I’ve finished my second mainline application of Woodland Scenics roadbed. I’m now at the section which travels through the city and I’m wondering if anyone has ideas on how to tranisiton from the mainline roadbed to a section of “street running” rail? I take it that I don’t want to use roadbed for this section since I want the rails to be embedded in the pavement. I need to know how to come off the roadbed to the street with a smooth transition. Thanks!!
What you want is to run your flex (I presume) track onto a base that is as thick as your roadbed, compatable with whatever you plan to use for pavement and also compatable with your track fastening system. If you are in HO, using 1/4-inch roadbed, I would suggest 1/4-inch pink extruded foam, a single sheet wide enough to form your street plus a base for your streetside buildings. Then, when you install pavement, remember to slope it from the street center toward the curbs. Hopefully, it will never have to drain real precipitation, but it should look as if it can.
I know 1/4-inch foam sounds awfully thin. I got some from the crew that was installing vinyl siding on a neighbor’s house.
Yes I running HO scale with a 2" foam base. So the transition from roadbed to street should be level. I’ll search around for some thin foam for the base. I’m assuming once I lay the track down I should cover the ties with thin styrene or something so only the rails are exposed? I thought I recently saw a MRing article on how to do this…or am I wrong?
You can buy a package of 1/4" pink foam used for insulating/leveling vinyl siding at a home center. Its called fanfold underlayment board. I might also suggest the book from Kalmbach, Building City Scenery by John Pryke ($17.95) He provides a lot of information on installing the streets between the rails, materials and methods. He (Pryke) wrote an article several years ago about his Union Freight Railroad, I am faily certain you can get reprints here of the article.
I almost forgot that I had the book…will dig into it for more info. Thanks!
I’m still somewhat confused with using the 1/4" foamboard as a base. I assume that when going from the mainline roadbed to the street running portion, the track is glued directly to the foamboard then covered with cut polystyrene for the road. I’m just so used to seeing RR crossings which roads “climb” up and over the crossing area that I can’t picture a mainline to street transition. I have this picture in my mind of the train dipping down to street-level [%-)] . Is there any pics out there to show this? I’ve found nothing so far. Thanks!!
Steve, the 1/4" foam replaces the cork roadbed. Pryke then used posterboard outside the rails and styrene between the rails to “build up” the street pavement to within I believe 1/64th of the top of the rail. He used the styrene between the rails as he stated that the posterboard would frizz from the flanges of the wheels and the styrene was easier to shape using files. I have not attempted this although I am planning an urban switching district about 18’ long as we speak. I also found that Elmers (like the glue) foamboard (I got my piece at Office Max) in 3/16"/5mm is extremely close to HO gauge cork and would probably work as well as the fanfold styrofoam insulation I spoke of earlier. I like the foamboard as it has a very smooth surface where the styrofoam fanfold has a lot of little holes in it. I do not know how well it will accept paint. I do recall a recent MR article on gatorboard ( I am making the assumption that this is the same as foamboard but thats got me into trouble before [B)] ) being used to build structures. Have to find it and see if there is any note on painting before I start gluing it down.
I have the same foamboard at 3/16" which seemed a bit low as compared to the WS roadbed which is at 1/4" height. However, I do like the foamboard and will try to adapt it. I read an article yesterday about using foamboard for building structures…that didn’t work so well, yeah it’s the same foamboard. In the Pryke book, I don’t understand his use of basswood…it this placed under the styrene in the track center as a shim to raise it up? Thanks, finally starting to understand this!!
FWIW, Woodland Scenics sells 1’ X 2’ sheets of the same materials and same thickness as their roadbed, ostensibly for making yards. Sounds like it might work for your street running underlayment.
Great!! Thanks Scott for the info. Sounds like this will work.