Subject:
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Re: TCLTC Sleepers with Wide Mosaic Track Bed
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.trains
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Date:
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Fri, 14 Oct 2005 20:12:26 GMT
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Viewed:
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1920 times
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In lugnet.trains, John Neal wrote:
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A while ago, some were asking for details as to how we “detailed” our tracks,
especially the curves and points. I had a lot of free time this weekend, and
I decided to get some pics taken (unfortunately, all of our points are still
packed at the clubhouse and so I didn’t have one around to shoot)
Anyway, these pics
should give you a good idea how Ross did it. The secret is in making the
ballast the same color as the dark gray LEGO ties (sleepers), so that it all
“blends in” and you can’t tell the difference between the two. I saw how the
GMLTC used “speckled” ballast, but the relative size of each “speckle” (a 1x1
plate) was too large IMO to create a truly “random feel” to the ballast and
so I stuck with a uniform color, and added the black tiles to create more of
a realistic look for the track.
The other secret is that every other 1x4 black tile “floats” on one end,
resting on the edge of a tie, and covering nicely the gap underneath it.
Again, it is hard to explain, but the pics pretty much speak for themselves.
Once I retrieve a point, I’ll shoot some pics-- even I haven’t examined
them all that closely, as Ross handled that job, too. (I did all of the
straights:-))
HTH,
JOHN
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I’ve fed these ideas into my melting pot of track bed plans.
I’m building 12-14 wide trackbeds for a new modular scenic layout. I began with
the packs of grey and dark grey plates, one pack doing either one straight plus
one curve or one switch point. Seeing the tile sleepers confirmed my suspicions
that more detail was needed. However I initially thought that black sleepers on
their own would be just like 16.5mm gauge track without the ballast, so I needed
to work on that in order to show that the sleeper scheme was feasible for my new
layout.
I’ve been developing different shades of track bed and experimenting with
different sleeper colours: grey = concrete, dark grey = steel, black = wood.
In the first experiment I built 2-straight samples showing a range of grey
shades with each colour of sleepers. From these I think the black tile sleepers
go best with most shades of track bed, grey tile sleepers are good when the
track bed is dark grey through to black, though solid black track bed is rarely
found on the main line where concrete sleepers would most likely be on UK
railways. Dark grey sleepers are OK with light grey ballast but tend to lose
contrast more easily as the shade darkens. So ‘black sleepers are most
versatile’ is the conclusion of the sleeper colour experiment.
The second experiment was to try the sleeper shades with some tan in the mix.
I’ve noticed that many UK track beds are not pure shades of grey, yet tan is not
too rich a colour to introduce. I built 2-straight samples with each sleeper
colour and the same range of shades but with 25% tan 1x1s (one every 4L along
the track, adjacent rows offset by 2L). This gave a similar result to the first
experiment but also showed that 12.5% is probably enough tan.
The third experiment was to make a more extensive set of samples with black
sleepers, to check that shades from light grey through dark grey to black work
well.
I began introducing the darker shades into the middle of the track, since oil
and ash (from steam engines) is dropped in the middle and the darker shades tend
to spread out from there. This trend was gleaned from a study of many photos in
a UK railway magazine. In my samples, the darker shades spread out till the 4ft
is all dark grey and the 6ft is still light grey. This continues to the ends of
the sleepers and then black is introduced into the middle. There is always a
dark grey plate between each black plate and each light grey plate so that the
change of shade is not too sudden.
I’ve built 22 1-straight pieces of different shades from light grey to black,
with room for a few more as I missed out 3/4 black a couple of times. The idea
is that clean, freshly laid ballast would be light grey all over but a yard with
lots of ash would be black all over.
The next stage will be to count the parts used for each 1-straight single shade
sample in order to work out what I need to buy to build the layout with 560
straights and 200 curves!
Mark
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Message has 1 Reply:
Message is in Reply To:
 | | TCLTC Style Track Details
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| A while ago, some were asking for details as to how we "detailed" our tracks, especially the curves and points. I had a lot of free time this weekend, and I decided to get some pics taken (unfortunately, all of our points are still packed at the (...) (19 years ago, 6-Jun-05, to lugnet.trains, FTX)
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