I’m finishing up my bench work and in the next few weeks will be starting to lay track, starting with roadbed. The setting for my layout is a proto/freelance B&M mainline in Portsmouth, NH in the transition era 1947-1952. I’ve change geology and geography to run the mainline from Boston to Portland so that it runs through Portsmouth. I’m going to be using Homabed. My question is, what would the height of the roadbed be for a mainline as it comes into the center of the city? Homabed come in two thicknesses, 0.240” and 0.125”. Since all trains will be running rather slowly in the city, it seems to me the prototype railroad would save money and use less substantial roadbed. But, I’m not sure.
Secondly, what about roadbed for busy industrial sidings in the city? Is roadbed appropriate or is it more prototypical to lay track right on the subroadbed with just light ballasting over/around the ties? Probably both are done by real railroads. I did the former on my now completed small urban switching layout.
Thanks,
Markalan
I can’t answer for the prototype, but even in slower lanes in urban settings, we are talking about tonnage and volume on the mains. There is also passenger service to think about, and they need quality track. So, I would expect the profile to be a standard one with good clean ballast, well-tamped, and the rails leveled carefully, four spike per plate. As one gets to sidings, spurs, and such, the profile might drop substantially and the care drop as well. Terminal stubs would want some attention to make sure trains departing the ramp don’t wobble and have coffee all over the clients’ clothing.
Crandell
Crandell
Your observations are well thought out. I’m pondering passenger operations so I may well go with the standard profile.
Thank you,
Mark
I believe sidings past the frog or derail, if used belong to the customer not the railroad, so most have little or no ballast, some cinder fill and dirt. They’re usually not maintained, so weeds and nature starts growing around the. The profile usually is lower than the main on the so cars typically won’t roll back and foul main. Tracks in yards usually have cinder ballast with a low profile to simplify working walking train crews. The main line will be well maintained, with good track, but the profile some times is lower.mh
I can see you put some thought into this! Myself, I use standard .240 Homabed for all of my mainline trackage, and standard 3/16"(,1875) cork roadbed for all of my sidings and yard tracks. I use a Stanley ‘Surform’ tool top sand down the Homabed about a 12" run when I transition into the sidings. Most of my industry spurs use cork as well. I build up the bases for industries with scrap cork roadbed. It really looks good as a train ‘drops’ down into the siding(and I have had no derailment issues).
Jim
As had been said, you may be trying too hard to replicate the prototype.
What I do is just use the standard roadbed for the mainline and ‘good’ passing sidings. For yards, industries and ‘poor’ passing sidings, I don’t use any roadbed at all.
I do however, use different ballast colors for track definition. Light gray for the mainline, medium gray for passing sidings, dark gray for industries, and cinders for yard tracks and loco facilities. I also dust on some ‘grass’ on industry tracks and yard tracks. I also may put a dark gray wash down the center of heavily used tracks, or tracks that I want to represent as ‘older’.
Once again,
Thanks to everyone for the feedback. It’s very useful. I was inclined to use standard roadbed when I asked my question. I think I’ll go with that on the mainline.
Thanks,
markalan
It’s been my experience that urban trackage is poor quality, badly maintained, and can either have a ballast profile or not, usualy not. The track is maintained just enough to keep the trains on the track, nothing more. I’ve been on some trackage so poor there was some question of whether or not we were on the track or just rolling along the dirt. “Ballast” and I use the term loosely, was probably there at one time when the track was built, but most likely the sidings are a conglomerate of spilled cargo (coal, corn, and mystery goo), old machine parts and trash. Industrial mains will probably have a noticable ballast bed of some type, but it too will be dirty with mismatched repairs, trash and such. For the ultimate in realism for urban track, spread lots of road kill along the right of way. Passanger rails are the exception as the “cargo” is a little more delicate and so track is generaly well kept.
So the answer for you would be to do whatever you please, there is a prototype for it somewhere.