does this really work ???
AnonymousStep1... Buy some eggs in a foam carton. Step 2 cut clearance shims for the flanges out of eggcarton top and glue them to the inside of the rails with whiteglue. Step 3 build a form around the area and pore envirotek epoxy into areas to proper depth. Do not cover track!!! Alow to set. Step 4 dissolve foam with acetone and clean track of glue. Score envirotek with cracks, etc and mask tracks. Paint with enamel. Detail to suite.
Do you doubt a guy with 300,000 posts?
Henry
COB Potomac & Northern
Shenandoah Valley
And his last post was over 16 years ago. Imagine if he'd made a few posts in just 5 or 10 of those years, he'd be pushing 400,000 for sure!
Terry
Inspired by Addiction
See more on my YouTube Channel
Expensive but easy: Walthers street system. Glue down the plastic bits around the track, use one of the methods below (foamcore or Masonite) to make up the adjacent road, slip it in alongside the street system and paint.
"Quick and dirty" strategy uses 1/8" thick foamcore and sheets of .020" styrene. Attached your Code 100 or 83 track directly to the layout surface. Cut the foamcore to the dimensions of the roadway and lay it out on both sides of the track, so the foamcore goes up to the edge of the ties. Using sheets of paper, make patterns that run from the edge of the roadway to the rails (use a pencil to draw in the edges.) Cut the styrene to your patterns, glue them down with white glue. Fill in the gaps in the styrene with squadron putty. Cover the rails with tape and paint the road a roady color (I use WS Aged Concrete or Krylon Sandstone texture paint.) In between the tracks, paint .5" wide, .060" strip styrene with the same color you paint the streets and glue it down. Use white and yellow fine-point art pens to draw in road paint.
More heavy duty: The above method works well but I found that over several years the plastic warped with temperature and sometimes the foamcore swelled, necessitating frequent regluing and securing down with track nails. So I adapted an older streetcar track method: I used patterns similar to the above to cut 1/8" Masonite sheets to serve as the sides of the road, and glued them to my layout surface (1/2" MDF) with Liquid Nails and a few well-placed drywall screws, flush up against the ties. I then mixed up small batches of Durham's Water Putty (similar to plaster but not temperature sensitive and doesn't crumble) and used a basting syringe (a big thick syringe used for injecting flavorings into roasts) to carefully pour the putty in between the tracks and ties (except around switch points), permanently encasing the track (it's important that you ensure your track is all in gauge, soldered together and with every feeder it's ever going to need.) Use plastic strips as above between the rails--for curves you'll have to use sheet plastic. You could use plaster or Durham's between the rails but it's likely to gunk up your flanges (trolley modelers used girder rail to keep the flanges clear.)
It's probably a bit of a stretch to call this street running, but it is tracks in a surface on which cars and trucks drive...perhaps parking lot running.
This crossing is part of the same scene...
To create the pieces of pavement to fit a particular track layout, I lay a large sheet of paper over the track - tape more sheets together, if necessary, to cover a larger area, then pencil in some reference points so that you can line it up accurately if it accidentally moves.Next, use a pencil held almost parallel to the layout's surface to denote the edges of the rail tops, by rubbing it along both the inside and outside edges of all rails. Add notations on the paper as necessary to ensure that the alignment remains true.
Use a fresh blade in your X-Acto or some sharp scissors to cut along the lines denoting the rails' edges, then use the resultant patterns to draw the shapes on your .060" sheet styrene. Use a utility knife to cut the styrene.
For the pavement that goes between the rails, your pencil lines will need to be adjusted closer together, as they need to match the distance between the spikeheads. For that, a draughting compass, set to the proper dimension, then dragged along the pencil lines, will adjust the line so that you can cut the styrene to fit where it belongs.
All of the "pavement" is .060" sheet styrene, which I buy in 4'x8' sheets. On the outside of the rails, it sits atop the spikeheads on the Atlas track, while the rest of it is cemented to the plywood top of the layout, using contact cement. This creates a smooth rise for vehicles when approaching the tracks, whether at a crossing or within the parking area around the industries.
The area between the rails is also "paved" with .060" sheet styrene, and it's cut to fit between the moulded-on spike heads, which automatically creates suitable flangeways for the trains. I cemented a strip of .020"x.080" strip styrene to the bottom of each side, then cement the pavement to the ties using solvent-type cement. This raises the surface of the pavement to within about .030" from the top of the code 83 rails, which allows for track cleaning, when necessary, without worry about marring the surface of the street.
While the photo below is street running only for autos, it shows sidewalks and street surface done with .060" sheet styrene, and an easy way to "crown" the pavement for proper drainage, simply by cementing a strip of styrene to the underside of the "pavement"....
Wayne
Pretty sure the 300k+ posts are an aggregate of everyone who is now Anonymous.
However - I don't see why that idea posted from 16 years ago wouldn't work. Though you'd have to be a bit careful with the acetone - too much will melt the foam spacers out and then proceed to melt the plastic ties as well. Back to back pieces of wax paper and fill the middle with plaster would probbaly work as well, no need to melt out the wax paper with acetone.
For smaller areas, I'd either use the Walthers stuff or do something like Dr. Wayne. If the whole layout was going to be track in the street - I'd definitely look to something a bit faster.
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
rrinker Pretty sure the 300k+ posts are an aggregate of everyone who is now Anonymous.
I think Henry and Terry were just "messin" around.
I have something like Dr. Wayne, paved parking lot running.
I paved the area with drywall mud. A fair amount of putzy work was required around the tracks.
Mike.
My You Tube
There are some amazing pictures out there on the internet of the Milwaukee Road running down the middle of the street in a number of communities in Iowa, Illinois, and Indiana. I would post pics but not sure about copyright issues here...
Bedford, Indiana (captions say the train actually obeyed traffic lights at intersections ... not sure how that is possible...)
New Albany, Indiana
Kingsbury (River North neighborhood), Chicago
Bellevue, Iowa
Andy
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Milwaukee native modeling the Milwaukee Road in 1950's Milwaukee.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/196857529@N03/
JetrockExpensive but easy: Walthers street system.
.
The Walthers Street System included parts to pave around a turnout, but they were for an Atlas turnout, and not a Walthers/Shinohara turnout.
Weird decision. And.. inconvenient for me because I prefer the Walthers/Shinohara trackage.
-Kevin
Living the dream.
They knew how much of their turnout product they moved, so they knew more people use Atlas. Most of the reasons you prefer W/S go away when it's buried in paving, since just about all you see is the rail head.
I am going to be using Das Clay when i get to the city industrial area. Also use some cobble stone rollers to imprint the pattern. That way i can do the somewhat paved over sort of look too. A common. Look for the northeast.
A pessimist sees a dark tunnel
An optimist sees the light at the end of the tunnel
A realist sees a frieght train
An engineer sees three idiots standing on the tracks stairing blankly in space
The Milwaukee Road Warrior There are some amazing pictures out there on the internet of the Milwaukee Road running down the middle of the street in a number of communities in Iowa, Illinois, and Indiana. I would post pics but not sure about copyright issues here...
Strictly speaking, you should not post photos which you have not taken yourself, unless you have permission from the person who took or owns the photos in question. However, it is permissible for you to post a link to the site where you saw the photos.
There's also street running in West Brownsville, PA, with both CSX...
...and Norfolk Southern...
...using the same track. I took both photos on the same day, although obviously not at the same time, as they're moving in opposite directions.