Download - O scale trains

Building a Small O Scale Layout
Part Sixteen
Michael Culham
In the last part of my series, I showed you how to build a
grade crossing. As I mentioned, the purpose of a grade crossing
is so that roadways can cross the railway. In these next two
articles (since you’ll need roadways), I’ll show you how I make
paved roads on my layout. I have tried several different methods
of making paved roads over the years and have found this one
works the best for me. Here is a list of materials that I use.
0.040” Styrene Sheet (for the road surface and sidewalks)
0.040” x 0.125” Styrene Strip (for the gutters)
0.060” x 0.125” Styrene Strip (for the curb)
0.080” x 0.125” Styrene Strip (for the sidewalk supports)
Polly Scale UP Harbor Mist Gray Paint
Polly Scale Concrete Paint
With all these materials at hand, let’s start making paved
roadways. Figure 1 shows where all these materials are used
and how.
1
2
3
Making a Paved Roadway
In Photo 1, you can see that I have finished the road in the
foreground up to the grade crossing. We still have road to make
on the other, though. Photo 2 shows the finished product. The
first thing you’ll need to do is mark out where the road will go
(Photo 3). Because the road is running up to the grade crossing,
I had to install supports to change the elevation. These are made
of pieces of tie material (Photo 4) that are glued in place with
white glue. Once the glue is dry, we can go onto the next step.
The average width of a traffic lane in a road is about 12' (or
26 • O Scale Trains - July/August ’07
three inches in O Scale). A piece of 0.040” styrene sheet is 6” x
12”, which works out perfectly for our two-lane road. I place a
sheet where the road will go, then mark where the grade crossing
is using that handy curve template. Scribe along the line
and then break off the excess. Glue the sheet in place using