Unitram alternates.

[Robsr]

Has anyone used conventional track for running teams rather than Unitram or Tomix?

I’ve got lots of old Unitrack and was looking to buy some Unitram for the urban areas of my layout but I’ve just found out that I can get an unlimited amount of foamboard off-cuts used for commercial signage.

I know it’ll be hard work cutting it to fit between the rails and especially the points but I’d like to know if anyone has done something similar as I’ve also got lots of Peco track I can use instead of Kato and it’s more readily available than Unitram at the moment.

Thanks. 
 

Edited March 15, 2023 by Robsr

[cteno4]

Robsr,

 

yes it’s hard fitting material up to the rails on curves to make street running pieces. I attempted it on my old 25mm streetcar Ttrak loop using a compass arm cutter, but with the odd track geometry of the old standard 25mm corners it did not work well enough. Second attempt was using xtrakcad cad printout and free hand cutting of 020 styrene top pieces and this worked better but still not as good as I wanted. My plan was to get a friend with a laser cutter to cut it for me but I got lazy and hid one 180 under an elevated station and just had the other end be a little jaunt into non street track. The between the track bits are actually a bit easier as you can cut them in track length pieces easily and a bit fat and just sand down perfect. It harder to do this with the outside pieces as they need to be bigger and somehow fit into the scene around the tracks.

 

I did think of just getting the outside support pieces sort of close and then try to cut a bitter thicker top printed piece right up to the railhead, but still tricky.

 

for straight it’s very easy. A piece of 3/16” foamcore makes a nice base. I lop the edge next to the track off at a 45 so it rests up against the side of the roadbed. On top of that I use the thin high density photo board, it’s about 030” thick. This can go over right up next to the side of the rails and rests on the outside spike heads. on top of that I laid down my printed streets printed on thin watercolor paper (denser stuff that gives just a tad of texture and less of a gloss than photo papers). For between the tracks a simple piece of 1/4” 060” styrene strip is perfect width between the inside spikes, give good flange path and is just a tad below the railhead. You want the rails to stick up just a bit as thinks will never be perfect in height and don’t want wheels lifted and tad of clearance at track junctions as they can torc slightly at times. On top of the 060 styrene I just laid down a strip of printed pavement or you can do fancier paving stances like some cities use right around the track.

 

it’s wonderful you have found a source for foamboards like that at the sinage shop! Lots of that will be the Syntra (pvc faced pvc foamcore) and it’s wonderful stuff. You can even thermoform it with hot water or a heat gun. They may also have ultraboard (styrene faced styrene foamcore), which is super stiff and light material. Sadly we use to have some places that would let you paw the scrap barrel around here, then they started to sell scraps (at very good per lb price), then they stopped and it all jsut gets recycled as too much trouble to sell it or let folks come in and rummage I guess.

 

cheers,

 

jeff

[railsquid]

FWIW I have this short section of 280mm Tomix curve embedded in a street:

 

engelscher-markt-2022-09-24_02 by Rail Squid, on Flickr

 

engelscher-markt-2023-02-04_01 by Rail Squid, on Flickr

 

However I used the base of the Tomix track as a cutting guide, which is close enough to the curve of the rail, but obviously that won'y be possible with Peco track.

[Robsr]

Jeff. Thanks for the information. 
mice had a word with my supplier and they’ve said they can get virtually any thickness of board and can also print any designs like cobbles onto it as well as laser cutting.

One thing they suggested was scanning each track piece and then laser cutting the board based on the original scan. 

[Robsr]

Railsquid. Thanks for the information and pics but whatever is possible with Tomix should also be possible with Peco. 

[cteno4]

that’s great! Yep Syntra comes in a lot of thicknesses. It’s also nice as it’s a bit flexible so if anything is out of complete flat it can bend a little. It also cuts easier than polystyrene and sawdust is not as skin irritating.
 

check out track planning software like xtrakcad as they can usually export files you could use for the beginning of your cut files. Also would be very easy to draw them in a drawing program as radiuses are set and just like 1mm fatter cuts.

 

cheers

 

jeff