See how much fun you can have with a bit of foam, some painter’s caulk and some brown shades of acrylic paint.

Chisel out where you want (or rather, where you don’t want) your mountains.

The seal the foam with painters caulk.

Paint the rocks a light tan. Than dab on a darker brown to give it depth.

It sounds simple – and it is.

But the effect it brings to a model railroad layout can be pretty impressive.

There’s always stuff around the house you can use for scenery. Stuff you woudln’t think of – but with a little imagination…

Ground coffee (after drying) makes good ballast (or add it to your cat litter to make it darker) and tea mixed with herbs makes great ground cover.

Or, believe it or not, just regular dirt (scooped up from outside) sprinkled down on to wet glue works a treat.

I mostly model in HO so it ‘fits’ – but you can pretty much do these three in any scale size.

It looks great a saves a fortune on your railroad layout.