Roads for your Model Railroad Layout or Diorama, The SMARTT Way

Almost every model railroad has villages and towns spotted across its landscape. What lends an air of reality to these features is the road work connecting them, turning a bunch of houses and shops and industrial structures into a living town that is a part of a larger world.  It may be tempting to just slap a coat of black paint on the bare wood of your tabletop layout surface and call it done, but the process involved in making a visually appealing road is not difficult or expensive. Many roads are asphalt based and this is an easy way for model railroaders to connect their towns.

I wrote this column for our December newsletter, http://www.smarttinc.com/content/newsletter-december-2011 , free for everyone to read and enjoy.

Step 1 Sketch out the road

Let’s focus on a road across a relatively flat area. Draw your road to connect the two points you want to connect on the surface of your layout.  If your layout is an open grid (no hard surface except under the tracks), you will need to attach a flat substrate like plywood, preferably screwing it into place with flat head screws that will sink flush to the layout’s surface. Don’t use something that will flex easily. Make your road as wide as you need using a scale vehicle for reference. A lane of traffic will be about 20 percent wider than a car. Multiply this by the number of lanes you want your road to have.  A meandering country road may have only one or two lanes. A highway would have more. You can also leave space on a city street for a parking lane on one or both sides of the street. Add a little extra width to your country roads to allow for a dirt shoulder. For this instructable, we'll make a sample road.

Comments

[Bosun Rick]

In step 8, if the painted surface is damaged, or comes up, you might consider doing a little 'Dept of Transportation' repair using more of the asphalt paint to put in 'tar strip' repairs just like the real world. a hypodermic syringe will make this easier to accomplish, and add even more realism

[SMARTTinc]

Absolutely! Real roads are seldom uniform.Nice tip.

[William930]

awesome! you should post an instructable for the stonework above the red truck in the first picture.

[Penolopy Bulnick]

I love models! I always thought they looked like so much fun!

[mrmath]

I came here to declare SPAM, but found a well written instructable by a company that isn't pushing its wares at us. Nice job.