Help Deciding on Road Stripe(s)

Hi Jeff,

I don't know if it's correct, but I went with a single white line.I also have a very easy way to do it. I used a EZ correct white out. Once it dries it won't come off.

 See photo's

Alex

In the 40's and 50's the center line was a single white line.  There would be no white lines on the edges of the roads - they weren't introduced yet.  Yellow wasn't introduced until the 60's if I remember correctly.  Also--your stop signs would be yellow instead of red.  Lettering in black vs white.

-Greg

Actually, yellow stripes began to be used quite a bit earlier than most people realize.  It is just that it was optional for a long time, so the introduction was slow.   Here is a page from the 1948 Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices (click on image to enlarge):

From this page you can see that single white lines are correct for your situation.

As you can see, these manuals are a gold mine for those looking for authenticity. For example, I often print period highway signs from images found there. You can download many editions of them here

https://ceprofs.civil.tamu.edu...ns/MUTCD-History.htm

Alex, Greg, and Pete, wow you guys nailed the answer completely for me!  Thanks!

I'd been trying to find this information for some time.  Very valuable for me.  This breaks a sort of log jam for me since I need to do the lines before I can proceed any further on this scene.  Thanks again!

There's almost always somebody here with the right answer!    Alex, that Wite Out looks great.  I've used colored pencils, but that looks much cleaner, sharper.

Yellow was used by the mid '50s, I recall.  Whether it was right or not, in the area where my family was from (So. Colo) my Dad and uncles showed me that roads in the country had mostly yellow, those in town mostly white.  Right or wrong, I follow that on my layout.  Here is pictures of my yellow-lined country roads, and at the city limits it changes to the white, (right).

I make my lines or either color like this: I buy black 1/8 inch pinstripping tape at the auto store.  I spray it with flat white paint.  The paint dries white but on a black background looks just a tad gray or old - as it should.  I cut off sections and apply.  For crosswalks in town, etc., I use 1/4 inch wide tape.

For my roads I used a white "grease" pencil (also called a "artist" pencil). It does not gave that perfect/fake look.

I, too have used 1/8" automotive pin-striping.  For the era depicted in Weirton, WV, the stripes were white.

George

THE STRIPPING COLOR DEPENDS ON WITCH WAY THE TRAFFIC IS GOING. IF ALL WHITE IS USED THAT INDICATES INE WAY TRAFFIC. THE OUT EDGE LINES ARE ALWAYS WHITE. WHEN YOU USE YELLOW IN THE CENTER LINES THATS FOR 2 WAY TRAFFIC. BROKEN LINES EITHER SIDE CAN PASS, SOLID YELLOW, NO PASSING. IF IN ONE WAY TRAFFIC IS USED SOLID WHITE IS JUST LIKE SOLID YELLOW, NO PASSING, BROKEN WHITE YOU CAN PASS GOING ONE WAY. HOPE THIS HELPS.

Pete, I really have to thank you again.  I looked through those books, the 1948 and 1942 versions, and found exactly what I was looking for.  I'm not trying to be overly concerned with accuracy, but I wanted to verify that the single white stripe in the middle of a two lane, two direction road, was correct at some point in time, e.g., 40's'ish.

I also found in there the RR crossing symbols for the roadway, i.e., the big X with an R on each side, which I might tackle at some point, in addition to the round yellow sign with black X and RR markings, and the crossing sign at the track on the railroad right of way.

Alex, I also have to thank you again too.  I got that correction tape and it is great.  While it converts to 8 inches wide in O scale, which is a bit too wide technically, it looks good to my eye.  It isn't a tape in the sense one might expect, but rather a dry white-out layer on a plastic tape substrate and when you apply it the white substrate stuff goes down onto the surface and the plastic tape substrate is taken back up into the dispenser.

I had mislaid it and to remove I had to sand it off.  I left some of the remnants of the mistaken line.  This is making some very realistic looking areas that look like there was an old faded line that was painted anew.

I have scratched the line with an Xacto knife and sanded to weather it.  

This is turning out to be the perfect solution for what I want to accomplish in this area.

Part of this road is a lift out section.  Here is that section showing the line application so far:

Joe, thanks also for the input about the grease pencil.  I haven't heard of that and will probably pick one up, possibly for doing the big "R"s if I do the RXR markings.

George, thanks for confirming about the center white line, versus what we have now.

Great Jeff,

I'm glad it's working out, it's so easy to use and once it's down it pretty much stays.

Alex

If you can get yellow, by all means do so. The only white lined road I've seen in Memphis (this one double-lined) is a section where both lanes are travelling in the same direction. In (most of) the U.S., yellow is the standard "two-way traffic" color, dotted or solid.

Lee Willis, excellent use of slot car track for your road surface. I always wanted to do that with the "main drag" of a permanent layout. I only wish it weren't so impossible to find even one slot-O (or O-27) 3-rail grade crossing.

please read my posts above regarding time frame

Jeff, your lines look great.  The weathering adds something.

Ron

It is not slot car track.  It is K-Line/K-Line by Lionel Superstreets - now called WBB EZSTreets.  See the three-rail forum where I have posted gobs of pictures/videos/threads/.pdfs you can download.  There are plenty of O-gauge crossing including those with operating equipment.  I not only have 1950s cars and city buses operating on my layout, I have 18-wheelers, too.