For those who hand lay, although I’d appreciate all input, what is your opinion about tie plates?
In other words, do they add much or, as I discovered in the smaller scales, will fussing over details no one but I will notice just waste time?
Before I get spiking my rail I want to make this decision.

The other factor is cost, of course. At $15 per 100 that is quite an investment per foot.
Or if I made my own (brass? Styrene? Sintra?) I could save costs but with over 200ft of track to lay, 11 ties per foot, 2 plates per tie…

I don’t mind the labor, really. This whole project is very therapeutic and there is no rush, so I am leaning to the yay side.

What say you?

Welcome Patrick, and thanks for opening up this discussion. You are hitting on every question and point of interest I have about this, including questions I didn’t bring up when I asked for opinions about my RR yard couple of weeks or so ago…I’ll be watching with great interest.

edit: p.s…I saw your other post and you are off to a fantastic start.

Tie plates…

Well, for a start; what era are you modelling ? Are you modelling a main line, or a branch line ? What scale are you modelling in; Indoors or out ?

If you are in the smaller scales, and are going to ballast the whole line; the tie plates will hardly be noticed, and the few “Handlayers” that I know don’t bother with them.

In LS, they can be noticed if a person viewing actually is looking for them, or if the short length of hand layed track is for display purposes.

Balasting usually takes the viewer’s eyes off any lack of tie plates.

As far as cost; even in LS, the tie plates don’t need to be castings, or purchased. One person I know, simply used a paper cutter, to slice up a very thin Styrene sheet, into strips, then carefully, using a pinvice and drill, drilled properly measured holes, for the spikes, before again using the paper cutter to cut each tie plate to length. He did think afterwards that painting the Styrene with a rust coloured paint would have made life easier…

I guess that the real question is; whether therapeutic or not; is it worth wasting time on, or would it be more therapeutic, using the time to more quickly get a good operation of the railroad going and using that time for added fun, and enjoyment.

To each modeller, the answer may be different…just try hard to choose, based on your idea of PLEASURE.

Fred Mills

I think What Fred said is spot on. Again your railroad your ideas. I for one would want tie plates if the era I was modeling should have them, but for me the “fun” is in the details and the construction. Running trains is actually a distant second. So I would want it to be correct. But that’s me. If construction is second and attention to fine detail is a distant second to running trains the forget em and move on. Likely no one but you will notice or care.

What I did in HO, is I put tape on the ties, after I spiked the rails. I put the tape the proper distance from the rails to simulate tie plates, and then spray painted the rails and ties a rust colour. After removing the tape, I had rusty tie plates painted on the ties, and the rails were weathered, all in one easy step.

If you were to do the same in large scale, with maybe more then one coat of paint, you could simulate them for almost no cost, and almost no extra labor.

Actually I experimented on a few individual ties with both paint and vinyl with good results, but I wonder about weathering.
Anybody use the ME plates?
How have they weathered?

I think I’m going to just buy a bag of them and see the result myself.
Talking myself into it here…

And for better or worse, my railroad is pure fantasy and defies classification.
I will have a main line with a station at either end, an industry or two and some type of yard. All steam that may or may not belong together on the same railroad.

But I still want to model as realistically as possible.
Is that contradictory?

No, it is not. Well, could be, I guess it depends on who is viewing it at the time. My railroad is either the P&CS 1:24 narrow gauge, mainline early diesel in 1:29, 1:29 traction (streetcars), or a steam museum in 1:20.3. Depending on what I am running that day.

Well in a way it can be contradictory. Not all railroads used tie plates. Older cheaply put together Narrow gauges didn’t use them. So I would think it would really depend on what your wanting. If its a mainline run like GN or UP or NP then yeah tie plates might be good. If its a spur a shortline or a narrow gauge anf from the early days of steam I think you could get away with no tie plates. The tie spacing your suggesting would be more narrow gauge I would think.

