Welcome Oliver!

You are not alone. Even us old-timers (I missed my birthday Lok last year[:(]) are 'scenery impared'.[:p]

I have about 6 books on how to do scenery. Still no clue![xx(][:p]

You might find a local friend or RR club and trade help on each other's layouts. Also, start small. (no tunnels with catenary first try[:p])

For pictures, there is a thread under the NMR section. You have to upload the picture onto a web server, then put the link in your text.

Enjoy!

Oliver:
One additional thought. Don't try to do everyting at once. Pick a small section of your layout and develop it. Leave the rest just track. When you are satisfied with that section, move on to another. This will do several things. It will help limit your expenditures, and will give you confidence and experience to do the next section. I started with the section I called "The Valley". I feel it is acceptable, but I am not really satisfied with it. I may tear it out at some time in the future and redo it.

Hi Oliver welcome to the forum.
It is a hard think, scenery. Just agreed with previous posts, and it is essential to make your own experience triing differents materials and techniques, but above all HAVE FUN!!!!!!!!!!

Thank you for all your responses! Thank you for the pictures rschaffr
and kimmo! Just one more question.
*What are the roads called?

Hello Oliver,

For terrain structures (hills, mountains etc.), styrofoam is a good alternative. More details on my homepage: http://home.swipnet.se/perz/tt.html#foam. You can use putty or plaster on top of the styrofoam. Plaster is cheaper but I find putty easier to work with. Paint it with water colours. Styrofoam is destroyed by thinner based colours and thinner based glue.

A method to build realistic plaster rocks is presented on Peter Funck's homepage: http://www.peter.funck.net/building.htm#Mountains.

Real soil and sand (as already mentioned) can be used to create bare ground areas. But you can also use spices like cinnamon, allspice, cardamom and black and white pepper for this.

For grass and other vegetation I would recommend commercial products. Among brands, Woodland Scenics is already mentioned, but also Heki, Busch and Faller have good products, just to mention some. You will find it in a model railway shop, but you can also look in wargaming shops (where they sell Warhammer stuff etc.).

Trees and bushes can be made of coloured lichen moss. The coloured lichen moss for model railways is rather expensive, but you can usually find prepared, but non-coloured, lichen moss at christmas time much cheaper. Then, you can paint it green. There are also several other ways to make trees.

Fences can be built from material you have at home or find in the nature, see e.g. my home page: http://home.swipnet.se/perz/tt.html#fence.

To model streets, I use thick grey paper to model concrete and asphalt roads (different shades of grey of course). Paving-stone streets I print out on an ink-jet printer. You can download the paving-stone pattern (Powerpoint format!) from my homepage: http://home.swipnet.se/perz/tt.html#street. Some other stone patterns that can be printed out are found on Peter Funck's homepage: http://www.peter.funck.net/building.htm#Bricks. You can create your own patterns as well, in any suitable (or non suitable, as Powerpoint) drawing program.

Also, to make your money last longer, take a look at the German web shops, e.g. http://www.lokshop.de/ or http://www.modelleisenbahn.com/. You find more of them on the forum Links&downloads page. The prices are significantly lower there than in Sweden, but the shipment cost is added so you have to order rather much at a time to save money on it. If you have friends that share your model railway interest you can go together around a bigger order.

If you want to, I could send you some more specific information in Swedish, e.g. about materials that I use but don't know the exact English word for. In that case, contact me via the forum email function or via the contact form on my home page.

Hi Oliver, and welcome to this fabulous resource on everything Marklin! You find all the answers to your questions in this forum. Try using the search feature for something specific that you may need. Good luck with building your layout and like all the gurus befoe me have said -- HAVE LOTS OF FUN!!

BTW, I am wondering if you are our youngest member?

best regards,
Ranjit

Hi Oliver - welcome to that great Forum!

If you are looking for commercial options for road modelling, suppliers like Woodland Scenics, Noch and Faller each have their own systems. But you can easily manage with simplier methods, like cardboard, plaster and paint, as Per and Ron mention.

Information about Woodland Scenics, for example, you can find from their web-site at www.woodlandscenics.com. Their site contains a lot of useful "how-to" information with step-by-step illustration. It may be useful, regardless if you actually use their products or not.

And regarding commercially available scenic material in general, like turf, foliage, lichen, sand, ballast, etc. Woodland Scenics is probably the most inexpensive option. I have used their products quite a bit.

But take a look at their web-site. Browsing is free!

I did the same thing, and used Woodland Scenics #1454 paint.

I think such remarks are there mainly for prototypical reasons. It means that certain locomotive has actually been pulling those wagons in real world, and would therefore be a prototypical choice to go with the wagons. Technically there shouldn't be any problem with any locomotive, unless the consist of wagons is very heavy. In such case a small locomotive like 3000 might not have enough friction power to manage any uphills.

OK. But i have tested all my waggons (7) + my cousins (4) and my 3000 loc actually pulled them round my layout, so i dont think 5-6 perople waggons should be a problem:-)
ANother question. The rubber thing around one of the wheels is not so good anymore. Can I change it myself (sets to buy?) or do I have to go to my märklin dealer?

What looks good in your eyes is all that matters. I, being a writer/poet myself try to put a little creativity into everything I do. It doesn't matter what the medium you use to make your scenery with, just as long as you use creativity. (I sometimes use old Bugler and Folgers cans to make storage tanks. I also utilize packing materials I get from appliances and styrofoam from old insulation to make my scenery areas.) Also, there are some reasonably-priced kits available at your local hobby shop. I am currently working on a small station I bought from my hobby shop that I only paid ten bucks for. I also make small rectangular buildings out of cardboard boxes. To make more realistic shingles I cut, paint, and glue strips of kerf-cut computer paper onto my buildings' roofs. There are ways to make your layout look good, but the three pieces of advice I give you is to be patient, be creative, and whatever looks good to you is all that matters!