Cutting Unitram Plates

[keiichi77]

I finally received some Unitram plates to experiment with.  I like the overall appearance of the plates for my urban area but didn't like the fact that all the roads using the plates would be either 4 lanes or 4 lanes plus trams. The standard plate below is great for a main road but I don't think every road on my layout should be 4 lanes, time for some hacking.

 

 

I placed a scale ruler against the raised curb and sliced off a lane on the roads that I wanted to narrow. This worked out great as the ruler was the perfect width to remove the lane marking, these will not be needed on the majority of my cut plates as the Unitram track pieces have a solid white line for lane marking on the outer edges.

 

 

By cutting off the outer lane you loose the tabs that connect it to the Unitram track but this will not be an issue once I glue everything down. Here is a 2 lane road.

 

 

And here is a 4 lane road with tram turning into a 2 lane road with tram. This one was a little tricky, I clamped the Untram track down to the corner plate to get the correct curve so the track will still but up to it. I still have to trim the track back about an inch to line up with the plate edge so the sidewalks will line up on the next plate and so on. I will also have to paint over the section of crosswalk that is not lined up with corner and apply a new crosswalk. I am generally pleased with the results so far.

 

 

The left over lanes that I cut off will used on part of my layout on a road that will not have a sidewalk.

 

Edited November 19, 2016 by keiichi77