Building The Correct Track

Building the Iron Horse's Road

While many children want video games, skateboards, or whatever is considered trendy growing up, I was different, as the reader probably can tell if they've made it this far. I solute your perseverance. One Christmas, all the children at my local school were begging their parents for a Gameboy Color. When asked that year what I wished for Christmas one day over breakfast, I calmly told my parents the only thing I wanted was an example of early American strap rail and a new blue sweater. I am still looking for an example of strap rail, but that year I was given the blue sweater I requested and a fastening nail for strap rail from the New Castle and Frenchtown Railroad in Delaware circa the 1830s. This embarked me on a long career of getting permission from landowners or the railroad to have Dad, with the truck, drive me to the spots most likely to find old railroad rail and spikes. See part of my efforts in the picture above. My ultimate goal was to have a complete collection for my trains. I'm still working on it.

The Iron Roads of the early railroad time periods had a dizzying array of ways to build track. One of the first types used stone sleepers, like the picture below left, that shows U-Rail. This was very advantageous in the 1830s and '40s, as early railroads started with horse-drawn cars, the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad being an early example. The horses had a path free to walk on inside of the tracks. This style was replaced with wood ties instead of stone blocks in the 1840s with the transition from horse to steam. The photograph to the bottom right shows both T- Rail and Pear Rail with wood ties being used on the same line. Recreating the correct light rail that the Pocomtuc Creek would have used will not be an easy task.

Early American Rail started with strap rail. This is nothing more than a wooden plank used as the rail itself with a thin piece of iron bolted or nailed along the top to prevent the wood wearing down too quickly. While this sufficed for the 1830s, extremely light trains, railway technology quickly outstripped its use. The extreme last examples were on southern railroads during the Civil War. However, most railroads stopped using this rail by the late 1840s. By the middle to late 19th century, railroads began to use U-Rail, which could now be made in the United States and did not have to be imported from England. All iron rails were imported in the 1830s, but American manufacturing and production quickly began to produce "rolled" rail in the 1840s. From 1840 until 1860, different types of rail with different weights were used across the United States and 40-pounds per yard was popular during the 1840s. However, pear rail and T-rail were the most popular. Iron manufacturing fortunes were made on producing railroad rail. Just like strap rail, though, iron was also eventually phased out. By the 1870s, 4-6-0s and larger locomotives began replacing the traditional 4-4-0 American-style locomotives. Goods transported skyrocketed and weights of railroad cars began to double or quadruple from the 1850s, so new rail weights had to be introduced and 65-pound per yard rail was very popular for the time. Also, steel rails began to be produced, which were much stronger than iron.

The picture above shows typical railroad track of 1900. As technology continued to advance, the weight of trains still continued to increase. This meant that railroad rail weights had to increase to cope with the stress placed upon them. Eighty pounds plus for rail was required and by 1900, steel rails had almost virtually replaced iron rails. T-rail had completely taken over production, with pear rail being phased out in the 1870s-1880s. Hand-forged spikes were replaced by machine-made spikes to hold the rails down and hand-cut ties of a rough nature were completely replaced by many railroads to standard-sized ties.

The Pocomtuc Creek Railroad is set in the year 1910. Standard model railroad rail is oversized to scale proportions by some companies and other companies produce modern sized rail. Today, rail weighs between 112 and 145 pounds per yard in the United States. One hundred and fifty-five pound rail was used by the Pennsylvania Railroad post World War II. That weight per yard is the heaviest ever used in the United States. Since the railroad is set in 1910, most of the rail used will be 1890s-1900 style. Looking at photographs and picture postcards and consulting engineering plans, code 55 rail will be used to simulate the lightweight rail of the day. This rail will have to be hand laid to give it the correct look and proportions. This is going to be an interesting and fun challenge. Luckily, because of space and budget reasons, the Pocomtuc Creek will not be a very large layout, so this task does not seem as daunting. However, for an older section of abandoned track, I would like to replicate the 1830s stone sleeper design. Luke Towhan has an amazing YouTube channel for model railroads and model scenery. Please see the link on our links page. In one of his videos, he creates his own flex track by 3D printing the ties and using N-scale rail. I hope one day to try this on a 12-inch section to show as a historical/conversation piece.

Step 1 Lay the track.

I wanted a track that says, "I have been neglected and here for a while." This adds to the visual aesthetic and realism for a small, rarely used siding. This is an experiment and my first time hand-laying track. This track will be the worst on the layout. A small disused siding near Dunwich. The ties are made by MT. Albert. They are made from white pine. I cut, nicked, and shaved to match the decrepit look. The old, bent rail was scrounged from a friend's dust bin. They were spiked down with Peco IL-13 spikes.

Step 2 Spray paint black evenly.

The undercoat is a very light Elmer's white glue watered down. Then, standard Testors flat black gets sprayed on after the glue has dried.

Step 3 Paint and ballast.

The ties were painted saddle brown. They are old and water damaged. The rails/spikes were painted black/gunmetal/1drop of blue mixed. This replicates old iron rail. The dirt is painted flat earth mixed with just a hint of mud brown. I used cheap dollar store "black sand" that is the perfect size for ballast with watered down Emler's glue to fix it in place. This is old slag/culm stone from the old mine above the spur.

Step 4 Add grass.

I glued down 4 types of leftover static grass from my wargaming packs. They were added in no particular order, just trying to spread out the colors. This makes it look wild as it shows the variety in nature. Forebodingly surrounded by old growth trees and grasses, Dunwich is just a little marsh-like as it is close to the river.