Black Ties vs. Brown ties

[1train]

Quick question, what is the difference in black ties vs. brown ties and can you use them both on a lay out?
Thanks,
Tom

[tstage]

Tom,

As long as they are the same code. In Atlas HO track, the black ties are Code 100, and the brown, Code 83. The numbers signify the height of the rails in one thousands of an inch. Therefore, Code 100 rail would be 0.100" tall; Code 83, 0.083" tall.

However, a few manufacturers color their rail differently. I have a 60 degree crossing by Walthers/Shinohara that is Code 83 but has black ties. You can mix Code 100 with Code 83 or other codes but you need a transition track to move smoothly from one rail height to the other. It's most advisabel to stay in the same code as much as possible.

Tom, some modelers do use different code on different areas of their layouts. They might use the heavier Code 100 on the mainline, then move to Code 83 or Code 70 for a siding or yard. This would be the same for other scales, as well. In the real world, lighter and heavier rail was/is used in specific areas for specific purposes. Also, Code 83 is more "prototypical" looking than Code 100 so modeler's like it better for that reason.

Hope that helps...

Tom

[Anonymous]

Aside from those differences it is largely just color, technically the same.

[dknelson]

Actually when you walk down a railroad track you see ties that are various shades of brown, almost but not truly black (i.e., newly installed), and various shades of gray (old) -- the very oldest ties are almost silvery gray, and often split. And if it is a line that hauls taconite pellets from the Twin Ports, the ties and ballast and rails get a reddish rust tint. If the traffic is directional, only the direction that handles loads gets this tint. And over frogs and crossings the pellets (a metallic gray in color when fresh) tend to leak out of the ore cars and cover the ballast. Eventually they get rusty red.

What I am saying is that having ties all one color is not really realistic unless it is track that has been relayed all at the same time. But the variety in color almost tends to be tie by tie, not 250 feet of brown and then 250 feet of black, for example

I take my flex track outside (due to lack of good ventilation in my basement) and weather it with spray cans of red primer, camoflage brown and drab, and a hint of gray. I just alternate with the paints and never paint anything one solid color. The goal is to kill the shine on the sides of the rails, and give some variety to the color of the ties.
When I do this, I lightly coat the top of the rails with household oil, applied with a Q tip, so that the paint can be rubbed off soon after painting (it is a pain to scrape off)
I also have a set of plastic insulated railjoiners that I put on all ends of track, so that the paint won't be at the rail ends and regular rail joiners won't be themselves insulated by paint.
If you do this you can somewhat unify the brown versus black tie flex track so that it will look better together.

If you weather track when it is straight, and then bend it for curves you'll see little shiny parts that had been covered up during painting. The weathered track looks so good you'll be surprised how annoyed you'll get by these little shiny spots. For that reason I try to pre bend the curves, and weather them while they are bent. This is easier to do with flex track that is not easy to bend, compared to say Atlas which bends easily but tends to return to straight. I constructed a holder of foam core board to hold the flex track to my regular curves of 40" and 38" radius. It holds several pieces at once and looks a little like stadium bleachers.
The alternative is to get a paint pen in brown and cover up the shiny spots one by one -- which sounds like work.
Dave Nelson

[davekelly]

Dave,

Sounds great. Although I've been doing the model train thing for more years than I care to remember, using the insulated rail joiners to mask off the rail ends is a new idea for me. Makes perfect sense and your idea gets added to the "why didn't I think of that?" list. Old dogs can learn new tricks! Thanks for sharing!

Dave

[wjstix]

That is a neat idea !! BTW on my current layout I had two parallel lines that I wanted to make look like two different railroads had built them, so I used the Walthers flextrack with black ties on one, and the Atlas with dark brown ties on the other (both code 83). It turns out on the layout the color difference isn't noticeable unless you really look for it.

[davekelly]

wjstix,

If you are modeling two different railroads, perhaps a slightly different color blend of ballast on each would make the difference a little more noticeable.