As you probably know, I'm one of those "tubular" guys. Question: On your layout with tubular track, do you now or have you ever enhanced the track with ballast or roadbed material? As always, many thanks.
I started construction of my main layout in the early 90's when my track choices were fairly limited. My LHS didn't carry Gargraves at that time and all I knew from growing up was O27, so that's what I used. I cut heavy 1/2" corrugated cardboard into strips and laid it under the track. Then I hand cut and stained basswood ties to fill the gaps between the Lionel ties. Now, here's where I defied convention. I laid strips of duct tape along the edges of the cardboard to create a sloped ballast profile. Then I globbed on the Elmer's glue and the ballast up to and touching the bottoms of the rails. It dried hard, but years of pounding from ever heavier engines has caused most of it to crumble. It's one of the reasons why I'm planning to rebuild my layout.
Becky
Trains, trains, wonderful trains. The more you get, the more you toot!
I buillt my layout out of "0" guage tubular track with "022" switches. I used a white cardboard with insulated center under the track. I caulked the edges to round them. Then I used fine chicken grit for ballast, covered with a watered down mixture of Elmer's glue and water. It worked well and has lasted about 6 years so far.
Chuck
I've this three different ways so far, over the past decade, all with traditional 027 track
1) loose ballasted - just poured the tiny gravel and aquarium rocks along and over the tracks. The track kind of floated in it. It worked as ballast should, looked decent, but gradually spread out.
2) roof shingles - I cut them to fit right under the track for a neater, more toy-train look. I liked it.3) nothing - I like this the best - track right on indoor-outdoor carpet. But I'm going for this sort of toy-train look.
Doug Murphy 'We few, we happy few, we band of brothers...' Henry V.
I have never ballested any layout since I have never been sure that the design is the right one, one of these days it will happen. Currently one main is 027 profile with 054 curves and the other 2 mains are Gargraves, 072 and 081.
Bill T.
I went back to tubular direct after building several layouts with a variety of methods, Realtrax,, cork roadbed , foam ribber, loose glued ballast etc. Using simply the track captures the toy like ambiance I now prefer. All of them are based on what appeals to the eye, so the ball is really in your court. The other consideration is sound deadening...so I am not sure which of the two you are looking at
Nothing is more fairly distributed than common sense: no one thinks he needs more of it than he already has.
I use O gauge and 027 track with extra ties by Moondog Express and Three R Plastics under the track. Also use Gargraves track and switches. I don't waist time or money in my opion to ballist the tracks, sure it looks better but I don't care to ballist. What happens when you want to change the track design? Got to remove the ballist!
Lee F.
I'm a tubular guy. I use 0-27 profile track with 0-42 and 0-54 curves on my layout with cork roadbed underneath.
Give me steam locomotives or give me DEATH!
Berkshire Junction, bringing fourth the cry of the Iron Horse since 1900.
I use 027. Generally I use cork bed to help with sound. One time I started to ballast and quickly found how tedious and money consuming it could be. I'm not against it, just not ready for it yet.
I use and love tubular track and was saddended by the news of Lionel dropping it. I use Lionel tubular 072 and 031 track with Lionel 022 and K-Line 042 switches. Wanting something simple, I cut poster board into the contour of the track, and then spray it with stone textured spray paint from Wal-mart. I then cut cardboard strips, painted them black, and used them as ties. Not exactly hi-rail, but easy and cheap!
I found that "O" gauge tubular track is more robust than the 027 variety, and with 042 curves I can pretty much run anything in my collection without overhang problems. The one problem with the "O" guage track is that you would have to shim up switches from Ross, etc. to match the higher profile rails.
I used cork roadbed to improve the apperance of the track, added wood ties mde from strip wood and painted black to match the metal ties, painted the sides of the rails "rail brown" and ballasted along the sides of the cork roadbed to improve the appearance while letting me take up track as needed for maintenance, etc. If you want, you could paint the cork roadbed to match the color of the ballast before fastening the track down.
I did one layout with ballast and another with cork roadbed. I would not do either again. But I am not interested in doing a high rail or scale detailed layout. I am happy with a traditional tinplate style layout, similar to the dealer layouts made by Lionel in the Postwar era.
On my layout, I used cork roadbed stained gray. I added extra ties from 3r Plastics too. I think it turned out just right for my Postwar like layout:
J White
No ballast. Makes it easy to change the layout configuration, which I like to do periodically.
Pete
"You can’t study the darkness by flooding it with light." - Edward Abbey -
I like the track dies, I think I'll consider those. The price isn't nearly as bad as I figured it might be. :)
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