N-scale tie plates

[Anonymous]

I got some excellent advice a while back on modeling spare/replacement rail
along the ROW in N-scale, and I thought I'd bounce another question off the
forum.

Again in N-scale, I've been searching for a way to model piles of tie plates,
which are another extremely common sight around any railroad MOW office
or yard. I've considered simply using squares of .005" styrene and painting
and rusting them to get the color right, but the shape wouldn't look right (the
holes for the spikes and the center "cradle" for the rail would be missing - the
plates underneath the pile would be OK but those on top wouldn't have the
surface detail needed).

Might anyone have ideas?

[jrbarney]

Ghighland,
Precision Scale Company shows Code 40 tie plates in their catalogue. Item HO-4974 for a package of 20 brass tie plates, item HO-4973 for a package of 40 Delrin tie plates. Based on the illustration, they lack the holes you desire. Precision Scale also shows Code 40 Fisher type rail joiners, if you also need them. Details West <http://www.detailswest.com> also has fish plates/rail joiners in both 2 and 3 bolt versions. A possible alternative would be to contact one of the photoengraving outfits, such as Sheepscot Scale Products, <http://www.sheepscotscale.com> to discuss the feasibility of making the tie plates that way. You might have to do some "step and repeat" work with a graphics program to make a master drawing. If that doesn't pan out, perhaps you could use brass shim stock or aluminum foil and file or mill a nail to make a punch, but that sounds like a lot of effort.
I assume you're also going to have a keg or crate of rusty spikes and a spike maul nearby.
Bob

[Wdlgln005]

Take an old section of sectional track. Any brand that you get cheap or where parts are missing & needs to be replaced. Take out the rail, rust it, or use it for guardrail or at the edge of ballast. Cut off the ties. See if you have anything left. The tie plates/spikes may be too small to model. Track nails spikes don't count. It may be enough to get the indivilual ties cut from the piece of track painted, stained & weathered then abandoned by the side of the road. This may be easier if you can find any plastic track with brown ties.

[jrbarney]

Ghighland,
You didn't say so, but I assume you're going to have some piles of discarded ties in piles near the tracks. You know, take some N scale timbers of the right cross section, dye them the color of old, bleached creosote, cut them the length of regular and switch/turnout ties and really abuse or distress them. If you really wanted to get picky you might want to file them where the tie plates theoretically were - pounding up and down due to loose spikes.
Bob

[Anonymous]

jrbarney,

Oh yes - I've been piling discarded ties in several areas of my layout. I mass-produced
many by cutting them from basswood and weathering them with DIRT and RAILROAD TIE BROWN acrylics with very good results (distressed them too). I've even modelled
a section of ROW that's in the final stages of being scrapped, where the roadbed is
weedy, the rails have been removed and the ties are now being picked-up and piled
along the parallel line's ROW by a work gang to be hauled-away by a scrap train. I did
rust the places on the ties where the tie plates had been and the visual impact of the
scene is fantastic. I believe Micro-Engineering is the place where I also just recently bought 1000 N-scale ties that look real good too.

From the approx. size of tie plates (14.5" X 7.75" according to a Penn Central blueprint
I found on the web) it boils-down to roughly 1/16th" X 1/32nd" in N scale (and that's
ballpark measuring), I may have to settle for strips of .005" styrene cut, painted and
rusted, or I may just "punt" and say my eyes are too valuable to destroy with that small
a work.