What did they use for scenery in the old days?

Stained saw dust (Green and brown). Real dirt, twigs, pebbles and rocks. Screen and Hydrocal.

Tin

They did use dyed sawdust for simulated grass.

For the mountain shell they used a material that you'd dunk into solvent and it would become like a wet dishrag. Once dry, it was like a rock.

I use scenery materials today that I used in the 1950s including:

• Saw dust secured with a mixture of water, white glue and latex paint for color;
• Brown paper bags crumpled and glued into place, and sprinkled with saw dust;
• Pledge floor wax for water;
• 1/8" thick cardboard box material for table top covering (sound abatement) and roadways;
• Wood coffee stirrer sticks for planking & decking;
• File folders for card stock buildings;
• Colored paper for buildings;
• Cutout advertisements from food boxes and magazines for advertising signs;
• Tin soup cans for storage tanks;
• Soda straws with cotton for billowing smoke stacks and building steam vents;
• Tooth picks;
• Small paper clips for fencing.

Asbestos powder, mixed with water, was also used. 

Train boards also used chicken wire, burlap, plaster of paris, paper-mache & rit dyes but many used lead based paints, oil based paints, lead sheets & weights and other now-days banned chemicals.

I guess kids were just told not to eat the layout, back then.

I remember after my grandfather passed we were cleaning out the house and in the basement was the old Christmas garden leaning against the wall. It had sand, coffee grounds, real dirt, various colors of sawdust and the tunnel was chicken wire with plaster on it painted to match the Life-Like mountain paper. I wish I had kept it but at 11 years old you don't get much say in keeping what everybody else thinks is junk or garbage. In reality it probably wasn't in the greatest shape but to an 11 year old you just don't want to pass up a chance at a free layout!

Jerry

One of my personal favorites from the good old days!

Pinecone trees and thimble garbage cans.

Moss collected vs bought. Thread spools for wire spools, sewing machine bobbins too for hand held size.

Bullets for artillery shells. {I was shooting by third grade. No big deal, respect came before privilege, other kids shoo-ed away till I hid them, every single one accounted for, else lose the privilege.) Scenery not play!

And not scenery , but a torch or fire, pliers and a fat nail to solder.

RichO posted:

One of my personal favorites from the good old days!

Fire Proof SNOW??? Wow, what will they think of next!! 

Just the thing for Global Warming!

And not scenery , but a torch or fire, pliers and a fat nail to solder.

Never heard of anybody doing that, but I certainly have seen some solder work that looked like it might have been done that way.

"...in the old days". Too, too rich (as we said sometimes "in the old days"). This was right after Columbus (or the Norwegians) and just a couple of years after the last pterodactyl died.

Funny.

Also, above: "I guess kids were just told not to eat the layout, back then."

But now it's OK?

D500 posted:

"...in the old days". Too, too rich (as we said sometimes "in the old days"). This was right after Columbus (or the Norwegians) and just a couple of years after the last pterodactyl died.

Funny.

 

Also, above: "I guess kids were just told not to eat the layout, back then."

But now it's OK?

That's back when the Vikings settled in Minnesota...Just before the Pilgrims set foot on Plymouth Rock and started global warming.

D500 posted:

"...in the old days". Too, too rich (as we said sometimes "in the old days"). This was right after Columbus (or the Norwegians) and just a couple of years after the last pterodactyl died.

In all fairness, the hobby has changed drastically even in the last few years. Heck, I got out of it in the 90s and when I came back, I was shocked at all the things that changed!

Remember when people bought Lychen by the garbage bag full? You won't even find it for sale at a hobby shop except for ancient stock they never sold from back then. And really, we're not talking about all that long ago.

For example, remember when all N scale layouts were obvious from photos and looked so toylike that people would never consider that scale unless they saw it in person? I've seen countless photos of N scale layouts in recent times that you'd be hard pressed to tell if it was N or HO!

"Good old day" my foot, I love the hobby where it is now! The only 'good old days' thing that I wish was still going is that more people used to be into model trains than there are now. That's the only thing I think isn't better today.

RJR posted:

Asbestos powder, mixed with water, was also used. 

Indeed!!

After I had created the salvaged window-screen-over-crude-wood-supports at the ripe young age of around 7 years, all I needed was some plaster to slather over it to finish the mountain-with-tunnel-portals on my first Lionel layout (ca. 1950).  Well, the book....that ubiquitous model railroading paperback by Bantam...said to use plaster.

