I am new the the hobby and building a modular rail yard (2x6). I was hoping some of the experienced modelers around here could help me out with some advice on things I’m not too sure on.
This is more of a general question, but do I really need to use cork if I am building on foam? I don’t mind using it for the other modules where is just the mainline (and did for the one already built), but for something like a railyard, getting the cork cut right and laid out would probably take just as long as the rest of it. So how much extra noisy dampening do I get by adding cork onto foam? Any other benefits of using the cork too?
I want to add an intermodal section where a couple lines of track in the yard would be inbedded into the concrete. What’s the best way to model this? Styrene sheets? If so, what’s a good way to space it out for leaving a gap between the rail and styrene? How much should this be and what’s a good way to do this? What’s a good way to secure the styrene to the track ties, the foam, and other styrene (for this I’d assume plastic cement).
Hopefully this makes sense.
Thanks in advance for all your help, guidance, and patience with a newbie!
I would say that you don’t need cork under the rails. Especially since it’s a yard. If you were going to use cork, buy one of those sheets of cork and lay that down instead of seperate strips for every track.
I have heard that people use styreneand i’ve heard plaster. either way would work but I myself would use styrene(it’s easier).
I’ll speak to the embedded concrete. I’ve had good luck with the following.
1.) take some lightweight spackle and mix in some black tempra powder and a little water. Stir it up until you have some nice, creamy gray goop.
2,) pour it over the area you want to be concrete. pour it right over the tracks too, and skreet it out with a plastic putty knife. ( you could put a coat of light oil on the railheads first, but I don’t think that really matters)
3,) continue to smooth and level the spackle and have a truck ready with some cheap plastic wheels that you can roll on the tracks through the mud, cutting grooves parallel to the track. You can clean the railheads with you finger tip as you go. Oil on the wheels may help the process.
4.) wipe up the excess “concrete”. You will have over an hour to work this stuff before it starts to cure, but you will have track embedded in cement that trucks will roll freely through long before that.
Try it on a scrap piece of track if you are afraid this is too messy. It works pretty good for me.
I used the technique for this grade crossing. I wouldn’t do it too near the points or throw bar of your turnouts.
The noise dampening is a very big issue and cork (or other roadbeds) helps a lot; however, in a yard there isn’t a lot of high speed running trains so I don’t know if noise is an issue anyway.
I don’t know if this is the best way, but foam putty works great and keeps the weight down. The drawback is that it is expensive.
I believe that in HO there is rail available that has a flangeway built into it. It’s marketed for trolley layouts. You could get that for the pig yard, and just plaster between the flangeways.
Otherwise, I’d go with the plaster method described above. Styrene works well in small sections such as grade crossings, but a long section would be difficult to keep secured, I would think.
I would use cork as well. Use the flat sheet of cork for the yard tracks and use thin strips where your “main” is. This way you can have a nice ballast profile for the mainline track.
I too have used the plaster method. I just mixed up a batch and put in some flat black paint and some concrete colouring and spread it out around and between the tracks. When it is semi-dry I use a thin knife blade to scrape a flangeway next to the track and test roll an old car through it.
The best part of pre-colouring your plaster is that the road doesn’t look painted afterwards, and if you chip it accidently it still retains its full colour and bare white doesn’t show through.
The beauty of plaster also is that it will dry with little imperfections and some minor cracking which just adds to the realism. Just note that adding anything to plaster will alter its setting time. I believe that adding paint will lengthen the setting time.
Test a couple of small batches to get the plaster tint right.
Probably the best flangeway tool for plaster/joint compound would be the flangeway side of an NMRA gauge. When I did mine I was concerned w/ cleaning the head of the rail w/o buggering up the plaster on each side so I made a tool of sheet brass w/ the track gauge notched out to drop the road surface to just below rail hight.
You don’t need the cork under the tracks in the yard. As someone else has already mentioned, there isn’t any high speed action in the yard, so there isn’t a lot of noise there to begin with. If you’ve ever seen the yard for the Dry Hill Model Railroad Club modules (3’X60’), we only have cork under the mainlines on those modules, once we switch off the mainlines we taper the tracks right down. Believe it or not, saves on weight overall too.
In regards to pavement, we did the plaster pour right over all the flextrack method. After the plaster dried, We then took a small slotted screwdriver (available at any dollar store) and ground half of the tip off, leaving us a very handy tool that rides the top of the rail and will clean out the flangeway. When you’re done, you can’t even tell there’s ties underneath the plaster!
