That's some darn fine modeling of trackwork in the streets ... would your friend Brian, by any chance, be interested in doing an article for MRH? I'd love to get this beautiful modeling on the cover of MRH!

Submitted by Rio Grande Dan on Mon, 08/30/2010 - 11:04

"The rails on the white brick looks Toy like and until you weather it and scrape & scratch it up, no mater how perfect the track system is it will still look like a toy or someplace on a fantasy world."

Why would you assume this is the look I was going for??  Once I weather and finish my street track, gouges and scrapes in N-Scale would make it look like major street work was needed.  Seems like a harsh assumption of my lack of modeling skills.

Other responses, like the tool for shaping and the idea of tinting the plaster were both helpfull suggestions, yours were not.

In our case, the answer is shockingly obvious: the ties don't show on the city section because there are no ties!  Maybe that sounds like a smart-aleck reply, but as an O-Scale traction layout with live overhead, the "city" trackwork can be soldered to brass strips that are nailed down before paving.  In much of traction modeling, both tracks are the negative side of power, with the working overhead the positive side.  So simply soldering the tracks to solid brass is a great simplification.  Even some of our open trackwork is soldered to brass "ties" hidden in the ballast.

There is nothing to say that ties are needed on the street running sections, and you are probably better off without them.  Tracks can be spiked directly to the base under the pavement.  Prototype streetcar lines certainly did something very similar, with tracks set in concrete using guage bars and cast in or bolted-on flageways.  Doing without ties also makes it easy to keep the guage correctly, especially important in traction with its small flanges, 26" wheel diameters and prototype tight turns (as tight as 32').  Once spiked down, the street can be paved with your choice of materials - vinyl spackle over either rigid foam or Homasote in our case.  Guard rails are common in street trackage, and the street is paved up to the rail tops except between the guard and running rails, leaving the flangeways open.

Our transition to standard ties going into the interurban line is shown behind the gas station.  The tracks leave street running by crossing the street and curb line sidewalk, going into a ballasted right-of-way, which gradually falls away, revealing the ties.  Another way of handling this transistion is a dead-end street that gradually "peters out", going from paving to gravel to ballasted track.  (And, if it is like one Milwaukee area prototype, it should also have a sign warning motorists to go no further, and the remains of a few shredded tires where the drivers didn't listen.)  A third way to make the transisition from street-running is like the South Shore Line in Michigan City, IN, where the rail line curves off from the middle of the street through the curb line with the road continuing straight ahead.

Typical of interurbans and streetcar lines, there are cattle guards entering open trackwork just beyond the "city edge" waiting shelter and the boarding area at the shelter is simply ballasted up to the rail tops.  That is also a reasonable dividing line for our block square "city" module:

That fabulous gas station in the foreground is based on a well-known local landmark around Milwaukee, quite typical of the fantastic architecture common to the 1920s.  Of the many Wadhams Company stations built, a couple still exist, the best-preserved shown here: http://www.waymarking.com/waymarks/WM5F56_Wadhams_Gas_Station_West_Allis... Wathers just introduced this station as an HO model last year, but this O-scale and slightly compressed version is scratch built.

Even after more than a decade of operation at shows, this is still a "work in progress," though the cardstock buildings are gradually giving way to styrene.  To answer the most common question from modelers: Yes, the working overhead does come apart to separate the modules without having to be taken down.  For example, the phosphor-bronze wires for each main simply unhook from the city section, leaving everything on the city side undisturbed.

Hi there...  I think you have access to the registered email so drop me a line there and we'll work out the details.  I've been after Brian to write up that street trackage method for some time.  It does produce very nice results that are very durable - and would work for any street trackage.  Since we have no permanent location and the layount gets set up only at shows, the sections get banged around quite a bit, along with basement storage in between.  We've never lost any chucks of pavement, and the trackwork remains very reliable. 

Pretty good detail for a four-section portable layout just under 15 feet long.