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Lines on streets

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  • Member since
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Posted by HO-Velo on Saturday, October 8, 2022 11:05 AM

Masked off and airbrush painted my street center lines and markings, snuck-up best I could with light passes.  Regards, Peter

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Posted by ROBERT PETRICK on Saturday, October 8, 2022 10:40 AM

hbgatsf
My layout is modern, so I try to use the latest AASHTO, MUTCD, and ADA standards for pavement marking. But . . . this is an N Scale layout, so a certain amount of fudging takes palce.

 

 
Hey hbgatsf -
 
I drew the streets using AutoCAD and printed them onto 11"x17" sticky-back white paper. The same stuff that is used for mailing labels, except the entire sheet is printable and there are no perforations. The building pads are cut out from 0.040" taskboard, and the raised edges along the streets represent the curbs. Any area of the taskboard not covered by a building footprint will be regarded as open concrete and/or sidewalks. The 'streets' were trimmed using an X-Acto knife and the backing was peeled off and stuck down on the plywood benchwork top. Then the 'sidewalks' were stuck down to cover the paper edges of the streets using regular old yellow glue. Weathering and so forth (skid marks, oil stains, dirt and grime, etc) will be airbrushed on, and cracks and joints in the pavement and sidewalks will be applied using a very thin black sharpie.
 
I made all vehicle travel lanes in streets and highways as 11- or 12 scale feet in width.
 
Crosswalks and stop bars are provided, but I don't have much hope for the 1:160 pedestrians in such a dangerous enviroment.
 
Notice that there are no left turn lanes and that a 4-lane limited access highway (freeway) plows right through the middle of a small town striving to become a small city. Growth before progress! Not enough thought on the part of the city planners went into the planning.
 
Robert

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Posted by John-NYBW on Saturday, October 8, 2022 9:37 AM

MisterBeasley

It's the white line era for me.  I went out and got a white gel pen, and I use that along with a straight edge and sometimes a Frence curve.  Most of my streets are narrow and have no lines, but a few have lines.

 

 

I was going to respond but your method is exactly the same as mine including the use of French curves for roads that aren't straight. I don't fret at all about the widths of the lines. I just do what looks about right which is good enough for me. Here are a few examples:

 

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Posted by ROBERT PETRICK on Saturday, October 8, 2022 8:44 AM

ATLANTIC CENTRAL

Even with more developed guidelines or mandated federal laws, there are variations from state to state and region to region.

But I commented on Roberts picture because I had NEVER seen that anywhere. Admittedly I avoid cities these days except when necessary for my work, and any bike lane is arare thing out here in the rural suburbs - but we have a few here and there in our small towns.

Sheldon 

Hey Guys -

Here's the overall scene: rugged rocky mountains of Wyoming on the right bank, sandy beaches of Florida on the left; San Juan River inlet in between with high-level long-span bridge to accomodate ocean-going ships. Riverside Drive on the Florida side. Small craft dock for kayakers and yuppie para-sailors.

Please ignore the fact that there are no beaches in Florida with a 90-foot escarpment. Also ignore the fact that my bridge has barely 100 scale feet of vertical clearance and 400 scale feet of horizontal clearance, neither of which is sufficient to allow passage of deep-draft cargo ships. But once you get past the Wyoming-Florida thing, everything else pretty much falls into place.

I'm not sure, exactly, what I was thinking when I put in the double white stripes. I think I thought that I liked the idea of adding bike lanes because I've never seen them on model railroad layouts (and I wanted to accomodate the 1:160 granola-and-Birkenstock crowd). A single white stripe denotes the edge of roadway, and if there was only one stripe through that area the vehicle drivers might think that that wide strip of asphalt was put there for their parking convenience for access to the beach. The sad fact is that most vehicle drivers ignore the two-wheelers, some vehemently so. But mainly I just thought bike lanes looked kinda cool. It's no secret that I take a pretty expansive view of the freelance part of freelance prototypical.

At any rate there are far more errors and omissions in the pavement markings in the little downtown area of my layout.

