Tracks first, then street....

Actually, that sounds like a perfectly reasonable way of doing it - it's how I set up the section of my layout that has street running in it. 

Some pictures of the road

I mentioned in my first post that I had been working on the streets in Ruphe so I thought I'd post a few pics of the progress.

This particular road has no streetcar line running down it, but does has a few tracks running across it.

An overall view of the first road "finished" in Ruphe. Keep in mind that people in this city spend a great deal of time washing their cars, hence the shiny new vehicles ; )

Here's a close up of the road surface, the man-hole cover is just a photo texture, downloaded from the web, cut out and glued on.

A close up of one of the areas with curbs and sidewalks, and very clean trucks.

So far the Ruphe Road Initiative is going well and I am happy with the results so far. Next thing to tackle is filling in the streetcar line, probably with brickwork, and seeing if the fool thing will still run!

Really like the manhole...

.... but in a very un-civic gesture I would leave one missing somewhere just to give the layout some "depth"..... and something to worry about to all the drivers in their shiny cars and trucks!. Jose.

Congrats

Hi Rick

Congrats on your milestone.  Your streets and layout look great to me.

And please don't apologize for a short video.  I can't devote more than 3-5 minutes to watch a video, so most of the time, I have to pass-up watching what are probably very good videos here on MRH.  So yours works for me.

Missing manhole covers

Jose,

That particular manhole, if left open, would give the layout about 216 scale feet of "depth", quite a fall. But on the plus side, the bottom, presently, is carpeted.

Fascinating!

I love the road surface too.

Mike

Thanks all

Jim, I agree with you about the video length, I have skipped or fast forwarded through stuff simply because I just didn't have time. I often wonder what I am missing.

Mike, I've been following your blog and I love your ground cover. The dried grass, bare ground and snow look great. That, coupled with your backdrops, makes for a really "atmospheric" scene. I can feel the slight chill in the air.

I can see the ...

....... scale lawyers going around it already,,,,,

Some more progress on the streetcar line

It's been sorta' hot and muggy of late, so the basement is a nice comfortable place to hang out. It also means that I am making progress on the new streetcar line.

First I poured Hydrocal over the rails and using some styrene template/scrapers managed to get it fairly smooth. The extra humidity in the air helped me a bit by giving me more working time that usual. My rails stand proud of the asphalt more that the prototype, but then the prototype doesn't have to clean their rails without scratching the road surface.

When the plaster was semi-set I dragged a small screwdriver blade along the rails to create the flangeways.

I used brick paper between the rails and ran the asphalt up to the outside of them.

Once the road surface has been sanded down and some cracks scribed in it is starting to look like a road.

The next thing is, of course, stringing some overhead wires, but because I'm powering the thing through the rails only, in a most un-prototypical fashion, I don't "really" need them so I'll hold off on stringing wire until I've finished all the buildings behind the track. So, for now, my trolley is a cable car.

I've added a reversing switch and a cap across the rectifier and now have pretty good control using my old variac. It's ever so much fun running the little thing back and forth. I do, however, have to make the "ding ding" of the gong and "chucka chucka" of the air compressor myself. I'm really glad that no one is watching.

More Progress

 

 

 

Open man hole covers

Yup, I drove over an open man hole back in 1978 with my "New" 73 Mustang Grande. Man, Was I Mad!

Funny now though.

Great start to the layout

Nice looking pavement and the layout is really going to be nice.

AF

New buildings on Waterfront Ave.

 

 

 

Boxing...

In the seedier part of town, a boxing gym might be good.  Some of them would have fights on Friday nights.

Addresses

Just dawned on me looking at your photos that I don't have any street address # on any of my buildings. That will soon be corrected as I am building a new section of Roseville.

I also like your manhole cover, especially the one with the outline around it as though it had been dug out to reset the height. Nice detail. Nice job!

Patrick Stanley

Espee over Donner

Love the scene!

Rick:

How about a step-by-step to show your structure building techniques?  Really jazzed to see more of the layout.

JG

"next to the tracks and waterfront"

Maybe warehouses and rail/marine facilities?  :> ) ......DaveB