How to model bad railway? Advice wanted


B

bklynman01

Active Member
So I'm modeling a coal mine that runs up the side of a mountain to the mine in a switchback design. The story in the layout is that the coal mine is the oldest part of the town, and the railroads were built basically to serve it.

That being said, the rail line leading up to the mine should be fairly worn and in need of serious maintenance. The rest of the layout is code 100, so I could just use code 80 or 55 and hand lay it poorly to make it look rough.

So here's the request for advice part...
What would you guys do?
 
Not lay it poorly. Real cars and engines have sprung suspensions, models tend not to in smaller scales. Most of the bounce and wobble of bad track is exaggerated by telephoto lenses. You cannot realistically capture that since the models aren't sprung and don't have the mass of the real thing. I would use smaller rail, and weather it more heavily, make the ballast look dirtier and put some weeds growing up around and on the track.
 
If you want to make it usable track then you need to focus on making the cross tries look rough and paint the rails so they look rusted. Maybe even use wavy black paint on the sides of the rails to give the illusion that its bent in various places. (Artificial depth)

If you just want the tracks to look cool but not be in use...then yeah...just bend up your tracks. Dont get carried away though. The tracks in real life will only be out of shape a little. They won't be bent at 90 degree angles and stuff.
 
If you plan to actually run trains on it, then the track can only look bad it actually needs to be good. HO is not very forgiving that way.

Hand lay code 55 on heavily distressed ties spaced extra wide. Rails should be rust colored on the sides. Use dirt for ballast. Most of the ballast should probably be spilled coal anyway. Put some chunks of bent rail and broken ties beside the track with some piles that look like coal spills. The right of way should probably look like it was barely scraped out. If you can make the area around the track look bad enough then you should be able to get the effect you want but still be able to run trains on it.
 
I use shims staggered one side then another to give the track a little "roll".
It doesn't take much, then ballast and dirty it up and throw in some weeds as suggested above.
 
gator do 65 said:
I'll just stop by and lay the best track I can, that should give you exactly what you want!
Click to expand...
Sounds like a deal! Do you accept food and drink as a form of payment? My other hobby is cooking!

The only experience I have with hand laying track is in very short spans, mostly on the couple of short bridges I built. Something I noticed with them, the spike heads look oversized even though I used code 80 spikes on code 100 rails. I'll admit I haven't looked into it yet, but is there a smaller spike out there that won't look so out of place? Or do I want to keep the larger spike because it's much easier to work with?

I saw somewhere on this forum a guy using sanded grout as ballast and I remember the result being very close to what I would be looking for. Anyone have an opinion there? Pros or cons to using that method? I will say that the main line looks like the attached picture.

of course I've created more questions than have been answered, so I'll just go ahead and ask:
1. Code 100 transition to Code 50; should I simply shim the code 50 to meet the top of the code 100 rail and then bring it down to the ground from there? Is there a different better method?
2. Code 50 turnouts; I'm thinking making my own turnouts is the only way to get them to match, true? If so, what are the recommendations on how and where to go for supplies?
3. There is no question here yet, but I will say I'm looking forward to the challenge and learning experience that lies ahead!

Thanks guys!!
 

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An Australian modeler named Michael Cawdrey posts on a number of forums. He got inspired by some run-down lead trackage on Guilford and decided to see what he could do to duplicate it. Here's a photo on the Model Railroader forum http://cs.trains.com/resized-image....55-00-00-02-28-84-59/Bakery-Line-027MRMag.jpg Here is a video.http://vimeo.com/38297764 He took short lengths of scrap flex track, as well as even short pieces of sectional curve, and soldered them together. He hit some of the joints with a hammer and screwdriver. Then he kept fiddling and testing until he could get at least some of his equipment to run over the line.