Robert

 

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Posted by hbgatsf on Saturday, October 8, 2022 8:09 AM

ROBERT PETRICK

My layout is modern, so I try to use the latest AASHTO, MUTCD, and ADA standards for pavement marking. But . . . this is an N Scale layout, so a certain amount of fudging takes palce.

Interesting picture.  Did you paint the streets and parking areas on a big sheet of styrene and then put the building foundations and sidewalks over top of them?

Rick

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Posted by hbgatsf on Saturday, October 8, 2022 7:50 AM

I was looking for info on how big to make lines and found this PDF.  Hope someone else can find it useful.

https://www.dot.ny.gov/main/business-center/engineering/cadd-info/drawings/standard-sheets-us-repository/685-01_050213e1_0.pdf

Rick

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Posted by ATLANTIC CENTRAL on Saturday, October 8, 2022 7:06 AM

NorthsideChi

Double lined bike lanes are either buffered or mandatory stay-in-lane for cyclists where car traffic cannot pass safely...in this case a turn lane

https://maps.app.goo.gl/kSZfwg6yBpzJGMRg9?g_st=ic

There's dashed lines where the capacity of cyclists are so high, that it's expected they will overflow into vehicles lanes

https://maps.app.goo.gl/tkJVdM69sLk37q5M9?g_st=ic

 

Well, ok, but again, that's not how they are doing it here in Maryland, or anywhere that I have seen in the Mid Atlantic.

Even with more developed guidelines or mandated federal laws, there are variations from state to state and region to region.

On the modeling side, I have no interest in current practice, it is always September 1954 here.

But I commented on Roberts picture because I had NEVER seen that anywhere. Admittedly I avoid cities these days except when necessary for my work, and any bike lane is a rare thing out here in the rural suburbs - but we have a few here and there in our small towns.

Sheldon

    

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Posted by Track fiddler on Saturday, October 8, 2022 6:06 AM

Good morning

Nice looking roads and lines gentlemenYes

I will have a country highway that will be coming into my layout.  Ain't even close to getting there yet.  Similar roads with hills and hairpins would normally be double yellow lines on my layout as well. 

Out driving around, I've estimated them to have maybe 4" separation and maybe 5" thick.  Never went to the middle of the street to measure them though.  Too Dangerous! Laugh...Wink

A 1/16" in N scale is 10".  I have no idea how one would go about creating these tinsel-tail yellow hairlines to look good on an N scale road.  There's no 1/32" pinstripping available that I know of?  

If I could find that thin of a pinstriping, I might try a negative approach and airbrush the center of the road a pale yellow...then lay the pinstripes down the center over the yellow... then paint a dull grimy smoke over the road with the pinstripes still intact... then remove the pinstripes and take a black micro point marker and draw a bunch of lines and cracks...then airbrush a dull coat over the whole road to level the surface out like they do for auto body.

A lot of threads I don't put my two cents in when I only have a nickel of knowledge on the subject.  Doesn't mean I ain't reading the threads here.  Just means I'm paying attention to the guys that have 5, 10 and 20 bucks of knowledge on the subject to share.  So I know what I'm doing once I get there.

 

ThanksSmile

 

 

TF

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Posted by gmpullman on Saturday, October 8, 2022 3:42 AM

MidlandMike
I wonder what was in all those barrels in Caribou, Me.

'taters.

Trucks outside of a starch factory, Caribou, Aroostook County, Me. There were almost fifty trucks in the line. Some had been waiting for twenty-four hours for the potatoes to be graded and weighed (LOC)

Delano, Jack,, photographer.

