"Dreesed Up" Tubular

I use Lionel tubular track extensively. I have dressed it up with Johnson rubber roadbed and ballast from Woodland Scenics. The photo below is a good example.

I have stained 1/8" X 3/8" basswood cut to  tie length and slid under the rails with a spot of white glue under.  Easy, and a huge improvement.  Sorry, no pix as this was on a previous layout.

How does ballast adhere to the Johnson rubber roadbed?

When you cut the rubber roadbed, does it still "look good"?

I went on eBay and people were selling gray rubber roadbed with black ties, but I don't seen them on the Johnson website.  Is there another manufacturer of rubber roadbed?

Jaymark:

The ballast material is just laid next to the track. You could glue it with white Elmer's Glue, but I did not find it necessary to do this.

I believe you can get Johnson rubber roadbed at America's Best Train store in Itasca, IL. In all the years I have had a layout, I have not found a better product to go with tubular track. The rubber also serves as an excellent method to significantly reduce track noise.

If you want rubber crossties to add to the appearence of tubular, 3R Plastics makes the crossties for 027, O-gauge tubular, and S gauge track compatible to the American Flyer style from the 1960's.

Lee F.

I used  1/8" x 1/2" balsa pieces for additional ties. Roadbed is 1/8" Masonite cut to fit and painted gray. Thinking of repainting the roadbed with stone flek spray paint. I haven't glued the ties down yet and the roadbed strips are held in place by the track mounting screws so it's not too hard to make changes.

Similar to some of the above posts, I cut ties from pine to fill in between the stock ties.  I have some Marx two rail tubular and some Lionel with the third rail removed - all O27 rail profile.  The Marx is unpainted, the Lionel is painted, both use sandpaper to simulate ballast.  Admittedly, this is on a tinplate, clockwork only layout - I know it wouldn't be up to snuff for a nicely scenicked, more realistic style hi-rail layout...

Marx:

Lionel:

Mine looks similar to the track above, but I did it slightly different. I use o27 tubular in 27, 34, and 42 inch curves with K-Line switches.

I started with cork roadbed (from Midwest Products) and stained it grey. I've learned that using a watered down latex paint is a much more cost effective way of doing this. The cork soaked that stain up like a sponge The idea was to leave the stain translucent enough to allow the different shades of the chunks of cork to still show through to simulate gravel.

After I put down the cork and placed the track on it, I slid rubber ties from 3r Plastics between them. I used a clear silicone to "glue" them in place. I then attached the track using cable ties through the table to reduce the drum head effect of the plywood (OSB actually) tabletops.

So here's a picture or two to show the results:

J White

After I put ties in, I use poultry grit for ballast.  The grit is a crushed granite that is mixed in with chicken feed.  I bought mine at Rural King.  The grit is a little oversized for scale ballast, but it looks great with Lionel tubular track.