laying tracks a bit differently

[worldrailboy]

I don't know if this isn't the first time its been thought of but I was actually thinking about laying the track down onto the [existing] top-flattered ballast rather than the usual other way around where its track hammered down directly to the wood or cork first then the ballast added on afterward

that would probably make it a bit more interesting to give the tracks a slight irregular profile rather than looking too super-level.  hey if anyone tries cranking the throttle up to full speed the poor crew inside the cabs are going to get lightly slammed around!!!

I'm not saying that the track would be rough that only slow locomotioves can safely operate over it but still at same time that it doesn't look like it would had been an easy-going 120kph line

another way I guess you could put it is to lay a rear-facing camera wagon in front of the locomotive with its headlight on then let it run. you'll be noticing that not just the scenary to the sides are moving but even the headlight itself also seem to be moving in limited irregular circular motion a bit slowly all the times

[Bernard]

I'm not sure if I'm following you, worldrailboy....are you saying start with the pre-existing ballast from a previous layout with the track now removed and putting a new track on top? If so, I think it would be very hard to match the track ties up with the old ballast. Is this what you're describing? 

[cteno4]

i guess if you wanted irregular track you could lay down a layer of plaster or ballast first then put the flex track on top then ballast. this would give you that older irregular track height and if you also did a little side to side wandering you would get that bobbing around that the train would take. track in this sort of state would probably have pretty slow running trains.

i think, though, if you want this level of old and weary track you would probably want to move to hand laying track so you could do more irregular ties and weather them a lot before laying them. then probably working with maybe latex caulking or something a little flexible to give you a bit more irregular bed to your road bed then lay the ties on that, lay rails and then ballast. laying your track on top of something really hard will probably make a lot more noise. also using matte medium instead of white glue helps make a tad more flexible road bed thats easier to modify later and some think makes much quieter train running.

cheers

jeff

[worldrailboy]

jeff I wasn't too sure how to say it at first but thanks for your suggestion, think its something I could consider doing. aaside to that I'll have to mull it over a bit on the track handlaying part

edit: should I add that the part of having to run a bit slower was a side effect I wanted? I couldn't imagine a visiting driver sending the poor KIHA unit off the track into the thick trackside bush because he was being incompetence at thinking that he could just hold the throttle all the way open to get to the station a bit faster?   (but at same time keeping it smooth enough that even a stiff 3-coupled steam locomotive would not have any trouble with it)

mind you I used to have one tight curve with flextrack on a 4x8 layout near the fixed turntable pit some time ago and a trix 2-10-0 steamer [that used to work at the time] could take it if it went at a steady pace but as soon as you ran it fast...watch out it'll end up all the way off the track upsidedown, tender including

[worldrailboy]

just thought I'll reply with one more thing

http://img2.blogs.yahoo.co.jp/ybi/1/e0/35/br1020er/folder/234454/img_234454_20590500_0?1283260502

was catching up on the blog photo gallery finally and found this which pretty much shows one kind of track condition I was thinking about, not superlevel like just about almost every single model layouts are but not too warped neither

[disturbman]

Problem to access the image, can you give a link to the correct blog page instead?

[cteno4]

looks like they just blocked the deeplink to the photo, it worked just a bit ago. a number of the japanese blogs do this.

jeff