I’m getting around to adding structures to my layout and have a question or two about my station. I built the Atlas Passenger Station this weekend and want to add this as the first structure to the layout. The question is how do you transition from the track to the Station? My track is ballasted on cork and my table is foam on plywood. When the train pulls to the station, you can’t have people walking over the ballast down to the station. I was thinking of cementing styrene to the front of the station (1/2" strip) and setting that on top of the ties. The station would be elevated on piers (or something) to make up for the height needed to rest the front on the ties.
Does this make sense? Or is it more appropriate to have the building away from the track and some other way off the train. My layout is the Northern Pacific circa 1945. There is road access to the station, and that road crosses the track. So, people could get off the train on the road and walk to the Station. Perhaps a few pictures would help.
At a real station like the one in the Atlas model, the wood platform runs right up to the track, and usually has planking between the rails, especially for multi track lines. The top of this platform is usually flush with the rails, but on the model, the platform should be slightly below the rail head to make it easier to clean the track when needed.
You may need to cut out some of the ballast area and set the model up on a plastic or wood sheet to raise the platform high enough and keep the building level.
This is kind of the same idea as laying street track as far as I can see. You may want to search the posts from last week or so in regards to “street running.” The passenger stations I’ve seen, the rails are buried in the surrounding concrete. You can transition from the ballast to street level by using I believe is 3/16" foam board…and to bury the rail ties you use .020" styrene sheets. Better if you check the posts since I don’t have the exact measurements on hand.
The simplest thing is to cut strips of road bed and use that as a base for the station. That will bring the platform up to the level of track. I do the same with add on platforms.
Roadbed is about an 1/8" thick which is almost a scale foot. You are right that passengers would not be expected to step down that for on to your station platform.
Actually, lots of passenger stations have ballasted track–there is a platform right next to the track, and the passengers step onto the platform rather than the track. Typically the car attendants have little stepstools they keep inside the cars, which provides a handy “step” for passengers stepping from the train to the platform on the ground. When there are multiple tracks in a passenger station, there are bits of “grade crossing” providing walkable paths across the tracks at certain points, but in many passenger stations the tracks are just ballasted like any other section of track.
As stated above, build the station up, with either roadbed, or cardboard. Most small town stations I’ve visited, the platform butts up to the end of the ties, leaving a little bit of ballast showing. Often times, there is also some sort of step or step-box to help the passengers up the train.
I’m shimming mine so that the platform butts up against the rail, but like TomDiehl mentioned, leaving it slightly below the top of the rails for cleaning. To make a wood platform, I use styrene sheet and score it using the tip of a hobby knife blade. I either sand it with 100 grit sandpaper, scratch it with a razor knife blade, or a fine bristled wire bru***o replicate wood grain. I used a q-tip dipped in india ink and rub it into the texture. After the ink dries, I weather it with chalk finishing up with a dry brushing of antique white acrylic latex.