Woodland Scenic’s roadbed is too wide.

For the past year I’ve been staring at the rails on the NES, and now the WGR, trying to figure out why the track seems so crude and toy like. Originally I presumed it was because of rail size – having used code 80 on the NES. I changed rail for the WGR and the code 55 rail does make a difference, however the track still seemed to stick out like a sore thumb.

It wasn’t until I starting asking others for their opinion that someone finally pulled out a ruler and rendered a verdict. Woodland Scenic’s roadbed is between 2 and 4 scale feet too wide!

Next time you are near a level crossing, take a look at the rail, ties and roadbed and what you’ll likely notice is that the ballast falls away on a 2:1 slope just after the edge of the ties. If you compare that to the WS offering, it becomes apparent that the roadbed makes for a better 2 lane highway then track bed.

I want to make it very clear that I’m NOT trying to get too hung up on frivolous details. The WGR is not a mainline railroad, so the track should look less maintained. The same was true of the NES, however despite my best efforts, the track looked heavily traveled – due in part to the over sized roadbed.

I decided to trim the roadbed, drawing a large utility knife along the edge of the ties on a slight angle. I wasn’t too worried about getting the angle ‘just right’ as I assumed that the ballast would fall naturally and create the appropriate grading.

I trimmed a few inches of roadbed on one of the siding and added some ballast.  I’m happy with the result. What do you think? Worth the effort?

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