Cawdrey is a full time professional artist (painter), and his work sort of reflects wanting to get a visual impact. Since this wouldn't be reliable track for regular model operation, I wouldn't do it this way, but it's a possibility, and it's certainly interesting. On his layout, it's a spur, so it wouldn't necessarily interfere with other operation unless you gritted your teeth and actually wanted to run to that industry!
 
You could heat up the end of an old screwdriver and use it on the rail joints in a very few places to show bad joints. I wanted to imitate the effects of bad track on my 1960s-1970s era Anthracite Division and was...a little too successful...in some ways. My model railroading talent obviously isn't in doing trackwork!

Seriously, after my experience, I'd concentrate on the visual effects of bad track and ONLY after carefully experimenting on scrap track first would I try to create operating problems. I'm not saying it can't be done, just do your testing first and not after the ballast has gone in!
 
jwb - That modeling is great! I thought the picture was the prototype until I watched the video. That is the sort of affect I was looking for, but I think you make a good point about only using it for a spur.

Others also pointing out the fact that regularly used rail line should be in good condition - the point is well taken. Hand laying some low profile rail seems like the best idea to me. Perhaps code 70? I feel like since the rest of the layout is Code 100, that 50 will be way to small - it would be half the height. Maybe I'll look for a small piece of it somewhere so I can put it in place and then decide which I like better.
 
A counter point about the condition of the track. Railroads are a business, it doesn't matter how important the track is if they don't have the capital to fix and upgrade it. And branches and spurs are at the bottom of the barrel priority wise. If you can get your hands on ME code 70 flex track its easy to make kinks in the track and its still in gauge.
 
bnsf971, that's some nice work. Actually, from what I can see in that video, all of the track work is really good. There's also a lot of confidence in operations to put track like that so close to the edge!

I was actually staring at the layout last night thinking about this. For getting up to my coal mine, it's a switch back up the side of a mountain. Counting the turnouts in the mine area, and the trip up there, there's 11 total, all of which are already in inventory and match the code 100 rail on the remainder of the layout.
I also am considering my experience thus far. This is my first "real" layout. I want to do it all, and make it all perfect, but let's be realistic - I don't know how to do all of that yet. As I am still young enough, I do plan to have at least one more layout after this. The wife an I plan to be in our next home within the next decade, at which time there may be additional kids and so the house would be larger. I've already gotten agreement that a large section of our future basement can be mine after the kids leave, with a decent size room I can have in the interim. That being said, my next layout will have the full on short line industry with structures and bad rail to go with it. For now, I've decided to add a siding to my current layout where I will test my skills without having to live for too long with bad modeling.

I do appreciate the advice here, and it will all go into the piece of track I lay for the freight station. I'll be sure to update everyone when I do.
 
RBMNfan said:
That video is typical on class 3 operations today. Speeds are low because of what you see at the end.
Click to expand...

I remember that up to a couple of years ago, track worse that what's been seen in the videos was in a small yard in Calera, Al, on the CSX main between Birmingham and Mobile, Al. I took a video of two SD40-2's running along one of the yard tracks, and they were swaying so much, I really thought that they would turn over. To top it off, as one swayed in one direction, the other swayed in the opposite. I don't know if they ever did have a derailment in that yard, but a couple of years ago, they did rebuild the entire yard, and now the yard track is just as smooth as the mainline.
 
I would suggest if you want to try this, is to install sprung trucks, and in particular ones where the side frames can pivot about the ends of the bolster. Kadee maybe http://www.kadee.com/html/truck_and_wheel.pdf I did have, briefly, when I first came back to the hobby, an Anjin chassis'd diesel where the trucks were like that. Each axle could move up and down and the truck could twist, had a shaft drive between the axles

Came across this video while researching this and yes, it can be done.

[YOUTUBE]9IKAsLizOtw[/YOUTUBE]
 
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That demonstration was a bit extreme. It looks like he used a hammer to cause the depressions in the track. There's a video of the Maumee and Western where the train looks like its going to land on its side.
 
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