Shinkansen track types over the years?

[Martijn Meerts]

Since my helix is looking like it might be completed track wise in not all that long (we're still taking weeks of course), I've started thinking about the main station. Now, since I'm using Peco code 55, I want to stick with that so I can't/don't want to really use either Kato or Tomix viaduct/slab track.

 

Since I do want the track to be at least a little bit prototypical, I was wondering, what type of track/sleepers has the shinkansen used over the years? I'm probably mostly aiming at the track that was in use around the time of the privatisation of JNR.

 

The general idea of the station (shinkansen wise), is to have 4 through track for 16-car shinkansen, and 1 stub track for shorter ones (max 8 cars I guess). The station will be elevated, I guess that might affect the track type somewhat as well.

 

I've done some image searching, and found lots and lots of stuff, just that none of them really have any clear description of what track was commonly used where and when :)

 

[kvp]

Since you are limited to peco code 55, the only two coices are wood and concrete sleepers. From this, only the concrete sleeper is viable and you can basically do two things with it. Either embedd it in ballast or fix it on top of concrete slabs. The oldest shinkansen routes used both between 1964 and 1987. For elevated tracks, both types were used, the ballasted variant in concrete viaducts and the ballastless directly fixed onto the concrete panels. If you want to add peco turnouts too, you can paint the black sleepers either concrete gray or composite light brown. (very much like the Kato double track single crossovers look like) The latter might be better as you don't have to match the gray color of the concrete sleepers. For ballast color, you can use fresh gray or rusty reddish brown and almost any mix of these two, but i would avoid adding black.

 

ps: There are other track types in use, but they are harder to model with peco tracks and i don't really see them on older pictures. The only thing i would add is that i would try to use the longest available code 55 electrofrog turnouts only.

[Martijn Meerts]

I'm not really limited to wooden or concrete sleepers, since if needed to get a more or less "correct" look, I'll have stuff laser cut and/or 3d printed. It's going to be a lot of work (and probably rather expensive), but the shinkansen tracks will only really be visible around the main station, so it'd be doable. But the older pictures do seem to show mostly standard concrete sleepers, sometimes even wooden sleepers.

 

For the visible turnouts on the shinkansen line, it'll be Peco's widest radius electrofrogs, apart from some smaller ones that go to MOW storage tracks if I decide to add those.