Newbie to scenery

Welcome to the asylum.

There are many ways to add terrain features to your flat tabletop.

Scroll through the forum and do searches and you will fund a lot of them.

There are also books about it and OGR sells DVDs as well as www.toytrainsontracks.com sells a series of 3 DVDs that show completed running as well as how to do it. Go to www.toytrainsontracks.co and watch the sample clips for an idea.

Bottom line? use whatever you want for structure, Wood, Foam, cardboard, paper mache, they all have a place. I would avoid the cheap white foam tho, it does not cut or shape well.

I'm using 2 layers of 1.5" house insulation sheet from Home Depot.

Go early in the week and ask for a discount on broken ones, it doesn't matter much to us and they have a hard time selling them. I usually get mine half price.

This works for general lift in an area so I can cut ravines and gorges easily.

Since I'm modeling a mountain area I need that. 3" works out to 12 feet scale so they are plenty deep.

You can cut and stack them for mountains as well. Mountains made of hollow rings or rows stacked will save you a lot of foam. And tunnels become simple, pop an opening in and line it with your choice of items, the thin foam can be tromped on in the driveway then painted dark for a cheap tunnel lining.

Many folks don't bother with lining the tunnel.

First off welcome.  Next there are two friends you have here.  The first is of course is this group of scenery wizards, second the forum search engine is your other friend.  What ever topic you need help with such as access hatchs is easily found via the search engine.  Most important is to have fun and enjoy doing scenery, its the part of model railroading that is the most rewarding I think.    Russ