Quiet Roadbeds

You have a table, have chosen a layout, and have fig- ured out a plan of development. The next step is to lay your track. You can test a train over your pike before fastening it down, of course, and it might be a good idea to operate it that way for a while before nailing it, as some final changes will perhaps suggest themselves.

They need not be final, of course. Taking up track is not at all difficult if it is nailed directly to the table top. Only when you have fitted strips of roadbed and ballast for your tracks does it become a lengthier task. You will save time if you wait until you feel satisfied with the layout before undertaking this kind of work. Even after that you will make some alterations, of course; every model railroader does, just because changing and improving are half of the fun.

If you are attaching track directly to the table, do it carefully, so that the track sections are not distorted or bent. Rail pins should fit snugly and joints should be tight. If pins are loose, poor electrical contact will be made and there will be a voltage loss in the current going to your locomotive. If a pin drops out, which rarely happens, squeeze the open end of the rail slightly with a pair of pliers (Fig. 66), then insert the pin again. If pins of adjoining sections of track make a loose connection, bend each pin outward slightly until they provide a tight fit (Fig- 67).

Even tight-fitting track sections have a little play at the joints; a section can be shifted a sixteenth of an inch one way or another, you will find, and still seem to make a good connection. Don't try to take too much advantage of this fact, however, to the extent of subjecting the track to strain or stress. If you try to make too tight a curve, for example, the outer rail will be lifted slightly and ties raised from the table. Then when you nail, you will force them unnaturally. All track should lie perfectly flat on the table without any nailing. Nails are there to prevent shifting of position from vibration and the push of a train traveling over the rails.

 

Some model railroaders advise the use of a yardstick or straight-edge of some kind in laying straight sections of track, so they will be lined up perfectly. But this is not at all necessary. If joints are tight and ties flat on the table, your track will be straight enough. Even on real railroads not many straight stretches are absolutely straight.

The nails used on S-gauge track are thin brads with small heads, at least 1/2" long. Two in each track section will usually be enough, if they are staggered, one near the end of one side, another near the end of the other side. If you find later that a section tends to shift or pull out the brads, add a couple more. Tap the brads through the tie holes into the wood of the table top with light steady strokes of a tack hammer, being careful not to batter the rails or metal ties. Drive them down until they hold the ties snugly, but don't go too far and hammer the ties out of shape. You will find that the work goes quickly.

There are small brad holes in the plastic bases of switches and crossings. Bakelite is tough, but you can crack it if you hit it hard enough with a hammer, so be careful. If your track has become dirty or oily, clean it with track-cleaning fluid on a rag, and dry. A clean track is essential to good electrical contact with the pickup wheels of your tender or locomotive as well as to good traction. If, through long disuse, track ever becomes rusty, rub the tops of rails lightly with a very fine sandpaper, then clean.

Taking up track that has been nailed is not difficult but should be done with care. Don't try to pry up the nail head; you are almost certain to bend the tie this way. Slip a screwdriver under the tie itself and exert an upward pressure near the nail.

Whenever you want to replace one section of track with a switch, remove three or four sections of track at that point, no more. You can fit the switch in place easily, then nail down all pieces once more.

Track fixed directly to the table top, without ballast, can be readily lifted when you want to change your layout, so it is a good idea to leave it this way so long as there is much chance of your making frequent changes. But once you feel that you are set for a while, you may wish to ballast the track to make it look more realistic. You can also add additional ties between the metal ties, for realism.

If you want to apply ballast (Fig. 68), take the first steps before the track is nailed in place. Lay all track on the table in the proper positions, and mark with a pencil the ends of your ties. Then lift off the track, connect your marks with pencil. You will see the outlines of your road-bed. Apply to this roadbed a sticky adhesive of some kind, to hold the ballast. Or you can use a thick, dark-gray paint, liberally applied. This has the advantage of coloring the base of the roadbed so spots not covered with ballast will not be noticeable.

If you have a good-sized layout, don't try to cover all the roadbed with adhesive at once. Do one oval at a time, if you have two, or leave the sidings till later, when the first oval is completely ballasted. After the adhesive is applied, put the track in position, pressing down firmly. If you are going to add additional ties, now is the time to do it, before ballasting.

