How to Make My Train Layout Look Real

Use foam planks as the basing for your layouts. Glue the planks to your train table in layers using craft glue until they're between one and two inches thick. The foam allows you to dig subterrain into your layout such as ditches, waterways or subway entrances for added realism.

Create hills and other rising terrain features for your layout to create the feel of naturally rolling land. Even natural plains areas have gradually changing height due to ground features. Reproduce this in your train layout to add realism. Use shaped foam for smaller hills or crumbled newspapers covered with heat-shrink vinyl model grass mats for larger hills and mountains. Glue the foam and newspapers into place with craft glue. Cut the mat grass slighter larger than the newspaper hills using a pair of scissors, then apply heat with a heat gun to mold shrink the material until it conforms to the newspaper to create the hill.

Cover your baseboard with scale model groundcover over a painted primer. Use primer that's slightly darker than the intended groundcover to enhance shadows and add depth to the ground materials. Use varying scale model ground materials to represent changes in groundcover, from sand along waterways to gravel on paths and grasslands. Glue groundcover in place by dripping on craft glue diluted in half with water. Use extensive flocking, scaled to the same scale as your train for additional layered groundcover. Bushes, trees, crops and weeds, all to scale, adds realism to your groundcover.

Mount painted structures built to scale to the board using model cement. Use buildings in your layout that would normally go together in a real environment. Commercial and apartment buildings for city layouts, farmhouses and barns for country layouts. Space the buildings out realistically, allowing room between them for yards, parking lots or fields where appropriate.

Use modeled roadways as streets or highways, then add model cars of the same time period as your buildings to the roads. Place pedestrians and pets on sidewalks. Add lampposts and fire hydrants where they're likely to be in real life. Include everything in your layout that you're likely to see in the real world that you're trying to depict.

Avoid gloss paint when painting structures and people. Gloss makes the models appear plastic, detracting from the realistic look of the model. Apply a light wash of dark ink to the models using a paintbrush to darken the colors slightly.

Weather your trains and structures to make them appear used and slightly worn by the elements. Spray the metal parts lightly with a rust-colored spray paint to add specks of rust to your train bodies. Wipe the sides of buildings lightly with white acrylic paint mixed in a 50/50 ratio with water to thin it, and then wipe the paint away to make bricks appear worn.

Use soft lighting to display your completed model. Harsh lighting reduces the realistic look of your models, allowing the unrealistic details created due to the limitations in creating the models to stand out.