Really nice use of grass. H0 scale, I know, but it is very realistic. :thumbs_up: I am fearful of getting the grass in my engine gears in N scale, so I tend to put all the grass outside of the rails.
If you use the fine green turf of Woodland Scenics, there should be no problem. I have no grass in my engines.
Sorry - don't have a picture But it truly is just as it sounds - a big pile of dirt covered with weeds. Andrew
Here is a prototype I saw the other day. It is one single rail on one side stacked on top of the track. Simple and, I would think, not very effective. Prototypical, though. I'm not sure how it could get more simple than that. The ties don't show much, either.
Some great photos but I have a slightly different request. How do people model a track that goes off the edge of a layout? In my case I am doing a 6' switching layout where a track continues off both the left and right sides. I'm not sure how to keep the trains from going off the side while still having it look like the tracks continue on.
Plexiglas? Or, you can build a grade crossing at the very end and embed a hidden wheel stop into the crossing so no trains go off.
I've seen small mirrors used effectively in cases like this. Mirrors can be placed at the far (non-visible) side of a roadway bridge crossing above the end of the tracks, or at the end of the track totally surrounded by trees and shubbery so that it appears the track goes unseen into deep woods. A mirror, however it is mounted, forms a barrier preventing cars from taking the ultimate plunge to the floor.
SOMETHING better stop the cars before they go off into the channel! I had been wanting to buy SOMETHING from a little train store I found after being without a train store within 200 miles for several years. They didn't have much I "needed" (more cars and locos are a bit redundant when I have many and haven't had time to get layout operating). But they had Walthers bumpers, a set of 5 and I had exactly 5 dead-end spurs in my open staging yard. If the spurs ended in an open field, the port terminal switching railroad might have used something cheaper and less formal, like a pile of dirt behind a pile of ties. But at this location... "Wheel slips sink ships!"
thanks for bringing this thread back. the more i get into what i want to build, the more amazed i am that real life railroads are way more intereresting than i thought :thumbs_up:
Thought I'd add my scratch built bumpers to the list. Made from a small nail, sequin, and two small pieces of styrene. Brian
Concrete Bumping Post In a book titled 'Notes on track: Construction and maintenance pub 1904 it has a concrete bumping post used by the C.R.I. & P.R.R. .. THIS was made to stop a train for sure! The pic fro the left is from the book. The center pic shows the text from the book that gives a pretty good description. The drawing is taken from that. On the right is my interpretation of this.
Apologize, can't post pictures but years of railfanning, especially outside of cities, leads me to believe (and recall since this was the 50s/60s) about 95% plus of end-of-track devices were a 4 to 6 ft. high mound of dirt covered with weeds. I duplicate this with a "glob" of plaster or Structa Mold, seome brown and green paint and the "scraggliest" weeds I can find.
I'm surprised I've not seen anyone do this : I take one set of wheels out of old trucks ( usually Bettendorfs ) ,turn it upside down with wheels facing toward train, not toward end. You can anchor it several ways and make believe RR has welded it to rails..You can put a screw or nail right through center hole and then hide this any way you like. I've never seen this on the prototypes but I'll bet it's been done..I think I have seen wheels welded to rails. But I like the truck frame there because the other end without wheels digs into the ballast ahead of last cross-ties. Sorry, no pics . But it's a no-brainer anyway....Mark
Looks nice, and effective too. Is that broom straw or the WS product that's essentially died stiff horsehair (whose actual name escapes me)?
The "weeds" are dyed, heavy duty 100% jute twine. Cheap everywhere. I dye it with various colors of Rit Dye. I mostly use various green shades but I have black and browns, too. Tie it into three strands about one foot long and untwist the ends so the individual threads show. Put a glob of white glue on the scenery and stick the jute into the glue. Then I cut the jute the length desired with scissors. I think this is also the Woodland Scenics method for applying their grass, too. I do sometimes include the Woodland Scenics field grass for variety. I have never tried to cut a lot of the jute and use it as static grass. I think it would probably work. I may have a picture on here somewhere. Here it is. Each of these is a different color.
