Question is do you need to put down cork bed if the entire layout is an industrial setting (cement, asphalt, umber, brewing co) I have all the track temp laid down on 3/4 birch plywood. I also have a yard and I know no road bed in there. Just worried the layout will look strange transiting into the yard from other industries.
Heres an example from the LAJR (Los Angeles Junction Railway) notice how its really flat and little ballast? Sent from my SM-G920P using Tapatalk
After some years have passed, many industrial tracks ballast has become clogged with dirt and debris.
If you mean entire layout represents industries only, then correct, track can be flat on ply, but still with ballast as in J911's pics. You still might want to depict a main or secondary line that is up on higher ballast even if it's not powered, just to create a contrast. If you are HO, you can use N scale cork spread apart and glued down. When ready, simply fill gap with real soil after track is affixed. Ballast this too. This track could be live with a road switcher which spots or collects cars from the industries then disappears into a hidden staging track. Then at reachable end of this track you can 0-5-0 cars ( use your 5 fingers) when the hidden train comes back into view ( daily local ), and lift off all those cars and replace them with new cars enroute to the industries. This is especially good if you don't design a loop or 'continual' MRR, something I personally don't like, trains unrealistically going around room in a big circle.
I am building a HO industrial layout and I did not use any cork for the reasons mentioned, track is in very poor condition and usually at ground level, it is only mainline track that you would expect to see a formation that would require cork, you can see my layout by going to the HO forum and looking at riverbelt line
J911 & BoxcabE50 Modeling the LAJ layout but don't recognize that location. Is that on the Commerce side? My layout is on the Vernon side. LAJ's ballast looks more like Santa Fe had a ballast car or two they wanted to empty. LOL The only "roadbed" is few & far between. Mostly wherever there was a little drainage that flowed to the LA River. Maximum authorized speed has always been only 10 MPH! A conductor/engineer friend there says it's because of "harmonics".
That's Vernon. 46th street. Continues on into the power plant and breaks off down more. One other goes to the cement plant off Pacific. Sent from my SM-G920P using Tapatalk
J911 Added an aerial map of the LAJ in Vernon CA. It also shows the Santa Fe & UP tracks. Your LAJ track image may be along the Westinghouse Lead tracks. The DWP power plant is on the SE corner of 46th & Soto under the "W" in WESTINGHOUSE . Pacific Bl is just outside LAJ territory so LAJ couldn't go to the cement plant. But maybe Santa Fe did. Back in the day there was connection between Santa Fe's Vernon Team lead & LAJ along 46th St. It's the dashed line between the Vernon & Fruitland Teams on the map. Does the cement plant show on this map. It won't if it's west of the old Santa Fe Harbor District. Ken Johnson of Trak Works did the original aerial map. Charlie Slater retired LAJ, ATSF/BNSF conductor & modeler provided all the Switch Lead & other LAJ info. View attachment 161366
One quicky.. Add ballast after completing scenery in most places. Paint earth color on ply and on small plaster mounds here and there. Create greens/weeds, drainage, anything else earthwise you'd like around trackage. Then add ballast so that weeds look to be growing through it.
Anyone notice the switches have no guard rails ! I don't think we can get away with that in the model....
On my railroad I have the track (in HO) laid on N scale cork and foam roadbed for the main and yards for the main and yard, and the spurs are laid directly on the layout surface 1" foam).
