Modeling Abandoned Trackage

I have a cutoff to allow for continuous running when I'm in the mood or when beaking in new engines.  I plan to model the cutoff as an abandon right of way with weeds between the tracks, extra rusty rail, minimal ballast, etc.

Tom

Here are two photos of some abandoned trackage on my pike.  I have a combination freight and passenger station that at one time had tracks on both sides of the building.  The rear track has been abandoned for some time; to the extent that trees are now growing up on the right of way.

I installed some very weathered and distressed ties; with most missing.  I then poorly ballasted the track and added weeds and fallen leaves.  A few pieces of rail, some junk, trash, newspapers and some small Scenic Express 'Super Trees' finished the scene.

Where the road once crossed the track, I left the rails in place and simply paved over the former siding.

 

Remember to click on the photos for larger images.

Dale Latham

We have some on our HO scale club's layout where the track design was changed to accommodate the addition of a second main line and we had to remove some turnouts, but left the old sidings in place.

In my original track plan, I had two 90 degree crossings. But when I got around to actually laying out the track, I found that one curve wouldn't fit, so I had the change the entire middle of my layout. But I had already laid one of the crossings along the edge of the layout and the track beyond it (about 2 1/2"). So instead of ripping it out and relaying it, I pulled out the rails and left the crossing as an abandoned rail line thru town and left ties on the edge of the layout.

The black lines coming off the far track is the curve that wouldn't fit.

 

Dale, I really like the looks of your abandoned trackage.

So far, I only have one track that could be looked upon as abandoned, but I have hopes for more. I say "could be" as it is a spur beyond a turnout that fades off into a few ties and a bit of rail here and there at the very end of it. I use the spur as a caboose track when switching the junction and the very farthest section that is still intact, but mostly in the sand and weeds, is isolated as my programming track. 

Piedsou, Nice pictures!  I was going to try something like that.  Now I know Im not the only one who likes abandonded track.  Joe A.

I've mentioned this before, but what the hay:

Simplest abandoned track modeling:
1.) Get a Walthers or equivalent track bumper
2.) Weather like crazy - usual colors are rusty/brownish looking black.
3.) Place out in a field, or alongside a building with bricked in doors, or in the middle of a paved lot.

That's about it, except try to keep an empty line of ROW to this bumper - no tracks, rails or ties needed (or if impinging on it, at least use modern/newer buildings to indicate overbuilding of the former ROW).

 

Thanks for all of the cool ideas, and Piedsou, wow! Incredible work. I'd like to shrink myself to 1:87 and walk down that abandoned ROW to see where it leads. Those Scenic Express trees are the best I've seen.

One variation I'd like to try would be a small shortline or logging RR close to abandonment with really rocky light sectional track that only the lightest motive power could traverse. There was a shortline here in New Jersey called the Rockaway Valley RR, and it barely survived into the 20th Century. It was built on the cheap, with the tie spacing at least double the standard, so it came to be known as the Rockabye Baby. Even an early Consolidation was too heavy for it. 

Has anyone taken a stab at simulating the natural bowed appearance of sectional rail, even if just on abandoned trackage?

I've actually found that my abandoned track looks better than my in service track.  What I use is scrap rail from laying flextrack, and real wood ties.  The ties are also not all the exact same length or in perfect line, so it looks more prototypical for old rail (and is great for me because as hard as I'd try I doubt i could line them all perfectly.)   Weathering heavily is the key.  To do so I went to the area of my prototype (southeastern Ontario) and picked up small used scraps of metal I found along the ROW (without removing anything currently in use of course!!!) and then matched the color to the real rusted metal. 

