Category Archives: Model Railroad Scenery

At some point, nearly all Appalachian railroad modelers need to deal with creating flowing hills and valleys for their layouts. I use a method I adapted from Howard Zane’s “Paper Shell” scenery he detailed in the January 2007 Railroad Model Craftsman, and I couldn’t be happier with how easy, flexible, cheap and good looking this method is for creating basic scenery forms. My layout is open grid benchwork with cookie cutter sub-roadbed which is great for this kind of scenery, but it would also work for any open benchwork method (e.g., L-girder, spline sub-roadbed, etc.) where there’s some backdrop and fascia to frame the scene.

Tools needed:

• Scissors
• Utility knife
• Straightedge
• Hot glue gun
• Plastic putty knife
• Old washcloth

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