 

Cheers, Ed

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Posted by NorthsideChi on Friday, October 7, 2022 11:26 PM

Double lined bike lanes are either buffered or mandatory stay-in-lane for cyclists where car traffic cannot pass safely...in this case a turn lane

https://maps.app.goo.gl/kSZfwg6yBpzJGMRg9?g_st=ic

There's dashed lines where the capacity of cyclists are so high, that it's expected they will overflow into vehicles lanes

https://maps.app.goo.gl/tkJVdM69sLk37q5M9?g_st=ic

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Posted by ATLANTIC CENTRAL on Friday, October 7, 2022 10:59 PM

ROBERT PETRICK

My layout is modern, so I try to use the latest AASHTO, MUTCD, and ADA standards for pavement marking. But . . . this is an N Scale layout, so a certain amount of fudging takes palce.

Robert

 

Robert, that is interesting. Even where we have bike lanes around here, I have never seen the double white line for the shoulder/bike lane.

We still have more roads without shoulder lines than those with them. But then again, we still have a lot of roads without shoulders, just 20' -26' of paving and then the dirt, peoples yards, utility poles 18" off the pavement, forests, etc.

And many such roads have very high traffic levels. If I filmed some of my trips from where we live, going thru the country side to get into the Baltimore metro area the "back way", you would never know you were just a few miles from a large city.

I will try to post sme pictures.

Sheldon

    

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Posted by MidlandMike on Friday, October 7, 2022 9:28 PM

gmpullman

October, 1940 Caribou, Maine. Double yellow and white stripe between:

 BAR_Caribou-ME- by Edmund, on Flickr

September 1939. Black stripe on new concrete?

 Copper mining and sulfuric acid plant, Copperhill], Tenn.  (LOC) by The Library of Congress, on Flickr

 

I wonder what was in all those barrels in Caribou, Me.

The sulfide fumes killed a lot of vegatation in the Tennessee copper mining district.  Sulfide fumes also turn lead paint black, I wonder if that is why the black road stripe.

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Posted by gmpullman on Friday, October 7, 2022 8:15 PM

October, 1940 Caribou, Maine. Double yellow and white stripe between:

 BAR_Caribou-ME- by Edmund, on Flickr

September 1939. Black stripe on new concrete?

 Copper mining and sulfuric acid plant, Copperhill], Tenn.  (LOC) by The Library of Congress, on Flickr

Romney, West Virginia, 1942, Single white stripe:

 Road out of Romney, West Va.  (LOC) by The Library of Congress, on Flickr

July, 1942, Detroit. Nice, new striping but only near the intersections:

 Looking south from the Maccabees Building with the Detroit skyline in the distance, Detroit, Mich.  (LOC) by The Library of Congress, on Flickr

Just for reference.

Regards, Ed

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Posted by ATLANTIC CENTRAL on Friday, October 7, 2022 8:03 PM

hbgatsf

Thanks.  Did you do anything to seal the pinstriping?  Any reason you used white for the center line instead of yellow?

BTW - I have those same Bachmann buildings, although I didn't double up the Variety Store.

 

In the 60's, 50's and earlier, both white and yellow were used for center lines.

I remember single white center lines on rural secondary roads here in Maryland, PA, VA and WV well into the 60's.

Sheldon

    

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Posted by gmpullman on Friday, October 7, 2022 7:41 PM

On my main road out of town I used the "reverse mask" method and painted the pavement an off-white then used very narrow masking tape sliced with a razor. Today there are more choices for narrow tape (finger nail art).

Once the white was dry I masked the stripes then applied a very dark gray primer color that simulates old asphalt.

 HO_Texaco1 by Edmund, on Flickr

After peeling up the mask things looked pretty good.

Regards, Ed

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Posted by richhotrain on Friday, October 7, 2022 7:17 PM

hbgatsf

Rich - did you do any "weathering" on the pinstripes?

I did not.

Rich

Alton Junction

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Posted by hbgatsf on Friday, October 7, 2022 7:05 PM

Rich - did you do any "weathering" on the pinstripes?

Rick

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Posted by richhotrain on Friday, October 7, 2022 2:18 PM

NorthsideChi

Love your layout Rich.  Looks like printers row and Dearborn station 

Thanks. That is my attempt to model Dearborn Station. I hadn't thought about Printers Row, so now you got me thinking.

The four tall buildings facing Dearborn Station are my attempt to closely resemble the four buildings that you see so often in photos of Dearborn Station.

