Realistic track

The on-going thread about dilapidation vs. 'lapidation" plus weathering brings up an interesting point. At a recent open house for my layout, I overheard some comment…“Jeez, I thought this guy, Zane knew something about model railroading. Look at his track…it ain’t smooth or even!” I let it go by not responding. But for the record, my track is most definitely uneven, but by design and planning. Years back I visited the most magnificent pike built in a construction trailer. I was only into HO for about a year then, and was overwhelmed with its beauty and flawless operation. There was one thing that bothered me, but I could not put my finger on it…until a few days later at railside watching a long freight pass by with cars swaying and dipping.

Epiphany!! That was it!! The builder was West Pointer and of course an engineer. His benchwork was quite solid as was his roadbed…3/4" birch plywood with True Scale roadbed (still available). His operating trains just glided with nary a sway, dip, or whatever. Although quite impressive, it just did not seem realistic. Imperfect roadbed is!

Also I bank all of my curves by gluing a .040 styrene shim to the outside of the curve. Ballast fills in the voids easily. I use flex track, but hand laid track is also easy to bank.

Much to say about track, but later on and I suspect that most know quite a bit.

HZ

It is part of the learning that each of us can undertake in the hobby if we wish. As we get to know more, we notice more. Newcomers to rails of any scale probably don’t notice cars swaying very much. And they rarely look down secondary or tertiary tracks and see the imperfections compared to the crossing where they can look down the rails for a second and see how well groomed it all is.

Crandell

Howard, I definately agree with you for the most part. I guess a lot would depend on the actual prototype as to just how to model any irregularities in the trackwork. Modeling new/ present mainlines may require rather “perfect, straight” track. Of course branchlines old yard leads and sidinds would be of less repair and these imperfections could/ should be used. Remember, there are all different levels of skill and ability in this hobby. Some can try their hardest to lay track just to allow their trains to operate w/o any troubles. Purposely laying uneven and wondering trackwork may play havoc w/ operation, unless the modeler has the skills to do so.

There are many sections of our club layout that this is purposely done. Slightly irregular (humps, bumpsa and wavy track) is immpressive as is superelevation. Just shouldn’t go to extreme, as many finicky pieces will derail or loose electrical PU. This becomes more evident in smaller scales and narrow gauge where short wheelbase and fairly lightweight pieces are used.

I feel I may be “preaching” to the choir replying to you on this, but I feel it would be good to put it out there for others.

Irregularities @ siding yet true mainline trackwork

Creamery siding (B&M RS) was done with old aged ties and humps, bumps and dips. Weeds and thin ballast

We did experience some troubles getting carried away on the HON3 and dual gauge. It took quite a bit of fixing to allow DCC controlled locos to work properly But it really did look fantastic but not too practical. I guess as long as you have the skills and don’t go to extremes it does add some realism to your layout.

Howard, i am new to the hobby. my brother and i had a 4x8 layout when i was a kid that we loved, a couple of years ago i got back into railroading with my grandson, one thing that i have noticed is that a lot of people in this hobby act like they know everything or their way is the best and only way to do something. i see it at the train shop at train shows and on these forums. i cant imagine saying something like “he cant lay track” or what ever. i am just amazed that guys like you have the skill or talent or whatever you want to call it to do the kind of stuff you do. do not let the comments of some knuckle head get you down. i am glad to hear about the way you laid your track. gives me one more thing to consider on my next attempt at a layout. thanks,

Thor,

The problem I have with making “bad track” is that the standards for real “bad” track are still very, very tight when modeled.

For example class 1 track, the lowest quality, the maximum difference in guage is 1" in 31 ft and and the maximum difference in cross elevation is 2 7/8" in 31 ft. 31 ft in HO is about half a piece of sectional track.

So in 1/2 piece of sectional track the gauge can only vary by .011 ".

As far as crosslevel goes the max difference in crosslevel is equivalent to taking a 9" piece of sectional track, nailing down the ends flat and then putting a .030 shim under one rail in the middle of the piece.

Those deviations restrict the top speed on the track to 10 mph. So if you are modeling a run down industrial lead or some old spur track, go ahead. If you are modeling a main track that operates trains at 40-70 mph then the deviations are considerable smaller.

For example for class 4 track the difference in crosslevel drops to ,022" in a 9 in piece of sectional track. For class 5 track, its only about .015".

What makes track look really nasty is telephoto lenses and sprung suspensions. The average modeler isn’t looking at his layout through a telephoto lens and the vast majority of HO equipment isn’t sprung as a “softly” as real equipment.

What happens is people end up putting “condemnable” deviations in the track to force the HO models to look like the telephoto shots and end up with way more deviation than is really there on the equivalent prototype track.

