Model Railroading > Street Trackage on the JSSX

Street running always seems to catch people's interest.

Back on the Aug 2nd I posted about my GP 38.  The engine was photographed sitting on a section of street trackage on my layout, and there were a couple of nice comments about the tracks in the street, as well as a question or two about how I did the pavement.  I also got some private messages about that as well, and requests to maybe see a bit more.

Looks like a quiet day here on the model railroading board, so in photos, here is how the whole thing more or less evolved over time on my layout.  Some of the buildings and stuff got shifted around a bit and added or subtracted as I figured out just how I wanted it all to operate and look.

Jim
https://jssxrailway.blogspot.com

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A couple more photos, including how the area looks today.

Thanks again for looking.

Jim
https://jssxrailway.blogspot.com

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Looks great! Apparently the pavement sits a bit below the railhead to clear the flanges and eliminates the need for flangeways?

Real nice.  Looks like the concrete paving contractor has been busy.

 The amount of time and thought (and maybe stress??) you put into this area was worth it!

Excellent work, thank you for sharing. I enjoy your posts.

Posted from iPhone

Beautiful work, Jim!  Thanks for the additional photos and inspiration.

Cheers,
Harry

That looks great. What's your track height from the floor here? I have not installed such on my layout and wonder what the optimum height is for viewing of street running (with buildings). It would seem the lower level of a double-deck layout would be the best.

Victor A. Baird
http://www.erstwhilepublications.com



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 08/25/19 15:48 by wabash2800.

Thanks all for looking in.  To answer the questions...

Yes, the styrene "concrete" between the rails sits a bit below the top of the rail.  I used .020 styrene for that to give clearance for the wheel flanges.  I thought about kind of double-layering the styrene to create flangeways, but the truth is that I just couldn't be bothered. Maybe one day, but it's really not in my plans to do so. There are some sections though where I used wall spackling between the rails and scraped out some along the inside edge of the rail.

Victor...the height is about 46 inches or so from the floor.  I have long regretted that I didn't build the whole thing higher at the outset.  The buildings would look a lot better and it would be a whole lot easier to get through the duck-under.

Jim

Looks excellent! And making it actually work reliably is another achievement.

Jimmies Wrote:
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> Victor...the height is about 46 inches or so from
> the floor.  I have long regretted that I didn't
> build the whole thing higher at the outset.  The
> buildings would look a lot better and it would be
> a whole lot easier to get through the duck-under.
>
> Jim

I tried 50 inches on my last layout and it seemed to be a good compromise between viewing angle and access and ability to work on.  That yard was 30 inches wide and I used a step stool a lot when working on the back areas.

I  noticed you used Homasote.  I like using it as well for yard areas although I had to level it but that wasn't too difficult and I like working with Homasote since I can spike track down.  That process is more forgiving vs. having to glue track down, assuming you need to make adjustments, which I have had to.

Cheers, Jim