Ties should be made of wood or wallboard and should be 1 7/8" long, 1/2"wide, and 5/16"thick.  If you can't easily get 5/16" thickness, use 1/4", as it makes no difference if there is a little space between rails and supplementary ties. They are there for looks, not to support the rails. Use almost any pieces of wood for cutting the ties or buy long strips at your lumber yard and cut them to the right lengths. If you find it difficult to work on such small pieces with the tools you have, you can get balsa wood—hobby shops carry it in a great variety of sizes and shapes. You can cut balsa with a knife easily. Stain the ties black, or with some dark brown added. Just drop them in a jar of stain, let sit a few minutes, then fish them out and let them dry on a newspaper. All this should be done and your ties ready to use before you apply the adhesive to the roadbed. Then, after you have pressed your track sections in place, you can slip the ties under the track and press them into the adhesive, two ties between each of the regular metal ties of your track sections.

 

 

For ballast you can use the material put out for this purpose by your train manufacturer or similar material found in any hobby store. Fine sand gravel will do, also, although it is a little light in color. You can improve it by adding a good quantity of finely crushed cinders, or mix- ing it in the thick, dark-gray paint mentioned above. Then put it in place with a putty knife or an old spoon.

Dry ballast should be sifted onto your roadbed liberally, then pressed down so it works its way into the adhesive and some of the adhesive is forced up between the particles.

The next day, when it is thoroughly dry, brush off the loose particles or use a vacuum cleaner to pick them up. If you find bare spots, you can touch them up with a little more adhesive and ballast.

Don't make the edges of your ballast as straight as a ruler or it will look too artificial. Real railroad ballasting is a little ragged along the edges. Remember, too, that sidings are almost never as neat and trim as main lines. Ballast is often uneven, covering ties in some spots, almost bare in others. Little-used sidings are frequently over-grown with grass and weeds in places, and vegetation creeps up close to the rails.

When you have completed this job you will have a fine- looking track. But it will be somewhat noisy, if it is nailed directly to a wooden table top. A railroad should be noisy, of course, as real railroads are. But the noise should be of a particular kind, of the kind trains make. And that does not include the high-pitched drumming sound of metal rails on wood. This is the sound that on so many model pikes drowns out the real railroad noises that your train makes when given a chance. You want to hear the choo-choo sound of your steam engine, the clickety-click of wheels passing over rail joints, and the multiple clicks made as your train moves through switches and over crossings. You can hear these sounds properly only if you find a way to remove the unnatural noise of a wooden drum that is your wooden table top. (If you have used wallboard, of course, you have already eliminated a good deal of this noise.)

Train manufacturers and individual model railroaders have experimented for years with many different products that will deaden the unwanted sounds. And they have come up with many excellent materials—wallboard, Celo- tex, cork, rubber. All of these work well and each has good points and not-so-good points. The easiest to use are fairly expensive; the cheapest require a little more work on your part. But they all have the great advantage not only of deadening sounds but of forming a realistically raised roadbed like that on real railroads.

Prefabricated or molded roadbeds in cork and rubber are offered by several manufacturers in different sizes. For your S-gauge train the simplest to use is a molded rubber roadbed manufactured in both straight and curved sections to fit your track sections perfectly (Fig. 69). The metal ties of the track fit down into recessed grooves in the roadbed, holding the track so securely that it needs no more fastening of any kind. Only the rubber roadbed itself requires anything to hold it to the table top or trainboard and it, being rubber, holds firmly with no more than staples, one on each side, driven through it into the board. Since the rubber absorbs train vibration and all tendency of the train to push track out of position on curves, track on rubber roadbed stays where it is put.

Never put brads through tie holes and into the wood when using rubber roadbed. It is not only unnecessary, but the brads will carry sound and vibration from the tracks to the wood, causing the rubber to lose much of its effectiveness as a sound deadener.

