On a layout project I'm planning, I have 11 of my 12 turnouts in the asphalt. I've got a plan for the rails, but I have no clue what to do about the turnouts.
1) What does a turnout look like in the prototype?
2) How do I do it with drywall mud?
3) How do you handle the throw bar? Obviously, I'm not going to have my trusty Caboose in the street, but it the throw bar has to slide.
Chip
Building the Rock Ridge Railroad with the slowest construction crew west of the Pecos.
SpaceMouse wrote: On a layout project I'm planning, I have 11 of my 12 turnouts in the asphalt. I've got a plan for the rails, but I have no clue what to do about the turnouts. 1) What does a turnout look like in the prototype?2) How do I do it with drywall mud?3) How do you handle the throw bar? Obviously, I'm not going to have my trusty Caboose in the street, but it the throw bar has to slide.
Walthers makes some "street" modulars that might be a solution, be they are expensive
http://www.walthers.com/exec/productinfo/933-3156
Note that a "street" turnout can be like any other turnout if you do not embed the points in the road. You can also use a gantlet section between the points and the frog.
Single point trolley style turnouts are available here
http://www.trolleyville.com/catalog-ho.html
Also see
http://www.trolleyville.com/school.shtml
As to the throw bar, the switch lever was often located in the street under a plate the could be raised to access it.
Have fun
Here' a thread I started about Street Running.
http://www.trains.com/trccs/forums/1081538/ShowPost.aspx
My Youtube Channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/JR7582 My Flickr Photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/wcfan/
John Pryke's Union Freight series in MR discusses this in detail, also in his "City Scenery" book from Kalmbach
In Little Rock the Trolley Switches are buried a few inches under street level, but not so deep that the trolley wheels lose thier grip.
From what I remember, those rails had generous amounts of concrete above them and particularly the switches. The throw bar was covered by a steel access hatch and the points themselves are guarded by more pavement with signs all around because they are automatic switches and people should not walk in them.
That does not stop people from stealing the copper ground. But that is another story.
These were buried in intersections at the foot of bridge etc. I dont know about Google Earth but a shot of downtown little rock will reveal a major intersection next to the convention center that has this trackage.
Little Rock ran Trolleys until after World War Two and only recently got them running again.
One of these days Im going to have to shoot video what with the rare trip downtown.
I have crossed many railroad switches that had any type of pavement from Cobblestone to brick and Apsalt sometimes crossed the whole thing raw without any sort of consideration for the rails.
Sometimes there is much earth and the rails are sunk just far enough to allow the rail car or engine to travel and the cars suffer a rough ride unless boards are placed.
This site includes pics of various street tracks including switches.
http://www.chicagoswitching.com/v4/
Otherwise it is a matter of trawling through the regular pic sites. I've found loads of examples. One search I found useful was "street running".
As for how to do the job with drywall mud... someone here suggested laying thin string along the inside of each rail before plastering... then pull the string out when the plaster has hardened.
I haven't tried this yet but when I do I will look at coating the string with wax in the hope that it will come out more freely. I figure that anywhere it breaks a lump out with it I will either patch or leave as a pothole... both seem pretty common in most pics.
As for the point linkage. Many pics show a ground throw off to one side that lives under a metal lid flush with the road surface. Similarly the rods are covered by metal plates. I will follow this. When laying in the plaster I think that it would be wise to surround the moving parts with waxed string.
I suspect that injecting oil under the swicth blades would be a wise precaution... although it may cause other issues later???
When everything has dried and been cleaned up it will be time to make close fitting plastic sheet covers to look like the real thing... and see what it takes to keep them in place. If they won't just sit there I may try a tiny dab of silicon gap filler as this can be cut/prised out pretty easily if I need to get back in to the moving parts.
As to handling the throwbar... if you use Peco switches I would drive them in the normal way from beneath the baseboard. If you have a visible/working swicth stand I would also link that in the normal way just running the linking rods in a grove either cast or cut in the plaster. I suppose that you could pass the linking wire/rod through a tuge and plaster over that. I would be very inclined to fix the tube formly to the baseboard rather than rely on the plaster to hold it.
I guess that you could run an operatig wire from the baseboard face in the same sort of tube. the issues will be the depth of plaster and cracks appearing. How important or otherwise cracks will be may depend on just how you want your street to look.
