Cheap railway track

[Patrice]

For a recent game I've been working with cheap plastic railway tracks, 2.4 cm gauge (made by Fenfa or other Chinese companies).

I cut the extremities and I quickly made a 6 mm thick polystyrene ballast and covered it with white wall coating. It still needs to be improved, I intended to glue decorative sand to look like ballast gravel ...but as the game was intended to take place on a snowy landscape I didn't do that yet; I'll probably do it later for other portions.



I still should reshape the extremities so they would fit better together.

The only slightly annoying thing is that I have too many curved tracks now, because miniature toy trains are intended to run on circular or oval layouts! 

[voltan]

Good work, it's damned useful that fenfa track, I've got a pile of it waiting for me to do summat with it.

[Patrice]

Thanks.

I bought some more on eBay as I needed more, they are not as cheap as they were about 12 years ago.

[HerbertTarkel]

I just found a set of a train with a liquids car, and a circular track in pieces, all one piece cast track.

$5 Canadian for the set! I wish there were straight pieces of track, I would buy more.

[jon_1066]

Good idea.  For something slightly more authentic paint the rail rusty brown then just paint the top silver.  The sides tend to rust and only the running surface stays fresh.  The sleepers would also be wooden (probably with some sort of treatment) in this sort of period and location so you could just splodge the whole thing dirty brown then pick out the rail tops. 

[Doug ex-em4]

This reminds that I’ve got a cheap, battery-drive train set I bought years ago because the track looks about right. I must do something with it and this topic inspires me to get on with it.

So thanks for the inspiration.

Doug

[Patrice]

I just found a set of a train

Good, but did you check the size? They come in all scales now (including some almost 1/87) and often the sellers don't understand it themselves.

[Patrice]

For something slightly more authentic paint the rail rusty brown then just paint the top silver.  The sides tend to rust and only the running surface stays fresh.  The sleepers would also be wooden (probably with some sort of treatment) in this sort of period and location so you could just splodge the whole thing dirty brown then pick out the rail tops.

Thanks, yes I should colour the rail sides better, the silver paint on the top ran a bit. I did put some light brown paint on the wooden sleepers but not enough.

[Jemima Fawr]

Thanks, yes I should colour the rail sides better, the silver paint on the top ran a bit. I did put some light brown paint on the wooden sleepers but not enough.

It depends how recently they've had trains over them.  The rail-tops will turn a light yellowish-orange with rust within the first 24 hours of not being used (quicker if wet and then dried) and then a more deeper rust-orange-brown within a week or two, depending on how damp the air is.  The sides and base of the rails, the sleepers and the ballast within about 12 inches of the rail are always generally a dark, crappy rust-brown from what's known as 'brake-dust' (i.e. iron oxide particulates) and any point-works are invariably blackened by the grease used to lubricate the points.

(32 years working for the railway and I'm looking out of my 'office window' at the rails as I write this... While also painting Hanoverian Gardes du Corps...)