For fastening rubber roadbed, you can use very short brads, but staples are better. A stapling gun works well and quickly, but not many people have them on hand and they are not worth getting specifically for this job. Many desk staplers, even the smallest, are made so that the base folds back out of the way, enabling you to use them to attach rubber roadbed to table top.

Aside from its soundproofing qualities, rubber roadbed improves the appearance of your pike. It has beveled sides, a rough exterior simulating gravel ballast, and simulated extra ties between the metal ties of your track sections. If you want your switches and crossings to have the same ap- pearance you can cut off the sloping edges of rubber road-bed sections and fit them against the sides of these pieces. As the bases of switches and crossings are made of plastic, you cannot staple the rubber strips to them, but you can glue them or staple to the wood table top alongside. If you find that switches or crossings are a snade below the level of the track sections in rubber roadbed, cut card-board of the right thickness and place underneath.

For track terminals, track trips, uncouplers, and any other devices that attach by slipping under the track, cut away a section of rubber roadbed just large enough to accommodate them. If you use half sections of track, either straight or curved, on your layout, you can easily cut the roadbed pieces in two. In this case, however, you must move one of the ties to fit in the roadbed groove (Fig. 70).

With a screwdriver, pry up the metal clip of the tie which clamps around gray insulating fiber to hold the bottom of each rail in place. Then slide the tie back into the correct position, making sure that the insulation remains where it belongs, between metal tie and metal rail. Squeeze tie clips tight with a pair of pliers.

Since rubber roadbed must be specially molded, it cannot be made inexpensively, but many model railroaders are finding it well worth while because it not only performs its job effectively but can be installed quickly and easily. Some recommendations have been made to reduce expense while retaining the advantages of rubber to the effect that strips of ordinary rubber can be used under the track. But since these strips do not have grooves into which track ties fit, brads or nails must be driven through ties, rubber strip, and into the wood, thus conducting sound and vibration to the wood and losing much of the soundproofing quality of the rubber. It does not, moreover, look much like a real roadbed.

With just a little work you can make excellent soundproof roadbed of good appearance from either Celotex orordinary wallboard of the beaverboard type. Celotex is a better sound deadener because its rough fibers encompass thousands of tiny air pockets that trap vibration and noise.

It comes in panels four feet wide, like plywood, and is inexpensive. Some panels come painted on one side, for use on walls, but it is better and cheaper for you to get unfinished Celotex. The material cuts very easily with a saw- so easily, in fact, that you must watch yourself to keep from cutting too far on one or two strokes of the saw. The panel needs a flat, firm foundation, too, and you should saw up close to that support.

With a little care, you can saw all the pieces you need with little effort and time.

                                                                                

Since Celotex is rather soft, you can bevel the edges of your strips easily, using medium-coarse sandpaper. Unless you are going to cover the roadbed with ballast, you should stain it before putting it on the table, as its light-tan color, almost cream, is not right for a realistic roadbed. The rough texture of the material, however, looks good when stained, even without any ballast, although ballasting is bound to give a more realistic appearance.

You can make your Celotex strips from 21/2 to 31/2 inches wide, the latter figure being scale width of real railroad roadbed, although not necessary for good appearance if space demands make it difficult. Strips may be as long as you can conveniently handle—there is no need to cut them the length of track sections.

Attach your Celotex roadbed pieces to the table top with small nails and then countersink the nails a little below the surface of the Celotex (Fig. 71). Place the nails so that metal ties of track sections do not come in contact with them; always remember that nothing metallic must be allowed to carry vibrations and noise from the track to the wooden table top.

If you are going to ballast the track, cover the roadbed with adhesive as described previously. Then put the track sections in place and fix them to the Celotex with short brads that will drive into the Celotex but not into the wood beneath. If you are adding extra ties, slip them be neath the track at this point. They don't need nailing, as the adhesive will hold them in place. Finally, spread your ballast, allow to dry, and remove loose particles. In spreading adhesive and applying ballast, be sure to cover the beveled sides of your roadbed.

If you prefer, you can cover the roadbed with slate-covered roofing paper instead of applying loose ballast, but its appearance is not quite as authentic as that of ballast.