Cheers!
~METRO

Nice job there Dale, looks really good. I f I may be so bold to give one of those " modeling hints" here. If your modeling the modern times with abandoned trackage and want to leave the rails there, and you are modeling in HO scale, try useing code 55 N scale rail heavily weathered and rusted on HO scale ties. This helps in giving the impression of long ago abandonment. Also, where lines are abandoned, some times the track is taken out leaving only the old road bed, culverts and sometimes bridges are even left in place. I've also seen abandoned rolling stock half buried and weed and tree growth around them where it was too costly to retreive them when the line was abandoned. This in no way is meant to degrade anyones work, just to give some ideas is all. Ken

Lots of good ideas here. To add a bit more... I was out along the old Montour "Library Branch" over the weekend. Even though the Montour has been gone about 20 years, many things from the past still survive. For example, the huge Library Viaduct is still in place. One, possibly both, approach has been paved over. Yet, the rails leading to, and across the Viaduct itself are still in place. Since the deck is rotting, it's been fenced off. It's too dangerous to walk on--it's at least a 50-foot drop onto Route 88! Less than a mile away, sits a small brick building originally used for (I think) MoW storage. The building is in great shape, but some of the glass has been blown out. Just across the subway tracks sits the original company store--it still reads "Champion Stores" on the rear...even though it became a laundromat years ago. That building could be fixed up--it's been empty as long as I can remember.

Towards the end of the Montour, the right-of-way was overgrown in places, and derailments were common. From what I've heard, when the end came, all of the freight cars were hauled to the P&LE yard for disposal or return to their lessors. Today, a fair bit of the Montour's line is now a trail. Old signals and mile markers are still in place, and some of the bridges have been relettered.

If you really want to have fun, try following the original Waynesburg & Washington main line between those two towns in SW PA. Even though that line hasn't seen a train in years, it's still there. In some places, you can still see the rails!

One of the best effects I've seen is to have weed covered ties with no rail diverging off the mainline where a turnout has been removed. Very easy to do and doesn't need a lot of space if you run it off the front of the benchwork. An abandoned industry could be done the same way if you wand to add a gutted, rundown, boarded up structure. Add tall weeds and trees around it for effect.  

SteamFreak wrote:

Thanks for all of the cool ideas, and Piedsou, wow! Incredible work. I'd like to shrink myself to 1:87 and walk down that abandoned ROW to see where it leads. Those Scenic Express trees are the best I've seen.

You'll need to take a parachute   (Sorry! )

SteamFreak wrote:

Has anyone taken a stab at simulating the natural bowed appearance of sectional rail, even if just on abandoned trackage?

More seriously... "natural bowed appearance of sectional rail"?  Do you mean non-ribbon rail?  Where are you seeing it with bows in it?

Ideas for abandoned lines...

• Odd bits of rail showing up in pavement where street trackage is long gone.
• RR Company lettering in the cornices of what used to be RR buildings... possibly derelict, boarded up or converted to new use.
• When a route or siding connection is taken out of service the blades may be scotched and clamped out of use.  The scotch is a wooden block that goes in the open side between the blade and the stock rail.  Obviously it needs to keep below flange depth (and not be put in vertically like a bad tooth as I've seen managers do)!  A switch calmp (which is like a giant G clamp shaped to fit the rail and with a padlocking faciliy) can be fitted or a railbar/fishplate can be wedged between a large rail bolt or spike in the tie (in the 4') and the inside of the switch blade forcing the blade shut against the stock rail.  Further screws or spikes can be driven through the lower holes (furthest from the blade) to further secure the railbar (stop it turning out of place0 and hold it down.
• When a route or siding is taken out of service the frog/common crossing can be replaced by a plain rail length or even ribbon rail.  In the latter case both sides may have ribbon rail and the guard rails will have been taken out opposite the location of the frog.  You'd think that they remove all the switch and put in new ties for the short length but I've seen this done where the switch ties are good.
• I guess that you could run plain rail straight through the site of a diamond and leave the old bits in where they weren't actually in the way of anything.
• As well as having old stock and trees the trees can grow both in the old stock and from the ground through it.  Ivy and brambles are very happy to encroach.  Nettles get everywhere.
• All that remains in some places is a loading dock... sometimes still in use by trucks and other times crumbling and barely visible through the weeds.
• You could go mad and have the old, redundant stock being cut up and piled with pulled out rail... maybe with railfans salvaging a car or just bits... from trucks to glad hands.
• A happier approach would be to work out what the layout had been that fell into disuse and put brand new work, maybe access for an intermodal yard, through one side or the middle of it.  Clearly bulldozers will have shifted a lot of stuff about but there will be remnants of different sizes and kinds around.  You might have the shell of an old tower jacked up on baulks and waiting to be move to a new location... if you're really fortunate you might be able to get a nice multi-axle truck and crane to set up to make the move.
• Abandoned track doesn't have to be massively overgrown.  Then again, even recently abandoned track can have old autos, freezers, 40 gallon drums, piles of old tyres and stuff junked on it.  maybe I'll stick with the intermodal

