In another post a little while ago, I showed you how you could make Peco (and probably other manufacturers too) turnouts more reliable.
This time, I'll share with you a simple technique that will help in making your factory made track look more realistic.
It takes a little time and patience, but it isn't difficult.
If you turn a piece of track upside down, you'll see small pieces of plastic that hold the ties together.
These are there to make the track a bit more strong, but they also make it look more solid and unrealistic, there is no such support on real track. If you have a large layout then the following might take a lot of time, but if your layout is smaller, or if you have no problems in spending more time, then the following is a good thing to do.
Take a sharp knife (be careful obviously), and cut away these small interconnecting pieces of plastic.
The ties now are all loosely connected to the rail. Do this on a stable underground, as you don't want to break the plastic 'spikes' that hold the ties to the rail.
If you then look at it from the top you'll notice that this gives the track a more realistic appearance, there is 'air' below the rail and between two ties.
The picture to the left illustrates the effect well.
Now depending on what kind of track you model, on a piece of flex track you could remove a few ties, and be able to slide the ties a bit more uneven, with some larger gaps in between some of them, giving the impression of older, less maintained secondary trackage.
Obviously that's not something you'd see on a well maintained mainline, but an industrial area, or rail yard could see this quite easily.
This time, I'll share with you a simple technique that will help in making your factory made track look more realistic.
It takes a little time and patience, but it isn't difficult.
If you turn a piece of track upside down, you'll see small pieces of plastic that hold the ties together.
These are there to make the track a bit more strong, but they also make it look more solid and unrealistic, there is no such support on real track. If you have a large layout then the following might take a lot of time, but if your layout is smaller, or if you have no problems in spending more time, then the following is a good thing to do.
The ties now are all loosely connected to the rail. Do this on a stable underground, as you don't want to break the plastic 'spikes' that hold the ties to the rail.
If you then look at it from the top you'll notice that this gives the track a more realistic appearance, there is 'air' below the rail and between two ties.
 |
| Left: track after cutting , Right: Original track |
Now depending on what kind of track you model, on a piece of flex track you could remove a few ties, and be able to slide the ties a bit more uneven, with some larger gaps in between some of them, giving the impression of older, less maintained secondary trackage.
Obviously that's not something you'd see on a well maintained mainline, but an industrial area, or rail yard could see this quite easily.
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