Roadbed

For my Circus Layout I used Noch Merkur Roadbed.  But this seemed to give a roadbed thicker than I really wanted.  This time I decided to try AMI Instant N&Z Roadbed - a product which already contains ballast and which comes as a flexible putty-like strand.

Unfortunately, my Instant N&Z Roadbed was backordered by Internet Trains, and still had not come after waiting a month.  I was told that the AMI product was backordered from several other sources too.  I tried calling AMI's 800 number and got a message saying that the number no longer worked. One dealer said they thought that AMI had gone out of business.  Another said they hadn't, but didn't know why they couldn't be contacted.  So much for AMI Instant N&Z Roadbed.  It looked like it would have been an ideal product.

I then got the idea that perhaps weather stripping, in the form of "rope caulk" might also work.  It is flexible and adhesive - it sounded a lot like the Instant Roadbed, but it didn't come with ballast.  So I got a box of Ace Rope Caulk Weatherstrip from Timmins Hardware (for $1.99, as compared with $16.16 for the AMI product!)

I did a test with a little rope caulk and a piece of Z scale track and decided that two strands, as opposed to three, would work fine.  Now that I've actually tried it, I think three would have been better.  The track was almost too wide for just two strands.

Anyhow, I laid two strands around the roadway, pressed it into place, and then beveled the edges with my fingers.

I soldered the wire for the electrical leads to the track between the two bridges, then filed off excess solder to make the track level.  I tested the track with a locomotive and everything was fine.

I poked holes through the foam with one of my jeweler's screw drivers and ran the wires down and under the layout, then pressed the track down firmly into the rope caulk.

Using a teaspoon, I sprinkled a little excess of Woodland Scenics light gray Fine Ballast along the roadway, an inch and a half or so at a time.  I pressed the ballast into the rope caulk along each side and between the rails with my fingers.

After finishing, I turned the layout upside down and tapped the foam so that excess ballast would fall off and onto a newspaper.  Some of the ballast was caught in the turf, so I used a paint brush to dislodge what I could.  Not all could be dislodged.  So there will just have to be a little ballast in the grass along the roadway. I used some green paint to hide some of the loose ballast.