Dave-the-Train wrote:

SteamFreak wrote: Thanks for all of the cool ideas, and Piedsou, wow! Incredible work. I'd like to shrink myself to 1:87 and walk down that abandoned ROW to see where it leads. Those Scenic Express trees are the best I've seen. You'll need to take a parachute   (Sorry! )

Or a bungee cord!

Dave-the-Train wrote:

SteamFreak wrote: Has anyone taken a stab at simulating the natural bowed appearance of sectional rail, even if just on abandoned trackage? More seriously... "natural bowed appearance of sectional rail"?  Do you mean non-ribbon rail?  Where are you seeing it with bows in it?

Perhaps I didn't describe it well enough. Sectional rail, as opposed to welded, naturally dips at the rail joints, which creates that side-to-side rocking sensation I remember so well from commuting to school before they replaced it all with welded. The vintage 1930's steel MU coaches I rode were extremely heavy with poor suspension, so sometimes the swaying got almost violent. Line of sight down the tracks, with your perspective foreshortening the rail sections, this vertical "bowing" of the rails becomes much more apparent. In scale it would necessitate handlaying short lengths of rail, and then of course there's potential tracking problems, even with a logging engine. Just curious if anyone has attempted handlaying sectional track.

I'm glad to see that others ask this question.  I've always thought I was nuts for using space on my layout for abandoned trackage.  I've got a two-railroad setup (1 shortline, 1 mainline) with an interchange.  I decided to abandon the shortline from the mid-point on the branch, so I've got a long stretch of "abandoned" trackage.  Possibly a waste of space, but I really like it for the realism aspect!

Cheers!

I've planned to put a short length of abandoned trackage in my layout whenever I get around to building it...Maybe even placing a forlorn boxcar or something on it...But I haven't built a layout yet...

SteamFreak wrote:

Dave-the-Train wrote:  SteamFreak wrote: Thanks for all of the cool ideas, and Piedsou, wow! Incredible work. I'd like to shrink myself to 1:87 and walk down that abandoned ROW to see where it leads. Those Scenic Express trees are the best I've seen. You'll need to take a parachute   (Sorry! ) Or a bungee cord!  Dave-the-Train wrote:  SteamFreak wrote: Has anyone taken a stab at simulating the natural bowed appearance of sectional rail, even if just on abandoned trackage? More seriously... "natural bowed appearance of sectional rail"?  Do you mean non-ribbon rail?  Where are you seeing it with bows in it? Perhaps I didn't describe it well enough. Sectional rail, as opposed to welded, naturally dips at the rail joints, which creates that side-to-side rocking sensation I remember so well from commuting to school before they replaced it all with welded. The vintage 1930's steel MU coaches I rode were extremely heavy with poor suspension, so sometimes the swaying got almost violent. Line of sight down the tracks, with your perspective foreshortening the rail sections, this vertical "bowing" of the rails becomes much more apparent. In scale it would necessitate handlaying short lengths of rail, and then of course there's potential tracking problems, even with a logging engine. Just curious if anyone has attempted handlaying sectional track.

A bungee cord would be great for a short visit!

That's not "bowing", that's "dropped joints".  It's real bad maintenance... or no maintenance. 

The ties, ballast and rail bars should mean that this does't happen.  It does untold damage to both the track and stock and is a high risk for derailments. 

