Roads & Highways

[Anonymous]

I have some questions for all of you who have been long time subscribers to Model Railroader. Can any of you tell me if there has been a good "how to" article published on making roads and highways ? For example, in the new issue on page 54 of Pelle Soeborg's layout there is a great picture of road winding its way through the desert. What is the best method to use for road construction?

I have seen the paper rolls of roads that you can buy at the hobby shops but they
dont look very good and seem very restrictive . I have also been looking at Woodland Scenics paving system but , how do you do the striping ?

thanks,
Fred Adkins
Modeling Rock Island

[Anonymous]

There have been a number of articles on roads over the years. Maybe someone can give you specific issues. As far as stripes, I have used white and yellow 'china' pencils to draw stripes on the roads. Also found a RR Xing stamp in one of those collector's stamp stores. Use a little white paint in a plastic coffee lid and mark the roads with the "RxR" warning. Not exactly the way you would see it from a high position because the real ones are elongated in the direction of travel.

[DSchmitt]

Here is a link to a good on-line article by a member of this forum.

http://siskiyou.railfan.net/model/constructionNotes/roads.html

[Anonymous]

Well I was doing roads about 8 months ago and was worried and kinda trying to avoid the work, but I finally took the dive and tried the Woodland Scenics Smooth-It and it was very easy. When I was doing my first layout a year ago I did not use it because it looked like it was going to be hard so I actually just painted the wood. Once you give it a chance you will be happy with the results I am sure. All it took was one chance and I went from there. I now do roads with no worry at all and they come out perfectly. I use the WS foam stripping to get the height for the Smoothit. And I use WS black top paint but What I do is buy the White color, pour some out and add black top to it. Just a little till it gets a greyish color to it and then that is the color for all my roads.

[fiatfan]

Pick up the magazine "Model Trains Step By Step" publishied by Kalmbach. I found mine at the local grocery store. Cover price is $12.95. The grocery store sold it for $10. It contains a DVD which shows exactly how to make roads easily.

Good luck!

Tom

[leighant]

asphalt pavement w Scultamold for Port of Los Angeles project RR
_Mod RRer_ Jan 91 p.98
blacktop roads _Mod RRer_ June92 p.106
painting lines on roads _N Scale_ JanFeb97 p.30
roads, roadbed slope, width, shoulders etc, variance of standards
by era, _N Scale_ magazine, NovDec95 p.42
roads on N scale BN project layout _Mod RRer_ Sept90 p.88
roads for PRR layout. _Mod RRer_ July93 p.72
sun bleached highways on Cat Mtn. _Mod RRer_ Aug89 p.66
road cross-sections, grade separation plans,
_Hwy Design & Construction (1935 technical textbook)
paving track in streets w patching plaster _ModRRer_ Dec99 p.88
street & road standards _NMRA Data Sheets_ D2g.
roads, styrene on Turtle Creek Central project layout ModRRer Apr03 p85