need some info

emt49

Member
do you modelers have any good tricks on how to bury track and still beable to use it. in part of my yard i am making a intermodel yard for contaner trains and trucks and i want to run the track under the truck loading lot .kinda like a at grad crossing but i will make it cover the span of to or three tracks in my yard

you guys out there got any links or tips on how to do this the help would be great befor i go and do this and mess it up
 

jon-monon

Active Member
When balasting, by hand I run an old tyco deep flanged truck back and forth to make sure I have clearance for modern trucks plus a little. Maybe that will help. If the track is to run below the subroadbed, you might use an nmra gauge to check clearance to the sides of the track, else run the largest rollin' stock by hand before you make it permninant. You might just make one out of cardbord from their drawins at nmra.org. Not sure exactly what you will be doing. You mentioned like a grade crossing; use styrene strips between the rail and along side. Search for interurban's posts, or trolly sites. Them boys run tracks right down the street :D
 

emt49

Member
jon-monon said:
When balasting, by hand I run an old tyco deep flanged truck back and forth to make sure I have clearance for modern trucks plus a little. Maybe that will help. If the track is to run below the subroadbed, you might use an nmra gauge to check clearance to the sides of the track, else run the largest rollin' stock by hand before you make it permninant. You might just make one out of cardbord from their drawins at nmra.org. Not sure exactly what you will be doing. You mentioned like a grade crossing; use styrene strips between the rail and along side. Search for interurban's posts, or trolly sites. Them boys run tracks right down the street :D

ya like the guys that run them down the middle of the street but in my case the street is a three track wide intermodel yard.
 

emt49

Member
thanks for your help guys:thumb: as far as pooring plaster over my track its going to be a yard so i dont think i will run any motive power over that part of it just my grunderson contaner car sets so i will use old brass track that i have laying around and not the good stuff
 

jetrock

Member
Actually, there are other ways to do it. The expensive but easy way would be to use Walthers Street System's plastic pieces for in-street track: you just glue these in place around the track (Code 100 or 83) and the put styrene or plaster or cardboard around them.

The less-expensive but more work-intensive way is detailed at length in Kalmbach's BUILDING CITY SCENERY FOR YOUR MODEL RAILROAD. The Reader's Digest version of that technique is as follows:

Before laying streets, paint your track (sides of rails and ties) a dark brown or grimy black color. This makes them less visible when covered with street surface.

Buy 1/8" foamcore board, and lay it around your track, cutting it to fit around curves, switches etcetera. Glue it down with Liquid Nails or white glue.

Using either sheets of thin cardstock or large sheets of .020" styrene (much cheaper if purchased in big sheets from an industrial plastics warehouse), cut out "street" sections around the outer edges of the tracks. Test-fit each piece and file where necessary so the joints are snug with the track. When they fit nicely, paint them with a primer color (gray or black) and glue into place with Liquid Nails.

If the plastic pops over the rails, nail it down with track nails. Cover these nails and any joints with drywall compound.

Using the sheet styrene, cut lengths to fit in between rails, leaving adequate space for wheel flanges. Use pieces of 1/16" thick stripwood to support the styrene. File and cut the pieces to fit and glue into place with Goo or other glue of your choice.

Paint the styrene (and cardstock if you used it) a suitable street color: Grimy Black is good for asphalt streets, Aged Concrete for concrete streets.

I'll post some photos of my latest adventure, albeit incomplete, in street track...as you can see, I haven't done the in-the-middle trackage yet, but you can see the outside edges. It has been painted with Woodland Scenics Street System Concrete--it looks a little bright now, but I'll add some goo and grime once I get the middle section in place.
 

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emt49

Member
jetrock thanks your method may work better for my contaner yard idea as i will have a wider space to cover and more than one track to cover plaster would be tuff to even out and make it look good
 

jetrock

Member
One "plus" of the styrene method is that, unlike plaster, you can go back and fix trackwork later. An important thing is to try to get the level of the styrene slightly below the level of the track, to make track cleaning less daunting.
 
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