Need some helpful hints to dress up Lionel track

[nitroboy]

What are some good hints on how to dress up Lionel tubular track (other than don't use it!)

Dave

[Big_Boy_4005]

I have always found that cutting and paint wood strips to look like more ties is very effective in dressing up good old tubular track. cut and paint them to match the real ties. Then if you want to get carried away, ballast.[swg]

[Craignor]

Dave,

Here are some tips:

1) Mount the track to cork roadbed, this makes an immediate difference, Mid West makes most of this cork roadbed and can be found at most train shops.

2) Add ties to the track. I bought some rubber add on ties from www.3r-plastics.com. They were not very expensive, easy to install, and looked great.

Hope this helps.

[Anonymous]

If you don't have the tools or time or just plain don't want to go through
all the effort of making individual ties and such, there are several types
of commercially made roadbed out there sold by advertisers right in
CTT.

[Big_Boy_4005]

Sorry guys, I have owned my table saw for so long I don't remember life without it. If Nitroboy (or anyone else) doesn't own, or have access to one, he can check in the molding section of his local home improvement store. There one will probably find an appropriate sized and shaped strip for this task.

As you can tell I am a "do it yourselfer" at heart, and downright cheap most of the time, That's how I can afford to have all of the tools I own.[swg]

By the way Ches, it isn't all that hard to make these. When I go to paint a batch, I throw them in an old ice cream bucket, grab a can of flat black spray paint, and blast away. Then shake the bucket and repeat, unitl no more wood is showing.

[spankybird]

Hi Dave,

I am a strong believer of tube track, as is Brainl027 and others. As Craig has pointed out, here is one place you can try www.3r-plastics.com. they make black or brown color to match "O","027" or 'S". 100 pack $15.00, 250 pack $30.00.

Here is another source of ties. These come in both black and brown, 'O' and 027. These are the ones that I used. They do not have the clamping plate for the rails. Approx price is $13.95 per bag of maybe 200 or 250. You should check current pricing as it has been some time since I ordered these.

Great Plains Hi-Rail
4707 Sherwood Drive
Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada S4R 4B7


This is the place that I used, then I used clay cat litter for ballast and it looks like this


Here is another shot of this layout, it uses 027 track.


Click on the picture to enlarge it. [tup]
Hope this helps

Tom

[brianel027]

The guys above have hit on some of my ideas, but I (as usual) have a slightly different take. Yes, I made my own ties for staters. I used balsa wood (cheap) for normal road bed and bass wood for ties under bridges. I spray painted the surface brown first. Then I used a razor blade to cross cut the wood into the length of the ties. Then using a black or brown magic marker, went around the perimeter of the piece. To add a little more "detail" and protection, I colored the tops of these pieces with brown and black crayons. Then proceeded to cut the individual ties, using the magic markers to do the edges as I went along.

Now the big breakway between other ties and mine is I made mine the size of the upper part of the 027 metal tie. Notice that 027 track ties have a metal fold on the bottom of each side. I didn't measure the bottom... I took the top dimension, about 7/16 wide. I think the track looks better with narrower width ties and then more of them. Actually just went and looked and I cut mine at 3/8 and used 10 ties for each 027 straight section.

I used Woodland Scenics ballast in several different colors for mainline and side lines. I used Elmer's Wood Glue to ballast track. Unlike regular white glue, the wood glue doesn't come loose with repeated applications. While this was wet, I added some dilluted black latex paint to simulate oil spills and leakage.

On side tracks I have some weeds here and there popping up in the track. I used twine rope for this... I cut several short 1-1/2 inch pieces, folded them in half, drilled a hole and pushed them in with wood glue. Then I used a metal pin to fan out the twine and give it the look of a weed.

On side tracks and yard tracks I didn't worry about ties being placed straight. Often real yard tracks have unevenly spaced ties or ties that need replacing.

With the Lionel girder bridge (with the metal plate bottom) I used ties and added wood walkways on the edges. I did this too with the plastic snap together girder bridge. I checked spacing and added a couple RR workers walking across a bridge.

Also on side tracks I used some small sand piles (for loco breaking), as are on real tracks where engines sit and park.

For supports under another bridge, I used blocks of pine wood that I scratched a brick pattern into. Then I painted them with flat grey. Then used red and brown magic markers to make the "bricks" stand out from the scratched-in mortar lines.

On one past layout, I also painted sides of metal track rails with rust paint. On my current layout, I haven't gone to that length yet.... but anything's possible!

Oh, yeah, I guess this all took a little time... I suppose it goes without saying I'm not married.
Whether that's lucky or not depends on who you ask!!!

[Roger Bielen]

When I had an O27 layout I painted the rails in addition to adding ties and ballast. At that time I used a rust colored primer on the outer rails and flat black on the center rail. It was time consuming but these additions made a big difference in the appearance of the layout.

Second time around I used Gargraves track, also painted..