To model it I would suggest making a thin cut in the rail from the top to about 2/3 of the way down the rail and theneasing the head of the rail together to close or partially cose the gap.  It might be worth soldering this up solid. 

Obviously the rail between any two of these would tend to form an arch.  This doesn't happen in practice (usually) but the poorly supported rail ends are forced down under the weight of vehicles asindividual wheelsets pass over.  This creates heavy hammer blows and sounds similar to a flat on a wheel tyre except it stays in one place rather than rolling with the train.  I've felt a really bad dropped joint on track 1 shake the formation on track 4.... the line was put out of use until it was rectified... ASAP!

This fault means a lot of flexing movement which spreads the whole damage in both the approach rail and the exit rail.  (Which on single track/ bi directional is obviously both ways and twice the damage opportunity).  It can shift spikes for a considerabl part of the rail length.  Due to its own weight the rail will not normally stay up in an arch between vehicles passing over it.  To achieve the appearance in model rail it will probably be necessary to make some - possibly smaller - cuts in the underside of the rail adjacent to the one that we want to show.  These cuts will be flexed less so as to barely show and definitely be soldered up... because we are not representing a joint and do not want any gap to show.

  It would probably be almost essential to fit good quality model railbars at the dropped joint.  If the railbar has bolts modelled in it might be good to replace one of these on one or both sides of the joint with a hole (both sides of the rail) to represent a missing bolt... which is part of the fault.  if you really want to be elaborate you could lose the nut one side and model the bolt working looose/out on the other side.

Back in the rail length you could remove the spike detail in ready made track on some ties.  This shouldn't be too many.  If you can get something like a scale spike you might replace the tight/driven home spike(s) with some part pulled spikes.  (Part pulled = they have been forced upout of the tie by vertical  movement of the rail combined with weakening of the tie, the spike or both due to age of either the wood or the steel.

The problems caused mid rail by bad ties and/or ballast - often related to bad drainage/wet beds -  are different... the whole rail will still flex excessiveky due to breakdown of support... or, worse because the support has turned to concret/solidified will not flex.  Soft beds will allow a "just ashore roll" to a completely drunken roll.  A hard patch is likely to cause an upward lurch as the wheels effectively hit a "sleeping policeman".  The former can drop or wobble a train off.  the latter can kick a train up and off very violently.  it is very scarey riding a train when either set of problems kicks in.  Slow Orders are imposed for both.  the hard track will get a more severe order.  The order will start on the early on the approach side of the fault to ensure that train speed is reduced.

Slow orders fo bad track (or other reasons) are great ways to slow your trains down if you want them on scene longer to get a better look at them.  If you are working end to end from stub yards and can't get your trains up to line speed you can explain it with a slow order.

On single/bi directional track the slow order applies both ways.  On multi track the order may apply on one road but not the other... which allows you a nice contrast.

You can also model the preprations to correct the fault.

I guess that if you wanted to go for a longer visit you could absail down and prussic back up... except you use a different term for absailing...

MORE IDEAS...

As hinted at above an abandoned line doen't have to be at the same level as your main trackage.  If you want to put a bridge or bridges acrsoo your track as a scenic break or to hide a join why not use an out-of-use RR track or tracks

Dave does all the information come in books? I really could stand to by a few!

Here are some pictures I took of an abandoned siding in Sioux Falls, SD, about a year ago.








If you would like the full size version of these for reference, contact me via e-mail,

Tom

NS2591 wrote:

Dave does all the information come in books? I really could stand to by a few!

Yes it can be found in books... many of them.

The thing to start with is to teach yourself to look, no not look, look at pictures.  If there is something you want information on go through many pics really looking for it... and making notes about the other things you happen to spot that you hadn't noticed before... on the way.  There is no easy route to this.  I've been in the hobby 47 years... but I didn't start to see what was in pics until about 15 years ago.

