Roads for Cawood, Ky

I recently decided it was time to lay out the roads in the town of Cawood on my Harlan Sub layout. It is a fairly small town (10' long x 1' deep), which complicates the laying out of the roads. I decided the roads would be 1.5” wide (equivalent to 20 N-scale feet). The road needs to connect the depot, company store, lumber mill, etc.. There would be 3 railroad crossings in the town. After deciding where the main structures would be positioned, I drew the roads onto the Styrofoam sub-roadbed.

Now came the decision how to build the roads. Some simply paint black paint onto the sub-roadbed for roads. I've seen such layouts and they look quite good but this approach didn't appeal to me for my layout. I've also seen fine (400 grit) sandpaper laid down as asphalt. I in fact did this on a short stretch of road in Cawood many years ago. It looks OK, but I'm not inclined to continue the practice. I wanted the roads to be above the sub-roadbed. Many use plaster to make roads, but my history with plaster caused me to shay away from its use. I have a large supply of Cal-Coat 127 and it handles better in my hands than plaster. I made test roads on a scrap of Styrofoam from plaster and Cal-Coat 127. I found the Cal-Coat easier to handle and I thought it looked better, so I decided to use it.

The next challenge was how to form the road. I tried 1/16 x 1/16 “ Polystyrene on one short section. It worked OK on straight sections, but it can't be easily curved. After a little investigating on the internet, I ordered Woodland Scenics' Paving Tape. It is a foam tape 3/4” wide by 1/16” tall and has an adhesive on one of the 3/4” sides. I found the product easily bends to follow contours in the road. It sticks well to the Styrofoam sub-roadbed and even to glued down ballast.

I mixed the Cal-Coat 127 rather stiff and applied it with a plastic spatula. It spread easily but tended to slide on the Styrofoam. In later applications I roughed up the Styrofoam surface and the Cal-Coat 127 tended to stay better. The finished surface was pretty smooth, but a 1000 grit sanding stick easily knocked down any high spots. I found the Cal-Coat 127 didn't adhere to the foam tape, so the surface was undamaged by pulling away the foam tape. The 1000 grit sanding stick was used to even up the edges.  Overall I think the roads turned out quite well.

Paving tape applied

Cal-Coat 127 applied and leveled

Cal-Coat has dried and paving tape removed

I didn't want to paint the roads black as most asphalt is more of a gray color.  So I painted the roads with Delta Creamcoat Quaker Grey acrylic paint.

Roads painted  Quaker Grey

On one area I applied a wash of Charcoal paint but I don't like the result.  I'll try other treatments to darken the roads to a more prototypical color.   I also have about 5 more feet of road to pave.  More to come on this project.