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Highways and Byways

Image of JAMES HICKMANJAMES HICKMAN shows how to add roads to your layout.

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To quote Kermit the Frog, "We're just traveling down this little black line here". That's how roads are illustrated on a map, but there is a lot more to our roadway infrastructure than just lines, whether they are double yellow or not.

When creating roads on your models the first thing you need to decide is what kind of road it is going to be. Well, a road is a road, isn't it? No, that is certainly not true. Next time you are about and about, have a look at the roads you pass by. We have motorways, dual carriageways, single carriageways, and getting smaller, down to dirt tracks. You might find all of them just in the small area you are modelling.

The above picture shows the A63 dual carriageway near Hull, a very different road to a country lane.

The type of road you need in an area is generally decided upon based on the traffic the route would see. A road through the country tends to be smaller and have less lighting and markings than a busy road through the heart of a city. Because of this, to make our roads more realistic in their own settings, we need to consider what our roads would be used for.

To start, have a think about what buildings are situated along the road, where the road would be going to, and where it has come from. If it is heading past fields to a farmyard, the chances are it would more likely be a small country road covered in mud, like the one on our shop layout.

This road was made to resemble a country road that is covered in mud from the surrounding fields.

This road in Devon is like those found in the countryside all across the UK.

Once you have decided what kind of road you need on your layout, you can start looking at how we are going to build it. There are several ways that you can build your roads, and there are different options depending on what type of road you are making. Many layouts and models generally depict towns or villages around their railways and rarely the spaces in-between, where you are more likely to find the motorways and dual carriageways, so we won’t look too closely at these types of roads. If you do want to model these, however, techniques mentioned here can still be employed, you just may need to adapt them a bit.

A selection of products to form 'out-of-the-box' roadways.

For standard roads, many manufacturers offer pre-made roadways that are usually supplied on a roll or sheet and Gaugemaster are no exception to this. Our Gaugemaster Highways range contains two widths of roadway, 66mm and 80mm in width, as well as a sheet of curves to allow you to shape your own roadways. These can be enhanced using the Noch range of roadway sections too.

When creating your scenery it is always best to build it up around your roadways, that way you are not having to carve them out afterwards. This allows your road to be laid straight onto a flat surface. This applies to laying ‘out-of-the-box’ roadway as well as when creating your own from scratch.

In this article I am focusing on these techniques, but part two will focus on making your roads from scratch. Each way has its pros and cons, so it’s up to you which way you want to go. So where do we begin?

Stage 1: Laying The Roadway

Firstly, unpack your road and lay it out where it will roughly go.

You will notice that the roadway is undulating where it has been rolled in the packaging. The roadway is slightly stretchy so when it is laid this undulation will disappear.

Here I am using the standard Gaugemaster roadway GM375. As previously mentioned, it will stretch a little which allows you to form shallow bends. However, for tighter corners, the relevant width curves pack is used. In this case. GM376.

Right out of the packet, it seems that there is not much option as you are faced with a racetrack style corner, but this sheet is designed to be cut up to create the exact angle of the curve you require. Included in the pack is a template, but of course, it is not mandatory to use this.

All you need to do is to cut out the required angle with either Scissors or a Scalpel. Then it is just a case of removing the backing and sticking it down. Remember, when sticking down the straight road sections, start at one end and stretch it a little to remove the undulations from the packaging as you press it down.

Although the colours of the two road pieces are designed to match, due to manufacturing methods they can vary a little. This can be disguised in a later step, or left prominent, simulating a section of roadway that has been relaid. To further emphasise the work the Highways Agency does, you can use the blank part of the curved sections to use as patched parts of the road.

Go Back To Top

To easily create this, carefully lay a small section of the excess road surface on top of the already laid roadway and cut a small square out, making sure to cut through the top layer and the roadway below. This will enable you to peel back the section from the road below and replace it with the section cut from the excess.

Stage 2: Detailing The Road Surface

Once you have laid the roadway, it does benefit from a bit of attention to break up the pristine look of the surface. The easiest way to do this is with a bit of weathering.

The image above shows the roadway after it has had a light grey weathering powder brushed over it. This was applied using a soft brush and spaced out to represent the wear of vehicle wheels. The distance was measured against an Oxford Diecast vehicle to make sure it was right. This was applied a little heavier than you would normally expect, then the excess was used to blend it into the surrounding road. This technique also blends the two tones of roadway further together.

Another thing to look at adding is drain covers and manhole covers. There are some 3D printed and laser-cut versions on the market which could be included, but as the road surface is already down it makes sense to apply these as a sticker, transfer, or simply as a cut out from some paper.

These were found on Google and were printed using a laser printer. They were scaled to roughly 900mm in circumference, which works out to around 12mm. I applied these at the end of the process as I didn’t want the details running if any liquid dripped on them during the later construction phase.

The one downside of using the pre-designed roads is that sometimes you need junctions. Noch produces some to match, however, these are of continental design so have the markings on the wrong side. The way around this is to get a bit creative.

The image above shows that by simply notching out the edge and side of a road section a T Junction can be created. This method can be used to create a variety of junctions. The only thing that wasn’t quite right was the road markings. These were added in using a fine brush and an off-white acrylic paint.

Stage 3: Building The Environment

The final stage is to build the surrounding landscape. This was done here in the usual way of card formers, wire mesh, and plaster bandage which was then painted. Static grass was then applied over this. I won’t go into how this was done as we have articles on the subjects in our archive if you wish to learn more. Before this was all undertaken, however, the roadway was masked off using paper and tape to protect it.

Once this was all set in, the road edge was bedded in. I did this by first adding a layer of brown scatter, in this case tea leaves, up to the edge of the grass. This was also sprinkled on top of the grass in patches to blend it in. Between this and the road, two ballasts were used. The first was Gaugemaster OO Scale Ballast, (GM114, then a darker grey ballast from Noch, (N09369, was applied over the top. This was all set-in place using Deluxe Materials Ballast Bond.

And there we have it. A realistic road using out-of-the-box products. Obviously, the model here is not finished and there is still work to be completed on the surrounding areas, but the roadway itself is complete.

Of course, this is just one way of creating a road - the other way is to do it yourself. That’s what I will be looking at in Part 2 of this article.