I model in HO and need advise on roads and sidewalks. I’d like to know what type of material to use and how wide the the side walks and streets should be.
There was a great site that showed how to make really cool streets but it’s down right now , I’ll try it again later in the mean time check out this site they have how too clinics for just about everything.
http://www.2guyzandsumtrains.com/Content/pa=showpage/pid=11.html
bill
There are many options on making roads and sidewalks depending on what you are modeling. What I do is basically to use dirt for country roads and styrene for paved roads and city streets. As far as dimensions go, the best way is to measure the type of street you llike and divide the width if feet by 87 to give you HO width. I generally use between 2" and 2 1/2 " (usually 2 1/2") for country roads and 4" for city streets. If you use styrene, first make a pettern out of cardboard and then trace on styrene, then cut. You can paint the styrene either gray (for macadam) or black (for blacktop). This should get you started.
For sidewalks, the best way is to order sidewalk material at your local HS or order from Walthers.
Ron K.
This is the best I’ve found;
http://www.telusplanet.net/public/crowley/ashphalt_roads.htm
for sidewalks I use .030 styrene, scribed to 4’ squares, on one building I took the squares and broke them all up, then broke a few sqares into little pieces, then like a jigsaw puzzle I glued them back together on a .010 sheet of styrene, they’r uneven and painted with aged concrete, wash with india ink/alcohol,added some ground foam in some cracks and have a broken up sidewalk. for streets theres styrene, cardstock, plaster, sheetrock mud, any and all combinations. Paint them like concrete, new blacktop, old blacktop, etc, there’s many ways to do roads. experiment a little and see what works best for you.Kalmbach has some very good books on scenery.
Street Width
By Roger Hensley
Q) What is the proper width of a roadway in a small HO gauge town (main street and approaches) in the 50’s era? I could find nothing on this point on the NMRA web page. Is there one good width, or a span? I am looking for the roadway width in inches - so that I can get close to HO scale in my little 50’s small town setting.
Thanks, Ken
A) Around here, each lane was about 12 feet wide. It all depended on the type of roadway (main st., residential or back country road, etc) but most business streets and highways were built at about 12 feet per lane. Earlier, in the twenties, roads were only about 20 feet wide total so if the portion of the town you wi***o model was built in that era, a 20 foot roadway is fine.
If each lane were 10 feet wide, that would be 1 and 3/8s inch. So a two lane street would be 2 and 3/4 inches. 10 feet is what I use for my city streets. Modern hiway lanes would be wider. Parking lanes would have been more narrow in the 50s, say 8 or 8 1/2 feet.
Here, little has changed in the city streets since the late 40s. A few sidewalks have been removed to widen the lanes and a few streets have had major work done on them to add additional lanes, but the width still stands at about 10 feet per lane and most side streets are really about three lanes wide total. Small towns would have been this way as well. Some of the main streets in small towns actually had wider streets and also used angle parking.
Country lanes and county roads were much narrower back then, in some cases no more than 12 or 13 feet total. If you met a farm truck you were in trouble.
8’ = 1 1/8
10’ = 1 3/8
12’ = 1 5/8
15’ = 2 1/16
20’ = 2 3/4
25’ = 3 7/16
Part of the problem is that the width of streets and roads vary according to where you are and what the local street and hiway departments did. This is why there are no set widths for streets in any scale. You can cal