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I answer this question in this way: A railroad is fundamentally about transportation. Transportation means moving from one place to another. Scenery is what establishes the sense of place, or of places. Without it, trains might be in motion, but they are not "transporting" anything. A model railroad, it can be said, is also about transporting, but what it does is to transport me from the real world into my fantasy. I takes me to the world of the trains, it takes me to the spot beside the tracks where I can just sit, without other concerns, and watch the trains roll by. The more complete and real my scenery looks, the more it transports me in that manner. Just give it a try... even with something other than a layout, you'll see something neat happening when you start building a scene, a town, a place. Those miniature victorian town buildings that are meant for christmas dioramas come to mind: my mother has a whole town scene (which I have helped her put together) that serves as decoration on a dresser top. Gift shops at the mall sell them; they are roughly G-scale usually. Anyways, once you get enough of these together, and fill in between with some fluffy fake white snow, you start to see a whole village, full of quaint Yuletide activity. You have created a place. And you'll find yourself more mesmerized than you ever thought you'd be by such a simple gesture, as you mentally explore the realm before you. Scenery on a model railroad should amplify this effect, usually, even the most rudimentary scenery does exactly this.
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