Using the Woodland Scenics hot wire foam you can easily make cuts in builders foam.
	Once you have the foam cut into the land forms you want, add them to your layout using a dab of latex caulk to hold them in position.
	Ingredients for “Ground Goop”. White glue, brown paint, Sculptamold, and vermiculite.
	Mix all of the ingredients of the ground goop together until it forms a brown paste like mass.
	Using an artist’s knife spread the ground goop on your terrain. You can smooth the material out with the knife or your fingers. If you find that it is a little too stiff to work, you can dip your artists knife in water, and then work the goop easily.
	For realistic grass, use Silfor loose flock and a Noch GrasMaster. The two products are easy to use, and are available from Scenic Express. Price may scare you a bit, but the small bags can cover about a 2’x8’ area, and are worth the money.
	Apply diluted Matte Medium to the area you want to add your static grass. Press a nail into the Matte Medium and attach the GrasMaster grounding wire.
	Shake the GrasMaster about ½” above the wet matte medium and the Silfor fibers will fall out and stand on end. The technique produces some realistic grass effects. You can get the flock in 2mm, 4mm, and 6mm lengths. I use 2mm for lawns/cut grass, and 4mm/6mm for fields and wild grasses. You can make even longer lengths by “stacking” layers of static grass once the previous layer has dried.
	Using ground up leaves makes for a realistic forest floor. We can see that even here on my former N scale layout, the look is quite convincing.

By Ian MacMillan/Photos by the author
Originally published October 22, 2008

In the last installment we left off with laying track and turnouts, a large step in making this mass of plywood look more like a transportation system. In the next installments we'll be taking a look at creating realistic scenery, from rural to city. Scenery makes running trains all that much more like the real thing and can help you get that motivation to work on the layout, so let’s get to planting!

Since my HO scale Amoskeag Northern's main route is based on the failed Portland, Rutland, Oswego & Chicago Railroad that would have cut across the mid part of New Hampshire from Portland, Maine, the line runs through some of the state’s amazing mountain scenery. Just skirting the edge of the White Mountain National Forest, the line follows the Bearcamp River, passing abandoned Mt. Whittier Ski Area, the Ossipee Ranges and onto the shore of Lake Winnipesauke. While not the height of those on the Maine Central's famed Mountain Division, the mountains of the Ossipee Range offer plenty of steep slopes, stunning rock faces, and are considered the "Gateway to the White Mountains."

When looking at the scales, people generally consider one of the down sides of choosing HO is the scenery-to-trains ratio. While N scale can produce some very stunning mountain ranges and vistas, this too can be accomplished in HO. The key is to not cram track into every available space... sometimes you have to compromise track for realistic scenery. Aside from the main "yard," locations on my layout contain roughly one track, and the layout is about 30" deep. This is plenty of space for a good track-to-scenery ratio.

Easy Terrain

Chicken wire, hard shell, glue shell, cardboard web... Over the years there have been many tried and true methods of building up the scenery base. Some designed out of necessity, others because of cost. I have decided on using Styrofoam® panels. Styrofoam is lightweight, and I enjoy its ease of use. To keep costs down, I decided not to use the pre-fab blocks from Woodland Scenics and instead used builders-grade Styrofoam sheets from my local home center. Styrofoam can be found in 2'x8' sheets and thicknesses from half-inch to two inches. While I have heard from some people in warmer climates that they cannot get Styrofoam easily, you should be able find it at any Lowes or Home Depot. Even if your local store does not carry it, their northern stores do, and they should be able to order some for you. Using a Woodland Scenics Hot Knife and Hot Wire Foam Cutter, I cut out workable sized pieces out of the large 2x8 sheets so that they can be stacked like a wedding cake to make mountains. I secure the layers of foam together with cheapo Wal-Mart tub caulk. It comes 4 caulking gun tubes to a pack, holds the foam tight, and costs about $3 for the whole pack. NOTE: Make sure whatever construction adhesive you purchase, make sure it is safe for Styrofoam! Check the label before purchasing. Once you have your foam stacked to the height you want, use a combination of your hot knife, hot wire cutter, Surform rasps, and old kitchen knives to cut, carve and shave the foam to the shape desired. Work the foam so that you build natural curves and land elevations, while smoothing our any irregular slopes or angles. To further help reduce irregular angles, you can smooth the foam over with some quick passes of a fine grit sand paper. Unnaturally steep blocks and transitions will be harder to hide when it comes to final scenery. Use a shop vac to clean up any foam dust and you should have a pretty good basic representation of how your final terrain will look and flow.

