First, Happy Thanksgiving to all. I have to model two road crossings which unfortunately have to cross over curved track. I would like to make them as realistic as possible. The track is Atlas. Any suggestions on how to do this. The road will be either gravel or tar covered. Not sure yet. Any suggestions??
Thanks, Sam
I’ve used HO scale cork roadbed to fit inbetween the rails on a curve. That was on O31 tubular track which is probably taller than the Atlas. Worth a try though.
Another thing I’ve used is a foam product sold at craft stores. Comes in 8" x 12" sheets, and various colors. Just cut to fit. It’s very flexible and you can contour to the grade crossing.
Sam,
Here’s a couple of pic’s of what we did with a crossing, might give you an idea, hope it helps.
Jon
I’ve used 3/16" thick balsa wood shaped to suite.
I would recomment balsa as well. Just make sure the flanges have enough clearance to pass, which is the easiest to change when using balsa or cardboard. If it fits(testruns!!), glue it in place and finish it like you whish. The road itself on my layout is on track level, so I don’t have huge jumps for the cars to pass the tracks. Simply use underlayment or foam to rise the road a bit.
I too used balsa wood and then I attached my roadbed to the balsa wood and ramped it up to the rails. I cut seperate pieces for between the rails and just used a black sharpy to color them to match the road. It looks genuine that way to me and I filled the edges of the road with gravel ballast to hide the gap on the sides.