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The roads in the 50's were much different than today. Each lane was only about 8 feet wide. There often was no berm, much less a paved one. The line separating opposing traffic was a single white line, the only states that I know of that had lines on the outside of the lanes of SOME roads were Pennsylvania, and in western North Carolina. The signs along the road were much smaller. A stop sign would generally be about 18 inches, as compared to the 36 to 40 inches today. The speed limit signs, and all other information type signs were likewise smaller, and much less frequent. There were none of the large green interstate style signs anywhere, they did not begin to appear until about 1960. And do not put a yield sign anywhere, use a yellow stop sign instead, it had the same meaning that a yield does today (but not on a highway (turnpike) ramp, you were assumed to be intelligent enough to realize that traffic entering the highway had to cede the right of way so no sign was used). Some states only planted a speed limit sign where the speed changed. You could travel a long distance and never see a speed limit sign. There were no guard rails in most places. Where protection was deemed necessary you had wooden posts with two strands of wire rope strung between. The stop lights usually were a single set of lights suspended over the center of the intersection on wire rope. The older stop lights used a green - yellow - red - yellow - green sequence. And yes, both directions had yellow lights at the same time. Proceed on yellow at your own (considerable) risk. Some places, New Jersey for one, had three lane highways where the center lane was reserved for passing for both directions at the same time. They were marked with solid white lines toward the center lane and broken white lines toward the outer lanes. There were small signs occasionally that stated that the center lane was passing only. And yes, many people lost thier lives in head on collisions where two cars going opposite directions pulled out to pass. As a kid I saw the results of enough of these accidents on our way to Atlantic City to really scare me. Concrete and metal bridges, outside of towns and cities, had almost no clearance between the driving lane and the bridge. Someone hanging thier arm straight out the window could easily break it. And there were no guard rails preventing you from aiming your car directly into the steel or concrete. I have some reasonably accurate 1950's Pennslyvania state roads on my layout. Many younger visitors point out some obvious safety problems like I have stated above and tell me that I need to correct them. I simply reply that the roads are accurate for the time being modeled, and that all of the safety devices build into our modern roads were discovered to be needed the hard way.
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