Joe Fugate's HO Siskiyou Line Model Railroad

I've tried many different ways of creating paved HO scale model roads. None works as well in my opinion as sheet styrene. I made Highway 42 shown here using .030 styrene sheet glued down with latex caulking.

To prepare the scenery area for the road, I cut a piece of thin cardboard in the shape of the road and taped it in place on the scenery form with masking tape. I made sure this subroad was about 1/4" below the final level of the styrene road surface. I plastered over the subroad with a couple layers of plaster and let it set overnight. Using the plaster, you can smooth out any unrealistic dips and bumps in the subroad to ensure the styrene road will flow smoothly over its bed.

The next day, I cut a final pattern for the road from thin cardboard. Make sure to cut it slightly oversize so you have material along the edges to trim in order to get a precise pattern for final fit. I placed the pattern on the subroad and trimmed the edges to the exact shape I wanted for my final styrene road. Using this final cardboard pattern, I laid it on the .030 styrene and cut out the road.

When gluing down the styrene with latex caulking, I use weights to ensure the styrene conforms to the subroad while the caulking sets.

After the latex caulking sets up, remove the weights and do a little additional plaster work along the edges of the road to create a realistic shoulder.

I painted my road with a slight brownish (very slight) gray mix of acrylic paint. I did not try to get the paint on smooth but deliberately streaked it in the direction of traffic. It took two-three coats of paint to cover the white styrene sheet and get a realistic color for a weathered asphalt road. Next, I masked and sprayed the lines on the road. Finally, I "weathered" the road lightly with dark gray and light tan chalks.

To blend the road in with the rest of the surrounding scenery, put some of your track ballast along the road to form a gravel shoulder, and glue it down just as you do your track ballast.

As I said in the beginning, I find I prefer sheet styrene for modeling HO scale roads because I think the results are quite realistic.

It does not take much of an imperfection in the roadway before it no longer looks realistic. And it takes a careful steady hand along with a critical eye to get a model roadway smooth enough using plaster to look correct.

On the other hand, modeling a roadway using styrene is almost too easy. The .030 thickness is stiff enough to smooth out unrealistic imperfections in the subroad, but still thin enough to flow realisticially up and down over terrain level changes.

As you can see from these pictures, the smooth, flowing nature of styrene is hard to beat for a simple but realistic asphalt highway. Yet you can also easily distress the syrene where you need to for chuckholes, cracks, seams, or other details you might want to add to your roadway.

Page last updated on December 31, 2004
E-mail:  siskiyou@railfan.net