“Ground Goop” and the base scenery

Years ago I learned about a mass of mush called “Ground Goop” from fellow modeler Lou Sassi. I was impressed with the results I saw in several of his scenery books. Ground Goop consists of brown paint, vermiculite, Perma Scene, white glue, and a pinch of Lysol. Due to availability in my area I have replaced the Perma Scene with Sculptamold, and because I use the goop quick enough, I do not use the Lysol. The stuff is just plain amazing and can easily change how your ground cover looks. Mix the ingredients together in a container and spread the mix onto your scenery base. Watch as even "flat" terrain starts to get some elevation to it by spreading on the ground goop. Because of the glue in the goop, adding scenery materials for your base scenery is relatively easy. I like to work the ground goop in one-foot areas so that I do not get ahead of myself, spreading it on with an artist’s spatula. With the Ground Goop down, I add layers of sifted dirt, real rocks, real ground leaves for a base cover, and let it dry over night. 

Open areas

After the Ground Group dries over night, for areas that are generally open to a good amount of sunlight I like to use a product called Silfor. Manufactured in Germany, the product is distributed by Scenic Express. The Silfor line contains a number of products from Prairie Tufts, Buffalo Grass, and loose static grass. One look at the demo scenes from any of Silfor's ads and you will be stunned at how realistic they are. What may drive some people away is the price. I believe the money is worth it, compared to what I saved while building other parts of the layout. Using the late summer Prairie Tufts and Loose Flock, I apply matte medium to the base ground cover and install the static flock using Noch's GrasMaster. Fill the cup on the GrasMaster with the flock; push the grounding pin in the wet matte medium. Lightly shake the GrasMaster over the matte medium, covering your working area. As the grass fibers exit the GrasMaster they will have a charge on them that will allow them to stand up in the glue. Compare the results with the typical ground foam only scenery, and you can see the additional depth that the standing grass provides. For taller grass and fields, you can air brush on a very thin mix of matte medium over the first flock layer, and then add and additional layer of flock for additional depth or color variation.

Forested areas

Often I see forests on layouts where basically it looks like trees were growing up out of a well manicured lawn. However, other than in some locations in the US, most forests have a very different floor consisting of underbrush, dead fall, etc. Looking again for a more realistic representation of what is actually around me I turned to what is actually in my back yard. Northern New England forests are covered year round with a thick layer of decaying leaves, continuously added on by each passing fall. I learned of an easy way to recreate the look of the dead floor in Lou Sassi's book Basic Scenery For Model Railroaders. Sassi begins by collecting dead leaves, crushing them in a blender (get your own for messy work like this, or you will be in trouble with your wife) and then bake the moisture out (or air dry). Sifting the baked contents with a sieve will give you a fine material that perfectly represents what it is: dead leaves. After you have applied your Ground Goop, you can sift on the leaves to bond them to your forest floor and allow them to dry. I have used this technique on another layout and over several years the leaves did not show any signs of decay or mold.

Coming Up: Roadways, Ballasting and Super Detailing

That should get you about started with the scenery on your layout, and help you picture how it will all turn out in the end. As we continue along in the next part of our series we will start building some rural roadways, super detail our scenery, and begin ballasting our track for rural towns.

About the Author
A Network Administrator by education, and a Dispatcher/Police Officer by trade, Ian MacMillan has been involved in model railroading for over 15 years. After a brief stint in N scale he has returned to HO to build his free-lanced Amoskeag Northern Railroad. Ian lives in East Wakefield, New Hampshire with his wife Tabatha and his two children. When not working on his layout he enjoys working on his Woodings speeder, and his website.