In part it is a discipline... but, unlike many, it gets easier... the more you start to see the more you find yourself seeing.  As the thread Life after MRR isn't the same says, when you get into it you start to notice things as you drive to work, the mall... anywhere.  Camera and notebook are great aids but the essential thing is a brain that is tuned in to your interest 24/7 not just when you move into the train room.  this could be clled an "addiction"... maybe it is... it's a way of just being alive to what is around you.  i would guess that artists and photographers do the same.  MRR is, really, an art form.

 

Fiatfan... those pics are GREAT!

I forgot to mention..there are several photos of abandoned trackage over on http://www.montourrr.com.

Thanks for all of the photos & info everyone, and Dave, I'll have to save your tutorial for future reference. And no, I don't think maintenance in the Conrail (post Erie Lackawanna) era was of the highest order.

emdgp92, thanks for the link. Those mine cars should be rescued. I had found some photos on my own, mostly of the abandoned stations.

Dale, GREAT modeling!

Tom, interesting pics.

 

Here's whats left of the tracks leading to the former CGW Oelwein shops as of last summer

This guy uses faux fur to simulate grass, which might be a good way to simulate weeds between the rails as in dingoix's photos.

http://www.pacificcoastairlinerr.com/larsen_grass/

http://www.pacificcoastairlinerr.com/fur%5Fgrass/

He has a wealth of other information as well.

Nelson

I have an odd fascination with abandoned roads. If I glued down my scenery I would certainly model them.
One site I came across while perusing the Web was http://www.forgotten-ny.com , which has many pictures of abandoned roads and building if that's your interst too. Great site! Also of interest is www.abandonedrailroads.com.
Cheers!
-NSnscaler

Here's some abandoned trackage that I modelled on my N scale layout.  I'm more or less modelling the main yard on my layout after the yard in a town I lived in back in the 1970s.  At the back of the yard there was a wye which used to lead to a roundhouse many decades ago.  The roundhouse was long gone by the time I lived there and I'm not even sure if they used the wye.  I wanted that wye on my layout but didn't have room for it, so I made it non-functional as abandoned tracks.  I didn't put in turnouts for it but modelled it as if the railroad had removed the turnouts and laid the track straight through but never removed the wye tracks.  After I laid the tracks I got my oldest granddaughter, who was about 8 y.o. at the time to paint the rails rust and scenic the area, making it overgrown with weeds.  She did the entire area for me.  I apologize for the poor quality of the photo--it was just a quick snapshot at the time and it looks much better in real life.

 

 

 

 

 

Abandoned trackage doesn't always have to be on the ground.

Steel Bridge on the White Pass was abandoned in the 60's when it was bypassed by new trackage. It is such an icon of the WP&Y, I plan to include it on my modern era White Pass layout.

-George 

Now that is the key to abandoned tracks... if it costs too much to pull it out (or the payback isn't enough) leave it there to rust.  It's not always pretty but it's interesting and nature will find a use for it.

One thing that often gets left behind, even when the fill is gone) is bridge abutments...  They're just too big and solid and have no scrap value.

When you model overgrown tracks don't forget the paths that cats, foxes, badgers and the rest make that humans don't even usually see.  Then there's human short cuts, bike trails and kids secret camps...

Old pallets, 40 gallon drums cardboard crates... all sorts of stuff can be used... car seats, old furniture...

If there's hoboes or whoever they may have a fire ... the police and fire department may be sorting out the mess...  all sorts of things you can add...

A good way to model abandoned, paved-over trackage in an industrial park would be to model rails coming to crossties, disappearing into asphalt, and then model two medium-sized lumps in the asphalt about 60 scale feet away. These lumps would be the paved-over crossties which originally ended the siding. A subtle effect,easy to model,and easy to be identified by the true railfan.

Also,If you change time periods, you could make removable pads of gravel,weeds and/or junk for a later layout time period than when you actually use the track.Or, neatly park automobiles on paved trackage when you want it to look abandoned. Or a hybrid of both ideas: a removable pad of parked automobiles, the base of which would appear to be a mound of gravel dumped on the old trackage.

Another one: use the track secretly, as a way to get rid of trains when no one is looking.