Highway traffic lines

[Seamonster]

I would like to know how some of you put the white and yellow solid and dashed lane markers on your roads. I model in N scale and I know I could never paint them freehand and get them looking decent. Maybe something like a wide callibraphy pen? And to save me from risking life and limb in the middle of the road with a tape measure, can anyone tell me the dimensions of the lines and dashes and how far apart they are?
Thanks for the help. Bob

[edo1039]

I use a 1/16" white tape adhehesive one side,and found in drafting supply stores,I model HO and it looks great,I use a sharp knife to cut out the dashes,I just estimate the distance between them.

[Anonymous]

Bob, I have had good luck with putting regular masking tape down on the road surface, providing it is already painted in either asphalt or concrete color, use a sharp X-acto blade to cut out the stripes, then brush paint the appropriate colors needed. By the way, I use furnace/chimney mortar for my "asphalt" roads. It gives a realistic texture, and after a light coat of flat black spray, just use some sandpaper to give it that "weathered" look. Trust me, it works great.
Look for that stuff at a good hardware store.
For concrete roads, I suggest mixing plaster with a bit of fine sand for texture. Don't forget to scribe in the expansion joints found on all concrete roads. Use a light dusting of black chalk to highlight these lines. Once everything looks good, give it a shot of Dull-coat to seal it all in. The Dull coat will tend to dimini***he effect, so you may need to re-apply the weathering. Just keep repeating the above processes until you have the desired look.
Todd C.

[GerFust]

Bob:

That's an interesting question and was worth some research.

Based on information from the Michigan Department of Transportation website (http://www.mdot.state.mi.us/tands/Details_Web/pavmkdte.pdf),here is some general information. There are plenty of special cases. White and yellow lines are 4 inches wide. Solid lines are 8 inches apart (no passing), and passing in one direction (solid line next to dashed line) are 2 inches apart. White edge lines are 3 inches maxiumum from the edge of the pavement.

Lanes appear to be 12 feet wide, 16 feet on ramps.

Dashed lines are 12 foot, 6 inches long and spaced 37 feet and 6 inches apart.

[bfsfabs]

I just used some white decal stripes that "looked right" in my station parking lot. Surfaced the asphalt and colored it, put down the parking stripes then the tar patches and so forth. Finally weathered the whole mess. Came out lookin' terrible. Just like it should. HO scale

Lowell

[Seamonster]

Thanks to everyone who has replied. I guess what it boils down to is that I have to overcome my fear of making a mess of the lines and just go ahead and paint them. 4" isn't a very wide line in N scale, but I'll just give it a try and see what comes of it.
...Bob

[Anonymous]

You might also try car pinstriping. It comes in a variety of widths and colors. I would seal the pinstriping with dullcoat and weather.

[Anonymous]

I've had good luck using a white gel-ink ball point pen. In N-scale, any tape that you would use would be too thick for the scale, so paint or ink is the only real possibility. I don't think there are any national standards for road markings, but about 4 inches wide sounds about right and I would guess that 15-20ft is about the correct length for dashed lines (which seem in general to be longer than a car length). I would guess that the spacing between dashes is about 150% of the dash length. I think you'll find that anything close to these will look realistic at n scale. (Unless the "reality" police visit your layout, in which case we're all in trouble.)

[Seamonster]

Thanks very much for your idea. My granddaughter, who has a large collection of gel pens, gave me her white and yellow ones and they work just fine. I find that I have to go back and forth over the line a few times to get the colour to stand out, but the end result looks just fine. (The reality police gave up on my layout long ago.)
...Bob

[Anonymous]

One other option is to follow the practices of our local road commission, and pave the road, then wait until about 3 weeks before it gets so bad that they repave it. THAT's when you paint the lines. Don't forget to model "Barney Fife", giving someone a ticket for passing in a no-passing zone, even though there are no markings to indicate such. Yup, it happened to me.
Worlds worst driver.

[Seamonster]

Or I could not go over the lines to darken them so that it looks like the paint they use around here which must be 50% water because it fades out of sight in a few months.