to create a variety of items ranging from hat stands to traffic cones. When necessary gluing it to a penny or other larger base can help stabilize it.

Herbs

Herbs such as oregano and Thyme can make excellent shrubs and bushes for miniatures.

Nuts & Seeds

Simulating small stones and gravel in a miniature environment can be very difficult because finding small enough items that vary in shape and texture realistically is hard. One solution is to crush nuts such as pecans or peanuts and glue the resulting powdered nuts into place with a spray adhesive. Since they will break up into various sizes and are textured organically they often provide excellent results. In addition many seeds and nuts can be sealed and painted as necessary to emulate fruits and vegetables

Planning scenery

It is important to think about your scenery before you begin to built. You should plan for hills, tunnels, mountains, plains, roads, cities, and water, or anything else you want to add. Remember that the purpose for building scenery is to increase the illusion that your miniature railroad is as real as the real thing. By effectively managing view blocks, you can control how much of the layout your viewers see at any single time. View blocks can be anything from a line of trees to a row of buildings. View blocks are also useful for hiding entrances to tunnels and edges of access holes.

Forced perspective

Forced perspective is another technique for enhancing the illusion of a miniature railroad. This means making objects in the background smaller in scale than they normally would be. In doing this, you’re recreating the fact that things that are further away appear smaller to the eye.

Backdrops

Sometimes modelers like to make backdrops for their layouts. Modelers with larger layouts paint their walls around their layout, while smaller layout modelers often choose to make a plywood backdrop for their layout. If you don’t think you’re up to painting, try photographic backdrops. Some modelers take pictures that overlap on their edges, and have their prints turned into poster-size. They then trim these down and use them as their backdrops. Photographic backdrops are also sold at hobby shops ready to go.