David Maynard said:

No, it is not. Well, could be, I guess it depends on who is viewing it at the time. My railroad is either the P&CS 1:24 narrow gauge, mainline early diesel in 1:29, 1:29 traction (streetcars), or a steam museum in 1:20.3. Depending on what I am running that day.

And this is what I think most railroads end up being

Devon Sinsley said:

David Maynard said:

No, it is not. Well, could be, I guess it depends on who is viewing it at the time. My railroad is either the P&CS 1:24 narrow gauge, mainline early diesel in 1:29, 1:29 traction (streetcars), or a steam museum in 1:20.3. Depending on what I am running that day.

And this is what I think most railroads end up being

Yup, its mine, and I enjoy it, no matter what is trundling around the yard. I even have some D&RG stuff, some C&S stuff and some stuff that doesn’t fit any of my listed classifications, that I run. It has “blossomed” way beyond my original vision/plan/dream/fantasy.

When I weather my track I mask it like David does and get the effect of painted on ties. This picture is of track weathered in place so the ballast got some too…

This one was weathered off the layout - the tape shows different shades on different sections of track. Of course this is manufactured track with molded in rail clips which to me don’t look like anything I’ve ever seen on a real railroad. But I don’t sweat the small stuff (http://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-wink.gif)

Patrick,

I have a bad habit of looking at things in a very pragmatic way. Tie plates on model railroads tends to fall into that category. Fred asked some very poignant questions, which you sort of answered. If you plan to run a narrow gauge rail road, some used them, some didn’t. I have not seen a standard gauge railroad that didn’t use them, even on branch lines.

From the appearance perspective, even in the larger scales we operate in, are they really visible, and is the return on investment (ooohs and aaaahs) worth the effort. My opinion, for what that is worth, I would rather spend the detail time on rolling stock and structures that are far more visible. I have heard all kinds of comments from the ‘rivet counters’ that this or that piece of rolling stock or structure is missing this or that detail…but never heard someone say ‘Hey, you didn’t put tie plates on that track.’

I think you will find there will be enough maintenance on hand laid track outdoors without adding the additional work keeping spikes not only in place, but through those pesky tie plates. Remember, large scale outdoors is no different in maintenance that the full size big brothers.

Welcome aboard, and nice progress on your rail road. Looks like it will be great pleasure when you near completion (they are never REALLY done).

A quick and dirty experiment with painted styrene.

Sigh…
I set up my album for photos but they are still showing up like thumbnails…
Umm…Devon?

Patrick, did you load them from you album?

I think that experiment looks great.

I guess what I meant by contradictory was that I don’t really care if it fits the era (within reason of course. I won’t be modeling a Starbucks)but I still want everything to look real…somewhat.
I like tieplates so I may use them. Whether or not they belong is contradictory to my stated desire for “realism”.
I can live with that.

Patrick McGrath said:
Sigh… I set up my album for photos but they are still showing up like thumbnails… Umm…Devon?

Upload your pictures to your free Freight Shed and use that url. The url will look something like this one from my Freight Shed…

http://freightsheds.largescalecentral.com/users/sparkyjoe/conductor.jpeg

Yes, loaded from album. Maybe I shrunk them too much to conserve space?

Here is my personal opinion…

I enjoy handlaying, and I also enjoy super detailing my track. I think of track as being just as important of a model as the trains. That said, I’m planning on not laying tie plates on the entire layout (I’m in the process of rebuilding). Instead, I’m going to focus on using tie plates and other super detailed track parts on the focal areas where I think the detail would be best noticed. Does that mean at sometime in the future I would add tie plates? Sure, I might, but it would be after everything was done. The reason I’m not planning on using tie plates everywhere is; one cost, and second the details get lost when you move 5 feet away.

Here’s a couple of pictures. Can you see the tie plates?

On the other hand, here is my super detailed turnout (to be used as a master for casting).

Here is the Hardford Tie plates (the only ones manufactured with a correct 4 hole layout