Railroad Terrain and Terrain Maker Hexes

[BurtWolf]

I'm starting to build railroad terrain hexes, and need a little advice. I purchased a bag of Hornby Planning track which roughly equates to scale and is made of solid plastic. I wish to mount this to the hexes, and was wondering if I had any other option than the regular white glue? Should I consider using anything else barring stuff that would degrade the Styrofoam? I wanted to have a raised rail bed to form a line of sight obstacle, but I may just have to make that implied. I would love to see any terrain people of done with rail lines to give me food for thought. Thanks.

[PolishGI]

You will most likely have to raise them up a bit for the track ballast. I think I used a thin piece of form underneath (1/4 inch maybe?) and the flocked it. But they did not turn out too bad. I used z-gauge track which apparently is now similar to the price of gold. Thankfully, I have a father who is still into railroading and finds sections here and there of foot long flexible track for me cheap.

Instead of carving the foot long sections of track into pieces, I am just using three four inch hexes to fit the piece of track. I carve out the hexes so its one solid piece. I have one or two three hex sections for turns in the track. Everything else is straight. I find most of the tracks I use are straight sections with the off chance of a single turn on the board.

Hope this helps for an idea for you.

[BurtWolf]

That's awesome, thanks for posting pics as well. I am afraid to put in a rail bed lest it get too high. 1/4" seems tall - is that the height of your rail bed? I like your way of doing it, I thought about just flying 4 hexes together at a time for the straight runs.

I have a small rail yard I want to fight over so that will encompass some hexes too. And I want to build a road crossing or two.

[kiasutha]

You might want to consider the new Z-scale flex track made by Atlas.
My favorite model RR supplier, "MB Klein" in Balto. has it for $4.50 per 24" section.
Retail is about 6 bucks per, which still isn't too bad...
"Micro-Trains" also has Z sectional track and turnouts, already mounted on roadbed / low embankment, as does Japanese firm "Rokuhan"...

[BurtWolf]

Good suggestions! I assumed z scale track would be too expensive but that's not too bad... I'm into this Hornsby track for about $30 so I'd prefer to use it. But it is molded plastic- painting and flocking will be a pain.

So on the z scale track for you guys who have used it- how do you secure it to styrofoam? Bother painting ties or tails?

[BurtWolf]

Here are my near finished pieces using the Hornsby track, freight yard needs extra work and not sure what texture to go with (planning to add stacks of junk normally found in a yard):

[7.62]

That works out really well.
When I finally get around to building a port area that may work for me.
Cheers.