'Nah, I've got something better than that downstairs!', said Dad.  We had an oil burner for hot water/radiator heating.  The hot water storage tank was covered in...you guessed it...asbestos!  So downstairs to the basement we went.  Dad pulled this HUGE sack of A-S-B-E-S-T-O-S out from the dark recesses of the oil burning furnace.  He got a steel pail, scooped out about half a bucket of the powdery stuff and carried it over to the cast cement sanitary tubs.  At this stage, every handling of that powder generated its own cloud of the same....settling everywhere....including, probably, lungs.

'Now roll up your sleeves!', said he.  He added water to the pail.  'Now get your hands in there and mix the asbestos and water together!'  I mean, we're talking Nirvana for a 7-year old!.....getting your hands dirty mixing powder and water into a pasty glop!!!  Mud pies with parental encouragement....holy moly!

Then, we carried the bucket to the train table.  'Now cover your mountain with that!', he directed.  Man o' man!...This just gets better and better!   Smearing, smoothing fistfuls of that stinky glop!!  Of course, occasionally we had to wipe our sweaty brow with the back of our hand arm...which had me even more decorated.   Then there was the clean-up.  

Well, that Mount Mesothelioma stood...all painted, lichen mossed, bottle-brush-treed...for about 6 years in the basement.  But the story didn't end there.

My older sister wanted to reclaim the basement rec room for some...'Sock-Hops'.  (I'd explain what those were to those too young to remember, but they already think our generation is whack-o and good for a laugh, if nothing else, anyway!)  So the train table had to go.....to the attic!!  No problem...plenty of room up there.  

However, besides cutting the table in half to negotiate three stairways to the attic,  Mount Mesothelioma would have to be removed.  No problem.  The claw end of a hammer made quick work of that!   Handfuls of mountain into the trashcan, more wiping of the brow, electric fans blowing the humidity....and asbestos dust...around the room.  Who knew?

Well, I'm not intending to minimize the hazards of asbestos.    It should, indeed, have NO place in our home or work environment nowadays.  I'm well aware that each person has a different level of resistance/immunity to some of these now-no-no materials.  I guess I can only thank the Good Lord for my lasting this long in view of all the things I did...and used...in my 72 years (so far).  

Hmmmmm......thinking back....of all the things I/we did back then........How DID I survive??

KD

Back in the "ancient days" (I am talking the 40s & 50s) we used lead icicles on the  Xmas tree and I would salvage them to add to my lead stash.  I would make a mold and cast lead tanks,still have one in the attic, and then I got started making zip guns. Used the lead for parts of the various guns i made. Pilfered 22 ammo from my dad's  drawer. I think I will bring the tank down and put it on my layout.  These kids today can have their stupid electronic games-we had fun !!

I remember lead tinsel on the Christmas Tree. Lead was replaced by aluminum foil tinsel and today it is plastic film with an electro-deposit coating of aluminum.

Love that left-handed drywall screw.

Necessity is the mother of invention; I didnt know how to plug a soldering iron into a battery. Cabin had no electricity till the 70s but there still was no iron there. Bolts held heat better but didnt get to small areas well. Usually I was just soldering scrap wire together, Gramps did the train repair at home. I hadnt thought about that little Scout in the atttic in forty years. It must have gotten stolen in the one "bad break in"

In the spring, it wasnt unusual to find a boarded window and money on the table from sombody that needed shelter life or death from a Mich UP winter storm. Usually the dishes were the only mess. But a Northerner would heat water on the stove and do those too. One spring we pulled in on a guy replacing the window while his family was washing walls and floors, money on the table too. I  dont think that would happen that way today. A heated ranger station and lots of development; the breakins stopped.

From a detailed model point of view modern day is hard to best, but scratch building from whats on hand and some imagination is what made the world spin for a long time. Tons of funs, without tons of funds.

A bag of pure asbestos!  That has to be hard to find on a shelf today.  

D500 posted about: "I guess kids were just told not to eat the layout, back then."

 

But now it's OK?

With Kool-aid for dye the sawdust is much tastier today! Use sugar in your flour based paper maché and youll really have that 5 star layout you always wanted on your table.

The same stuff I use today!

For my PW-style Lionel layout I snagged several bags of Lionel 919 grass off the Bay. Paint the surface green and sprinkle on the grass. 

If I had a larger layout and wanted to build scenery, I would do it the old fashioned way. Great products today but, like the buildings, sure is expensive. Don't use any edible products in your scenery, it leads to mold, mice and bugs !!  One Xmas I used coffee for a road that I thought was pretty cool but my Mama disagreed.