Layouts and layout building

Hey guys...

basically, what the deal is that I'm wondering if theres anyway to make plastic ties look like wood.  Like, REAL wood, not simulating wood with wood grain scrapes and whatnot.  I mean, is there anyway to make them look like what, to where people would think they ARE wood?

I have a bunch of turnouts i've built on wooden ties, and i abso-lutely LUV the look of stained wooden ties.  Its so sick.  But then, i've got a ton of ME flex and turnouts build with Central Valley's turnout tie-strips, which are plastic, and when painted, even though they have a flat finish, they still very much LOOK like painted plastic, even if the color works well. 

So i guess, i'm also wondering if theres anyone here who has intermixed wood and plastic ties together in the same area, and how that ended up looking?

Just close your eyes, click your heels together and keep repeating; "There's no place like home...)

Use the plastic ties and weather them according to the multitudes of usage, and then just forget it; the ties will blend in with the ballast and become a part of the scenery.  It's like subway graffiti-you don't even see it after a while!

Rich

Well, I'm mixing wood ties (under my hand-laid specialwork) with plastic-tie flex - with no concern about making the white plastic 'concrete' ties look like wood...

Pick your prototype with care.  Some let you get away with outrageous things.

Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)

Greg,

I have lots of areas with wood and plastic together.  I overspray all the track with rattle cans to give a uniform coloration.  The results are that after ballasting, the ties all look very uniform and it is very hard to tell the wood from the plastic (and PC as well).  The areas where I combined different ties end up looking great.

Guy

On my last layout I handlaid all of my track. Because I have tramped miles and miles of the New Haven's Canal and Shorelines I can tell you - all ties are not the same color. New ties having been freshly creosoted are a dark brownishish black. Old ties ready to be replaced are a greyish color. There are at least three shades vaying from creosoted to the grey ones depending on how long they have been in service.

To duplicate this I bought wood ties from Clover House and dyed them myself. I started with a batch of the greyish color and and darkened each batch of 6 total batches. The darkest being the newly creosoted ones. I then put them in a big brown bag and shook them up to randomize them. I pulled them out of the bag as they came and laid them onto my tie template and put a stip of masking trape over them. I lifted them off and hung them up on coat hangers prior to laying them. The result was just what I was looking for. No section of track was the same as any other. That was the most realistic looking track I ever laid.

I am now preparing to lay code 83 ME flex track. All the ties look like black plastic. I have never seen a railroad right of way with black plastic ties. What to do?

 I plan on spraying them with a medium bown color. I will place 10 or 12 sections side by side and use diffrerant appropriate colors randomly striped across the sections. I will experiment with what looks the best, but there will be the dark ones the light ones and the in between ones.

At least my track won't look like it was all laid with freshly creosoted ties.

 Is the Phish concert in 2010?

Haha, nah it was this past March.  I SAW THEM!!!  THEY OPENED WITH FLUFFHEAD!!!!  And then they played The Divided Sky!!!!!!  zomg.......  i cannot freaking believe that the first 2 Phish songs I saw were Fluffhead and The Divided Sky. 

Honestly, The Divided Sky is THE most glorious and triumphant piece of epic rock music ever created...  ugh.  It is pure motivated joy in aural form.  Like, if you could take the feeling of opening up that sick new super-detailed Atlas GP40-2, or unwrapping a birthday present to find out that its South River Model Work's "Delabarre Tap and Die", THAT is the feeling that The Divided Sky musically gets across.

Here's a version from 7/22/03 which is probably my favorite; the band is tight, Trey doesn't screw up, and its well-played.  This song is so amazing.  SOOOO AMAZING.

http://www.sendspace.com/file/ggi00a

Honestly - if the world listened to this song every day, there would be no more wars.  You can't help but feel jubilant and joyous about being alive.

Heres something you guys might find more accessible...  their SICK version of The Who's "Drowned" from Jones Beach, 6/4/09

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DPmEbiHJkiU&feature=related

You get to see their lighting designer, Chris Kuroda, going off.  The start of the jam, about 4 mins in, is just so sick.  He improvises the light show, also; so he's essentially a 5th member of the band.  nothing is pre-programmed.  and this version of Drowned is so nasty...  freakin rocks the freakin' house off dude. 

Hello.  My name is Greg.  I am a Phish addict.  You need to be one, too.  hehe

I suppose its possible but it has not been my experience.

As I have related in other postings I early on decided on using N-Scale Code 55 on my 2nd N-Scale layout. I ran out of gas on handlaying track after about 24 feet and about 2100 wood ties. I had developed a stain for these ties and they, of course, did not match the coloration of the ties on my flex track. I made several attempts at creating a new stain for my wood ties but it was not completely successful; although some did not know that I had tried my hand at handlaying track a number of observers/acquaintances commented that they could see that I had "changed brands of flex track" because the ties did not match.

 The trestle has wooden ties, the track is from Roco with plastic ties.

Wolfgang

This is good news!  If mixing wooden ties with plastic ones having spike and tie plate detail (which in many cases is gross) can't be readily distinguished, then I shouldn't be bothered by the absence of spike and tie plate detail on a layout entirely all wooden ties.  Some people have said those absent details will be missed although I wasn't convinced.

 Mark

Ok Greg, I listened to the Phish song.....Now you owe me twenty minutes.....

Why don't you start laying some track on wood ties and see how you like it. I'm sure you could sell off the ME track at close to what you paid for it. You know, to someone like me. Personally, I don't care for lack of spike detail on hand laid track, but the real wood ties do look cool.