The James River Branch Z Scale Model Railroad: Roads

Roads, Part 1 of 2

Realistic roads go a long way to heightening overall layout realism. But roads often get neglected, I think because modelers don't know how to model them either from a design standpoint, or a materials standpoint, or both.

How wide are roads, anyway? If you research this topic, you'll find there are really no universal standards. Various state and local municipalities may post guidelines, but you'll also find a myriad of variations in real life, from narrow, white-knuckle country roads to generous, multi-lane urban thoroughfares. Road dimensions will vary according to age, budget, traffic, and special needs such as turn lanes, shoulder parking and so on. Pay attention to the roads you drive on, and you'll get more than enough ideas.

I'll start with about an inch (18 scale feet) for a typical little country road or narrow side street, and work up from there; I keep a few Z scale vehicles on hand while I'm designing my roads to make sure things stay believable-looking.

What to use for a road paving material is a Frequently Asked Question often posed by modelers, and you'll get nearly as many different recommendations as responses. For my N scale layouts, I used my own concoction of 50-50 Sculptamold and Hydrocal, tinted with black powder dye. The Sculptamold extends the working time of the Hydrocal, and gives it a nice texture.

I wasn't too sure about using my "special mix" for the James River Branch, however; the texture was probably too coarse for Z scale, and I'd be working in some extremely tight little corners. I was also faced with a number of road-oriented challenges, including a grade crossing through a turnout, moving traffic, an entire town that's removable, and others.

So, for absolute control, I decided this time I'd try sheet styrene... only I'd use black styrene instead of white. Why black? After all, roads aren't black; they're grey. What I liked was the idea of having black underneath the grey paint, so that if the paint was scratched or worn, I wouldn't have bright white showing through. (The exception would be areas modeled as concrete instead of blacktop, where I'd switch to white.)

Black styrene is not easy to find—I've never seen it in a hobby or craft shop. But, as it happens, I found an online source back when I built the roadbed for this layout, and I'd ordered a couple of different thicknesses to have on hand (not knowing what other applications it might serve). The .030 sheet seemed perfect for road surfaces; indeed, I could give it a perfect crown by just bending it with my fingers.

The road is marked out by tracing along the edges of a piece of masking tape.

The back of the styrene part has a relief to clear the tie ends at the crossing.

The road is spray painted grey and stripes are added before installation.

The special sanded caulk mixture is applied to the layout.

The caulk is shaped along the edges to simulate the shoulder.

Powdered chalk weathering is applied to complete the road.

To establish the road, I traced along the edges of a strip of masking tape with a pencil. Then, to make all of the oddly-shaped pieces needed, I made paper templates, and traced them onto the styrene with a sharp knife. I cut the sides of the road parts on an angle to simulate the slope of the edge of the blacktop. The road surface was sanded and distressed, then sprayed with a couple of shades of primer gray, followed by the ubiquitous India ink wash.

Road stripes turned out to be much easier with styrene streets, since they could be painted before the roads were installed (making road stripes in situ is not fun, I can tell you). I simply used masking tape to outline the stripes, and lightly sprayed them with various intensities of white and yellow to represent variations in wear.

Installing the roads provided an opportunity for some added realism. Roads are built up in layers, and so I attempted to model the type of macadam used for the lower layers, which is a blacktop material that's higher in aggregate (gravel) and lower in binder (asphalt); this can often be seen along the edges of a road, and it's sometimes used for a shoulder as well. I started with a material I'd tested for use as a blacktop, but rejected due to the amount of effort that would have been required to shape the surface: sanded caulk.

Sanded caulk is sold as a substitute for standard tile grout; it differs from regular caulk in that it has a much longer open time, so it can be "finessed" for a longer period. It comes in pale colors like tan and grey, which were too light for this application, so I added some black and brown powdered dye; I also threw in some Z scale ballast to give it a little more texture.

I applied a glob to the layout, pressed the styrene road part into it, then carefully shaped the caulk along the shoulders with a knife. Once the caulk was cured, I weathered the road with powdered chalk: black along the center of the travel lanes for oil grime, and tan along the shoulders for mud and dirt. For added detail, I used a fresh Sharpie to simulate tar sealant, and a nearly-dead Sharpie to make a few skid marks.

Continue to Roads, Part 2
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