The four buildings facing the camera are an attempt to create a few downtown Chicago buildings that you might see around  the Chicago Loop such as the Hilton Hotel on Michigan Avenue, a department store on State Street such as Sears or Marshall Field, etc. I took a lot of liberties with the prototype for this purpose.

I envy your skills in this regard. You could undoubtedly and faithfully replicate such areas as Printers Row. Maybe I should hire you. Smile, Wink & Grin

I have made a few noble attempts to capture the look of Dearborn Station including the track work, all of the large freight houses, and some of the surrounding buildings. But to do it right, you either have to scratchbuild or master 3D printing techniques.

Rich

Alton Junction

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Posted by richhotrain on Friday, October 7, 2022 2:08 PM

Love that sewer in the street Mr. B. Don't see that modeled much.  Yes

Rich

Alton Junction

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Posted by MisterBeasley on Friday, October 7, 2022 1:48 PM

It's the white line era for me.  I went out and got a white gel pen, and I use that along with a straight edge and sometimes a Frence curve.  Most of my streets are narrow and have no lines, but a few have lines.

 

It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse. 

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Posted by Water Level Route on Friday, October 7, 2022 11:22 AM

On previous layouts I've used a colored pencil to mark my lines and was satisfied with the effect.  My current layout isn't to the point of marking lines so I don't have any photos to share.  Sorry.

Mike

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Posted by York1 on Friday, October 7, 2022 11:09 AM

My layout is N scale, and it seemed no matter what I tried, the stripes were too bright or too wide or ....

I finally found some dry transfer sheets of various colored lines.  While not perfect, they were just about the right width, and with the dry transfers, they came out looking a little 'rough', much like lines on roads sometimes look.

 

York1 John       

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Posted by ROBERT PETRICK on Friday, October 7, 2022 10:08 AM

My layout is modern, so I try to use the latest AASHTO, MUTCD, and ADA standards for pavement marking. But . . . this is an N Scale layout, so a certain amount of fudging takes palce.

Robert

LINK to SNSR Blog


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Posted by rrebell on Friday, October 7, 2022 10:00 AM

Use correction tape.

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Posted by hbgatsf on Friday, October 7, 2022 8:33 AM

richhotrain

As far as the color of the striping is concerned, I tried my best to research white versus yellow in 1950s Chicago. What I found was that both the solid and the dashed stripes were white during that era. Sometime in the 1970s, there was a changeover to yellow. 

Rich

 

That makes perfect sense.  Thanks.

Rick

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Posted by NorthsideChi on Friday, October 7, 2022 8:07 AM

My friend and I are struggling with this on our layouts. Use paints and it tends to bleed. Use tape and it looks a little too clean.  Considering experimenting with white decal paper but its difficult to find.

Love your layout Rich.  Looks like printers row and Dearborn station

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Posted by richhotrain on Friday, October 7, 2022 8:01 AM

I did not seal the pinstriping, and I have not had any problem with them curling up.

As far as the color of the striping is concerned, I tried my best to research white versus yellow in 1950s Chicago. What I found was that both the solid and the dashed stripes were white during that era. Sometime in the 1970s, there was a changeover to yellow. 

Rich

Alton Junction

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Posted by hbgatsf on Friday, October 7, 2022 7:52 AM

Thanks.  Did you do anything to seal the pinstriping?  Any reason you used white for the center line instead of yellow?

BTW - I have those same Bachmann buildings, although I didn't double up the Variety Store.

Rick

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Posted by NorthBrit on Friday, October 7, 2022 7:48 AM

For  My 2 Cents

 

In real life looking down a street  white lines are not seen in a near distance.  White lines over a wall etc. are not seen.   Therefore I do not have them on my layout unless I am to take any photographs of the area.   Those lines that are painted on the layout are just a representation.

 

 IMG_5547 by David Harrison, on Flickr

 

David

To the world you are someone.    To someone you are the world

I cannot afford the luxury of a negative thought

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