I figure that by handlaying my track on Homasote sheets, I’m getting an adequate amount of variation in line, surface and gauge without even trying.

I’m delighted Dave has made those points! [:D] It has saved me working out the conversions! [:)]

I lay my track without designed wiggles and bumps. There is enough to do without that… and the differences are properly in thousanths of an inch. I don’t think that people can see the difference.

In addition to this I spend more time getting cars to not wiggle but to run straight enough…

That said I think that there is an immense importance in making track look right.

As people might have noticed I go on about colours in ballast a lot. I think that this is the way to go. In particular the eye will pick up differences in the colours of ballast far more readily than a few thousandths of an inch.

I even think that bad track, particularly wet beds and opened out beds, is best represented by colur rather than physical variation of the rail height.

Tie and rail colour is also important.

Some greater “up and down” impression can be achieved by paying attention to the edges of the ballasted track. I rarely see any attention paid to this in models. In models it is usually pretty much a line parralel to the rails on both sides. In reality this is very rarely the case. The outer edge of maintained way frequently wanders both up and down and side to side… In addition plants are always trying to invade at least the edges… These things are very visual…

[8D]

PS Something else to consider is that ribbon railed track is, by its nature, far more stable and has far less variation.

[8D]

I want to add…

I have walked far too much track of all standards and taken photos for modellers. On the basis of this I entirely agree with Dave’s comments.

I reckon that the most variation I have seen in a length of rail (we use 60’ lengths) is no more than an inch and usually less. This is usually most easily seen where the joints are dropped. Dropped joints can pumpmore than an inch… nothing moves quickly over track that bad.

I have tried and tried to get “straight” pictures (not zoomed) along poor track. It is almost impossible to get a good picture. the differences just will not show up. two of the problems are always the background and the need to get some sort of straight line datum.

Use zoom and I can get all the corrugation I want! It’s the same optical distortion that makes switches and curves look far sharper than they are on the ground.

I think that while the distortion is very useful for shortening track length for layouts it is not something that helps with regard to the verticals and laterals in track laying.

[8D]

Completely agreed here as well, many tend to forget that HO is 1/87th scale! Dave has covered this perfectly from my point of view. Work hard to make it perfect, and nature wil

My track building isn’t so great anyway…so there’s always sway and dip because of that… there’s realism, but not really by design.

Howard,

Try as I might , I cant get my track work anywhere near perfect. I end up with plenty of deviations/irregularities from variables in the construction process. I pretty much agree with Dave about the scale of prototype deviations in HO being very minute…

In general I find that rough boards, uneven side walks and other manner of natural variations from the prototype are almost invisible when scaled down to HO. While I personally love heavy weathering/dilapidation, in general my approach is to make things as even as possible to look realistic.

Regarding track work: Here is an example of a mainline that started out pretty straight but ended up with a few deflections due to lack of attention and other construction variables:

My two cents,

Guy

Same here, Guy. There’s a little kink on mine that I have no idea how it got there. At sensible running speeds it’s not even noticeable.

I do have deliberately bad track on my layout, and there are issues with running . Unfortunately the boxcars wobble like models rather than sway like fullsize examples.

Mike

There is a protozype for just about anything, even bad track:

Track work like this on your layout will earn you a [tdn], but it i s dang realistic.

Howie: all one has to do is watch a video of an approaching freight train with a telescopic lens to see just how bad the best laid rail varies, it looks as if the cars will shoot off the track at anytime, it is rather disheartening.

The number one thing I have learned on these forums since getting back into model railroading four months ago is to get all the information you can but in the end do what you enjoy. So, I am happy with my “old” brass track, DC only operation and I didn’t have to plan for llaying some track imperfectly. Even though I tried to do the best job possible there are a few spots where the train bumps and jogs but not so bad as to cause derailment.

Howard, I’m with you! Perfectly scaled track irregularities might be too small to notice in HO but why not use our modelling freedom to adjust the size of the dips to make the appearance to our liking. We adjust the size of a whole bunch of other stuff with not a word said. I think watching trains rock back and forth is neat as long as they don’t derail. Don’t forget that our models do not have the weight or the suspension flexibility of the real thing. Part of the prototype rocking is track related and part is suspension and weight related. Reals train springs flex in a way that would be hard to model.

Anyhow, each to his own.

Dave

This is a shot I took a couple of years back. CSX Mainline, Magnolia, WV

200mm view looking Westbound over the Magnolia Bridge.

Distant Present!

Lovely telephoto/zoom shot that!

[:-,]

Watch this video from the 1:10 mark, if you want to see some "“realistic track”.It looks like the plow actually makes contact with the railhead.

Rough track on the** **Minnesota Valley Railroad