Has any one made a layout that has street runs in it? If so I would appreciate it if you could show me some pictures of the layout or give me tips on how you did it. THANKS[:D][:D]
Get a copy of the book ‘Building City Scenery for Your Model Railroad’ by John Pryke, published by Kalmbach. (I think you can link to an online bookstore from trains.com) JP provides intructions for in-street tracks using styrene and posterboard.
I came across a website a couple days ago with lots of photos of the New York Cross Harbor RR, an old urban freight freight carrier. You might find this site interesting. Follow the link:
http://www.oldnyc.com/crossharbor_rr/contents/crossharbor_rr.html
I hope this info is helpful!
Regards,
Bruce J.
Swedtram from Gothenburg Sweden makes rail and turnouts that are perfect for use in a street. They have a website, swedtram.se
Years ago I checked out some street running in Phoenix AZ and the interesting thing to me was, the throw for the turnout was covered by a hinged metal plate, which was level with the pavement. So to turn the switch the brakeman would open the hinged door, flip the throw over, and then close the plate again.
Dave Nelson
Step1… Buy some eggs in a foam carton. Step 2 cut clearance shims for the flanges out of eggcarton top and glue them to the inside of the rails with whiteglue. Step 3 build a form around the area and pore envirotek epoxy into areas to proper depth. Do not cover track!!! Alow to set. Step 4 dissolve foam with acetone and clean track of glue. Score envirotek with cracks, etc and mask tracks. Paint with enamel. Detail to suite.
Has any one made a layout that has street runs in it? If so I would appreciate it if you could show me some pictures of the layout or give me tips on how you did it. THANKS[:D][:D]
Get a copy of the book ‘Building City Scenery for Your Model Railroad’ by John Pryke, published by Kalmbach. (I think you can link to an online bookstore from trains.com) JP provides intructions for in-street tracks using styrene and posterboard.
I came across a website a couple days ago with lots of photos of the New York Cross Harbor RR, an old urban freight freight carrier. You might find this site interesting. Follow the link:
http://www.oldnyc.com/crossharbor_rr/contents/crossharbor_rr.html
I hope this info is helpful!
Regards,
Bruce J.
Swedtram from Gothenburg Sweden makes rail and turnouts that are perfect for use in a street. They have a website, swedtram.se
Years ago I checked out some street running in Phoenix AZ and the interesting thing to me was, the throw for the turnout was covered by a hinged metal plate, which was level with the pavement. So to turn the switch the brakeman would open the hinged door, flip the throw over, and then close the plate again.
Dave Nelson
Step1… Buy some eggs in a foam carton. Step 2 cut clearance shims for the flanges out of eggcarton top and glue them to the inside of the rails with whiteglue. Step 3 build a form around the area and pore envirotek epoxy into areas to proper depth. Do not cover track!!! Alow to set. Step 4 dissolve foam with acetone and clean track of glue. Score envirotek with cracks, etc and mask tracks. Paint with enamel. Detail to suite.
does this really work ???
Do you doubt a guy with 300,000 posts? [}:)]
And his last post was over 16 years ago. Imagine if he’d made a few posts in just 5 or 10 of those years, he’d be pushing 400,000 for sure!
Terry
Expensive but easy: Walthers street system. Glue down the plastic bits around the track, use one of the methods below (foamcore or Masonite) to make up the adjacent road, slip it in alongside the street system and paint.
“Quick and dirty” strategy uses 1/8" thick foamcore and sheets of .020" styrene. Attached your Code 100 or 83 track directly to the layout surface. Cut the foamcore to the dimensions of the roadway and lay it out on both sides of the track, so the foamcore goes up to the edge of the ties. Using sheets of paper, make patterns that run from the edge of the roadway to the rails (use a pencil to draw in the edges.) Cut the styrene to your patterns, glue them down with white glue. Fill in the gaps in the styrene with squadron putty. Cover the rails with tape and paint the road a roady color (I use WS Aged Concrete or Krylon Sandstone texture paint.) In between the tracks, paint .5" wide, .060" strip styrene with the same color you paint the streets and glue it down. Use white and yellow fine-point art pens to draw in road paint.
More heavy duty: The above method works well but I found that over several years the plastic warped with temperature and sometimes the foamcore swelled, necessitating frequent regluing and securing down with track nails. So I adapted an older streetcar track method: I used patterns similar to the above to cut 1/8" Masonite sheets to serve as the sides of the road, and glued them to my layout surface (1/2" MDF) with Liquid Nails and a few well-placed drywall screws, flush up against the ties. I then mixed up small batches of Durham’s Water Putty (similar to plaster but not temperature sensitive and doesn’t crumble) and used a basting syringe (a big thick syringe used for injecting flavorings into roasts) to carefully pour the putty in between the tracks and ties (except around switch points), permanently encasing the track (it’s important that you ensure your track is all in gauge, soldered to
It’s probably a bit of a stretch to call this street running, but it is tracks in a surface on which cars and trucks drive…perhaps parking lot running.
This crossing is part of the same scene…
To create the pieces of pavement to fit a particular track layout, I lay a large sheet of paper over the track - tape more sheets together, if necessary, to cover a larger area, then pencil in some reference points so that you can line it up accurately if it accidentally moves.
Next, use a pencil held almost parallel to the layout’s surface to denote the edges of the rail tops, by rubbing it along both the inside and outside edges of all rails. Add notations on the paper as necessary to ensure that the alignment remains true.
Use a fresh blade in your X-Acto or some sharp scissors to cut along the lines denoting the rails’ edges, then use the resultant patterns to draw the shapes on your .060" sheet styrene. Use a utility knife to cut the styrene.
For the pavement that goes between the rails, your pencil lines will need to be adjusted closer together, as they need to match the distance between the spikeheads. For that, a draughting compass, set to the proper dimension, then dragged along the pencil lines, will adjust the line so that you can cut the styrene to fit where it belongs.
All of the “pavement” is .060" sheet styrene, which I b
Pretty sure the 300k+ posts are an aggregate of everyone who is now Anonymous.
However - I don’t see why that idea posted from 16 years ago wouldn’t work. Though you’d have to be a bit careful with the acetone - too much will melt the foam spacers out and then proceed to melt the plastic ties as well. Back to back pieces of wax paper and fill the middle with plaster would probbaly work as well, no need to melt out the wax paper with acetone.
For smaller areas, I’d either use the Walthers stuff or do something like Dr. Wayne. If the whole layout was going to be track in the street - I’d definitely look to something a bit faster.
–Randy
I think Henry and Terry were just “messin” around. [(-D]
I have something like Dr. Wayne, paved parking lot running.
I paved the area with drywall mud. A fair amount of putzy work was required around the tracks.
Mike.
There are some amazing pictures out there on the internet of the Milwaukee Road running down the middle of the street in a number of communities in Iowa, Illinois, and Indiana. I would post pics but not sure about copyright issues here…
Bedford, Indiana (captions say the train actually obeyed traffic lights at intersections … not sure how that is possible…)
New Albany, Indiana
Kingsbury (River North neighborhood), Chicago
Bellevue, Iowa
.
The Walthers Street System included parts to pave around a turnout, but they were for an Atlas turnout, and not a Walthers/Shinohara turnout.
.
Weird decision. And… inconvenient for me because I prefer the Walthers/Shinohara trackage.
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-Kevin
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They knew how much of their turnout product they moved, so they knew more people use Atlas. Most of the reasons you prefer W/S go away when it’s buried in paving, since just about all you see is the rail head.
–Randy