Hope this helps
I use styrene cut to shape for all the "between the rails" pavement. It's just too hard to control plasters and putties and keep them out of the working parts of a turnout. First, I put down a thin 1/4-inch wide strip between the rails, which gets me up above the tie plates and spikes. The I put the full-sized piece on top of that.
Sometime this year, I'm going to try using my hexagonal cobblestones to pave a street around a trolley track. That should be a challenge.
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
I've a few turnouts in the street. I used plaster and covered the throw bar with styrene and painted both.
Wolfgang
Pueblo & Salt Lake RR
Come to us http://www.westportterminal.de my videos my blog
Chip,
John Pryke's articles are reprinted in his book, Building City Scenery for Your Model Railroad.
John used styrene for the road surface around his turnouts. He cut a slot in the styrene over the throw bar, and inserted a bamboo skewer into the slot to throw the turnout. I'll also note John used Peco turnouts, so no extra machine was needed to hold the points in position.
Nick
Take a Ride on the Reading with the: Reading Company Technical & Historical Society http://www.readingrailroad.org/
Brent
"All of the world's problems are the result of the difference between how we think and how the world works."
BATMAN wrote:I once saw turnouts with ship or deck plating attached that would move when the turnout was thrown. One plate would slide under another as it would move. Cars would drive over it with hardly a bump. The switch lever was on the sidewalk so I am assuming the connection ran under the pavement. The switch lever was right next to a fire hydrant which made me do a double take as it looked a little odd.
Seems logical to me. Motorists don't park at the red curb adjacent to a hydrant (unless they collect parking tickets for a hobby,) so whoever is using the switch lever will have full (or, at least adequate) visibility - without having to do his thing in an active traffic lane.
When a club I belonged to 30 years ago needed a turnout in the street it got hand-laid on a solid sheet of 1/8 inch hard balsa over fiber ceiling tile (acted like sub-standard Homasote) and paved (except for the points and throw rod) with portland cement. Flangeways were cleared by running a deep-flange European-prototype tank wagon over everything before the cement set up, then cleaning up the remainder with scrapers. The point area was paved with sheet ??? cut back to clear the flangeways and allow the points to throw.
Not exactly turnout-related, but not entirely off topic - the original grade crossing where the ??? crosses Old Hickory Boulevard in Old Hickory, TN, had guard rails the full width of the pavement. When the pavement was widened, nobody extended the guard rails - so now there are guard rails in the center lanes and a couple of feet into the outside lanes, and un-guarded asphalt from there to the sidewalk line. Nasty bump at the very end of the guardrail in the westbound outer lane! Moral of the story - pavement with tracks in it is NOT smooth, and the longer the tracks have been there the rougher it gets.
Chuck (modeling Central Japan in September, 1964 - with grade crossings that may or may not cross turnouts)
By the way, be sure that whatever road surface you use (plaster, Strathmore, styrene) is slightly _below_ the surface of the rails, not above. Otherwise you will constantly be scraping and marring that surface when cleaning the rails.
Had to tear up a big section of a module once to rework the in-street trackage to allow for cleaning the rails. Not a happy memory.
Jon
Top pic in this link is a nice example of a modern(ish) way of doing it.
http://www.chicagoswitching.com/v4/articles/article.asp?menu=2&locationid=3&locationname=Kingsbury&articleid=108
If you look at the right hand side of the toe of the switch you will see a T shaped mark in the pavement... that's the slot for the drive rod and the box set flush in the ground that holds the groundthrow lever.
This would be basically the same if the street were cobbled, bricks or whatever.
Hope this helps.
PS... the 2nd pic shows where some sort of trench has been dug along the road but must have burrowed under the track.
PPS... Wow! Check this out!
http://www.chicagoswitching.com/v4/articles/article.asp?menu=2&locationid=3&locationname=Kingsbury&articleid=107
1st pic shows a crew actually working a switch in pavement... having dug the crud out of it first by the look of it...
Never found a pic like this before!
http://www.chicagoswitching.com/v4/articles/article.asp?menu=3&locationid=4&locationname=Bloomingdale&articleid=104
9th from last pic shows more conventional switch stand with switch blades not paved...