Perhaps you have made a wooden roadbed for using your train on the floor, as suggested in Chapter 4. In this case, you can attach it to your table top, add ties and ballast. Wooden roadbed will not, of course, provide the soundproofing qualities of the other materials suggested.

Beaverboard or other wallboard of that type can be handled in much the same way as Celotex. It works and cuts easily, and is somewhat stronger than Celotex because its paper-pulp fibers are pressed together under greater force, are more compact. For this reason, it deadens sound some- what less effectively than Celotex, but it is still very good.

Many model railroaders use both Celotex and beaverboard, and some even add a layer of corrugated cardboard. In these instances, the Celotex serves as a soundproofing base only rather than as roadbed; the beaverboard becomes the roadbed, with beveled sides and ballast. Construction of this type is most frequently employed on open-top tables, which are preferred for large layouts because they allow for easy building of mountains, valleys, rivers, and lakes. And they save wood.

While solid-top tables are undoubtedly best for small layouts of the type most people start with, you may want to learn about open-top construction and track laying at this time so that you may consider it for your expansion plans. Or perhaps you are one of the fortunate hobbyists with plenty of space to construct a large layout at the beginning.

Open-top tables—they may be shelves or platforms, of course—are built in essentially the same way as the tables we have described before, but without a solid flat top.

Since they lack the additional strengthening force of the top, however, they usually require more crosspieces, which are also necessary for track laying. Crosspieces should be nailed every foot or eighteen inches rather than every two feet, the distance depending both on the nature of your layout and on the width of your table. The wider it is the more strengthening it needs for rigidity.

What you have, then, is a table or platform with a kind of grid work of crosspieces (Fig. 72). To this grid you nail flat boards the size and shape of any perfectly flat areas in your layout—freight yards and terminals, for example. Foundation boards are then cut for your track—at least 31/2"wide, but preferably 5" or 6" wide, depending upon the nature of the terrain on either side of your track. These boards may be cut from any one-inch stock lumber, but it should not be warped. Curves are cut in sectional arcs, but they do not need to be perfectly round or finished as they will be completely hidden. Where two or more lines of track travel close to each other for any distance, make your foundation boards wide enough—or put two or more together—to accommodate all tracks.

If you have no grades—or where tracks run at ground level for some distance—the foundation boards are nailed directly to the grids, if you wish. But if you are planning a valley, river, or lake near by, which will cut down lower than your track level, the grids will get in the way or have to be cut out. For this reason, most makers of open-top tables nail risers, or vertical pieces of wood, to the grids and fix the track foundation boards to the risers. Risers are the same width as the foundation boards.

Their height above the grid depends upon your plans for terrain and grades. If no valley or other depression in your scene drops more than three inches below any track level, then your shortest riser needs to extend only three inches above the grid. If you plan a bridge or overpass, where one train goes under another, you must allow 41/2" clearance for S-gauge trains. This amount of clearance may come entirely below the basic track level, above this level, or divided between them.

For example, if you have one track drop down gradually  21/4" below your normal track level and the other track rise 21/4" above this level, you will obtain a total clearance of 41/2". By this method you reach the necessary clearance in just half the distance that would be required if you were to make one track do all the rising or descending. Since railroad grades should be very gradual, this is an important consideration. For best appearance and results, your track should travel about twelve feet horizontally while rising the necessary 41/2". Where this is impossible you may construct an incline which rises as much as a half-inch per foot of horizontal travel, and this requires nine feet of table length. But if you can raise one track and lower the other in gradual inclines, you need only six feet of length for the recommended grade, 41/2 feet for the steeper grade.

If your first layout is small and you wish to keep your grades to a realistically small degree, you may prefer to wait until you enlarge your pike before carrying one track on a level high enough to pass above another train. Mean- while, of course, you can give your small pike moderate grades leading to bridges crossing a stream, for example.

No matter what the degree of grade, the principle of construction is the same. On an open-top table, you nail in place risers at your lowest and highest points, stretch a string between them, and nail intermediate risers on the other grid pieces to the height of the string. On top of this you nail your track foundation board. The same principle applies for grades that go up or down.

