In studying photos of 19th century city streets I've noticed that "road apples" are quite ubiquitous.
But the question is: should droppings be modeled?
I mean- it is natural after all. Horses are going to doo what horses gotta do!
Both Images: Shorpy. Color: Hotpot
And doo they do a lot! It was quite the problem back in the day. Particularly in New York City that when the elevated railroads were built the steam locomotives were hailed as a solution to the pollution!
But doo I want to model "excreta" though? I suppose I might if it's not too conspicuous- one of many details to notice. And it is kind of funny. But I doo want to be careful- it is a poop joke after all. I don't want to be crass. Just... realistic. Which begs the question- what to model dung with?
The question of what to use to model "after parts" had been lurking in the back of my mind for some time now and one morning while emptying my coffee maker I noticed that the used coffee grounds are about the right size and color for manure. So I set up the test photo shown at the top of this post and well, yeah, not a bad result. So I'll keep it in mind and see if I can tastefully incorporate "effluent" into some of the scenes on the layout when I get to the detailing stage of layout construction.
All I need now is for someone to make some HO scale Pooper-Scooper figures, then I can make a nice little scene like this.
Yes Sir! HO scale Pooper-Scoopers!