[lionelsoni]

I use popsicle sticks, which you can buy in quantity from hobby stores, cut to length and then painted, with O27 track. I space them a little closer than Spankybird does. Then I ballast. The ballast covers the curled edges of modern track. The width difference between the metal and wood ties does not seem obvious to me; and the generally narrower wood ties, although still not close to scale, seem to give an overall impression of a more realistic width.

[brianel027]

That's how I feel too Bob... it's not a real obvious difference, but the narrower extra ties look a little better because you can add more of them. And once you ballast the track, the lower folded lip of the Lionel sheetmetal tie disappears.

The Moondog (and others) rubber ties are made to the overall size of the Lionel tie and are thus a little bigger not allowing as many ties under the track. But the rubber ties have the benefit of helping to deaden sound.

Although once you ballast the track, I have found you can remove metal screws holding the track down once the ballast glue dries as that sufficiently holds the track in place.

What I found to be the biggest pain in the rear was all the work I did to the Lionel switches: I cut them down removing all the excess size of the base - down to just the track outline itself. I have found with removing the metal plate off the bottom, some new support needs to be made as well as soldering feeder wires underneath.

BUT having the smaller footprint size is a BIG benefit on a smaller layout and allows track combinations not otherwise possible. I also found myself cutting the curve section down on the switch to place sidings closer together than otherwise possible.

Not to mention having many more possibilites and freedom with landscaping.

Okay, so I'm a bit of a [8] nut... (you all gathered that I'm sure!) but there are far far worse things to be than a train nut. I look at some of the nuts elected to political offices [:o)] and I think, no thanks, I'll stick with the trains! [:D]

[MA and PA JCT]

WILLIAMS sells a unique type of tubular track, they are just like LIONELS. The difference is Lionel only has 3 ties per section, WILLIAMS makes them with 5 ties. It makes a big difference on the appearance, and depending on how you want the end result to look like, you may not have to do any add on work.

If you would like any, contact me, I sell them at a discount.

[FJ and G]

I cut Lauan wood (1/4" thick) with the grain using a table saw and then stain it with wood stain. For ballast I used Kitty Liter (not used kitty litter). I use 027 rail because smaller profile than 0.

However, I'm changing some things this time around.

1. I'm going to cut my ties narrower and see how that looks. However, with the 027 rails (code 215) still being much larger than the prototype (code 148), I may stick with the wider ties. Whichever looks better!

2. I remove the metal ties and bend the rails (make my own flex track so I don't have to work off a conformist-like track plan. Glue rails to wood using Goop.

3. I'm replacing the center rail with a 14-ga. single-strand copper wire. If tarnishing becomes a problem later, I may decide to tin the wire with solder.

4. I'm no longer using Kitty Litter. It is too difficult to work with. I'm using crushed gravel instead.

5. My hand-made track looks much better than any brand, IMO. I once posted a photo of the track on OGR forum but I no longer have it. I'll try to take another photo in the future.

dave vergun

[Anonymous]

Ties are good, but maybe you should try to emulate the raised road bed most tracks have, several feet off the ground. That would really help the appearance, and raise your trains above the surrounding scenery, making them more visible.

I hope I have helped,
Daniel

[lionelsoni]

Dave, instead of copper electrical wire, which is very soft, how about scale brass rail? Even code 55, mounted upside down, probably has a wider top surface than AWG14 or O27 rail and is stiffer than copper.

[FJ and G]

Thanks, Bob,

I may take you up on that suggestion. I built a practice module with this handmade track and soldered the wire to copper nails about every 2 inches and it seemed to hold up well and not bend. If you look at Super O or Scaletrax, the center rail is fairly narrow as well. If it doesn't hold up with heavy usage, then it will not be that difficult a matter to replace with code 55 as you suggest. In addition to wear on the rail, I also will keep my eye on roller wear. As I mentioned, if the wire seems to be wearing, I'll solder a coating of tin on it.

Thanks for your idea.

dave vergun

[Anonymous]

K&K Train and Hobby in Utica NY has for sale about 800 black, real wood O gauge ties that look great with tubular track. Call them at [phone] 11:00 Am -6:00 PM EST

[FJ and G]

Sorry, Joe,

I don't have posting capability. I tried thru PhotoIsland and others but wasn't able to successfully do it.

dav

[georgefain]

Try to fool the eye. That is deviate from complete accurracy to fool the eys. First make the track as dark as possible. Use dark ballast. I once used chips of roofing material between ties and brought scenery over the edges. This reduces the height of the ties to the eye. Use dark ballast. . . The real guys do this where the rock is granite. Paint the bottom web and some of the riser of the track and perhaps the outside a dark red or black but make it flat. You only need the top of the rail and the inside of the running rails to be free of paint or greese. What we are doing here is reducing the lightness and briteness of the track.

[Anonymous]

I haven't seen Johnson's Rubber Roadbed mentioned. It has roadbed and ties and the track just slides into it.

http://www.roadbed.net/