If all of your track foundation boards on an open-top table are on risers above the grid, then your flat areas for yards, etc., must also be raised to this level, on risers or other boards nailed to grid pieces.

When foundation boards for track are all in place, these are covered with Celotex with countersunk nails. On top of the Celotex fix your beveled roadbed made of beaverboard, but make certain that the nails through the beaver-board extend only into the Celotex, not into the wood below. With extra ties and ballasting, your track is complete.

Details about building scenery on an open-top table will be given later in this book.
 

The question of constructing grades on an open-top table may have suggested to you the possibility of grades on your flat table. Even if you follow the recommendation not to attempt a 41/2" clearance on a small layout, you may like the idea of an incline which will enable you to throw a bridge 11/2" or 2" above a stream. Or you may be using a solid top on a table or shelf long enough to take any grade you desire.

If you are fastening your track to the table without any roadbed, you may prefer to buy a set of graduated trestles put out by your train manufacturer (Fig. 73). The trestle are set up on the board easily, and track sections fit them securely. You should use only the number of trestles re quired to bring your track to the desired height, then grad uate the trestles downward again.

You can make your own risers from strips of wood, too, as shown in Fig. 74. Since each track section is ten inches long one section should rise no more than 3/8", and 1/4" would be preferable. Since we are assuming that you have little space, let's say that you must decide on the steepest recommended grade, and thus lift each track section 3/8".

Cut a strip of wood about 3/4" or 1" wide and 3 inches long Make it 3/8" thick. Next cut another piece of the same length and width but make it 3/4" thick. The next piece should be 3/8" thicker, or 11/8" thick. As your strips get thicker, they will be more difficult to nail to the table with small brads, which you should use to avoid splitting the wood. You can overcome this problem by making your thicker risers out of two pieces of wood, in the form of the letter L. The riser is first nailed to the base piece, then the base piece nailed to the table. If you are not making a high grade, you can combine pieces of different thickness to get the proper height. For a riser 11/8" high, for example, nail to the board a 3/4" strip, then nail to it a 3/8" strip. For the next step, use two 3/4" strips, and so on.

 

These strips support only the last tie in each track section and determine the height of each. But you should give them more support. Measure the distance from other ties to the table top and make strips of the right thickness, which you then slip under the ties. With roadbed under your track, this is not necessary, although you may want to place one additional strip of the right thickness under each section of track.

If you have no roadbed but still wish to avoid the numerous strips and open-trestle effect, cover the risers with the thinnest available wallboard (such as Masonite) or plywood. There will still be an abrupt though small rise where this board starts from table level, but if your section of track here needs some support, small pieces of cardboard will do the job. Tack your track to the table through the cardboard.

With an elevation of 3/8" for each track length, you will reach a height of 11/2" in four track sections, which should be sufficient for a bridge across a stream on a solid-table layout. If you want to go higher, just add 3/8" for each additional track section on the incline.

You will probably want to make the grade leading up to the bridge look more realistic in time, like the raised rights-of-way on real railroads. Information on handling this will be given in later chapters on the construction of scenery and features of the terrain. The river itself will be covered there also.

Before leaving, for a while at least, the subject of track laying, the question of single or double track should be mentioned. Many beginners are eager for double-track lines because they suggest the main lines of real railroads they have traveled on, and because they like the looks of two trains passing each other.

Except on the very largest layouts, however, double-track lines are not recommended.

Being broader, they emphasize the short distance your rails travel. Since on any model railroad they are bound to be short, anyway, in comparison with real railroads, every effort is made by model pike builders to make their tracks look longer than they really are. Many hobbyists with years of experience have come to the conclusion that single-track systems are best, no matter how many sidings and branch lines and cutoffs you may have. Even many very large club pikes confine themselves to single-track railroad systems. Those who are concerned about realism and being faithful to prototype railroads need only remind them- selves that most of the railroads in the country are not like the main lines of the big systems; they are single-track.

On small layouts, in any event, there are certain to be stretches where two tracks run parallel for a short distance, and at these points you can put your eyes down to the level of the track and watch your two trains (when you have finally bought a second one) chug past each other.

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