As a continuation from my Part 1 of this series, here are a few more trackside details to get your creative juices flowing!

Lubricator

As Hod Carrier discussed in the UK Track Detailing article, railroads often use grease or other friction modifiers to reduce rail noise and vibration on tight curves (R40 would definitely be lubricated!). These systems consist of a wayside tank and pump, applicators mounted to the rails to dispense lubricant, and wheel sensors to detect an approaching train and begin pumping lubricant. Wheel detectors come in various colors based on the manufacturer, but dark turquoise is a good match for the ones I’ve installed in the past.

Many lubricator installations on North American railroads are out in the middle of nowhere, like an installation I did on the outskirts of Lemoyne, Nebraska (the entire town was the outskirts, honestly…) for example, where hardwired power would be very expensive to install. In these situations, it’s very common to install solar powered units. The dark blue 1×4 tiles on this design are stand-ins for 1×4 tiles with solar panel print (part no. 2431pb499).

Whistle Posts

Whistle posts are another self-explanatory item: when they see the post, the engineer blows the whistle (or horn, but horn post sounds…wrong). These are palced in advance of grade crossings so the engineer can start the telltale horn pattern of a grade crossing: long-long-short-long.

Different railroads have different designs of whistle posts. Most modern ones are signs mounted on poles, but older styles include concrete pillars with a “W” molded into them. In both of these examples, the 1×1 tile is a stand-in for the 1×1 letter “W” tile (part no. 3070bpb031). Usually the concrete post or signs would be white with black letters for better visibility, but the 1×1 letter tiles don’t come in white.

Mileposts

Mileposts are very common on railroads, since there’s an average of 1 per mile. Yes, you read that correct; track and right-of-way realignment often leads to short or long miles rather than redoing the mileposts over the entire line. These markers help train and maintenance crews know precisely where they are on the line (give or take about a mile).

As with whistle posts, each railroad has its own standard design for mileposts. In this design, the 1×1 tiles are stand-ins for the 1×1 number tiles. Placing these every mile (on average 4224 studs, for those of you counting) would be a quick way to add detail to a layout. As with the whistle posts, the signs would typically be white with black letters but the 1×1 number tiles don’t come in white.

Pole Lines

Railroads have a long history in North America, which means they have seen many different technologies come and go. Pole lines played a crucial role in delivering information from one point to another. These lines carried not only telegraph transmissions, but also information for the signal system. I could go into great detail, but I’ll save that for another article and summarize: rail lines are divided into blocks, and each block has an electrical circuit that is on when the block is empty and turns off when a train enters the block. Each wire on a pole line carries that status information along the line to different parts of the signal system.

The wires are connected to the poles with glass insulators (the trans-clear, blue, or green plates), and the pole line would also have wires connecting to every signal and relay cabinet. Here I’m using Lego string elements, but it would almost certainly be more cost effective to use non-Lego thread or string. While pole lines are not commonly used anymore, in many places they were never removed. Abandoned pole lines with broken wires hanging to the ground would therefore also be a great detail on a modern layout.

Tell Tale

Tell tales are another piece of old railroad technology that has succumbed to innovation. In the early days, before trainline braking systems, brakemen would walk the roofs of railcars applying each car’s brakes anytime the train needed to slow down. As you can imagine, life expectancy for a brakeman was relatively low. Tell tales were one of the brakeman’s safety devices: a beam extending over the track above head height with ropes dangling down. If a brakeman was walking the roof of a car and felt the tell tale hit them, they would drop to their stomach immediately! Why? Because tell tales meant that the train was approaching a tunnel or overpass, and warned the brakemen to duck or they would be hit and killed.

This tell tale is a cantilevered type, and is clearly missing the all-important ropes. This design would feature additional non-Lego ropes to support the cantilevered beam, as well as ropes to allow the tell tale ropes to be lowered for maintenance. Like pole lines, though tell tales fell out of use they were often not removed and thus would be great details on a modern layout.

Switch Stand

Switch machines, as shown in Part 1 of this series are a modern item used primarily for main lines and high-traffic switches. For low-traffic switches and branch lines, switch stands are still the best tool for the job. Switch stands are how track workers manually line the switch, by lifting the lever and rotating it 90 degrees. The red and green parts are called “targets,” and they rotate with the stand to communicate the status of the switch to an approaching train: red means the switch is set for the diverging route, and green for the straight route.

Similar to the switch machine, this switch stand design will require a bit of additional ballast extending off the PennLUG standard cross section. There are many designs of switch stands with variations of the target location and design, and the throw (lever) design and location.

Tie Colors and Types

Some railroads paint their crossties different colors for different purposes. Union Pacific (UP) paints a tie blue at every culvert crossing under the track (blue=water, right?). They do this because often the culverts are pretty far down in the subgrade under the ballast, and often the inlet and outlet become obscured by brush. The blue tie helps maintenance crews locate culverts so they can check if they need to be cleared out, thus preventing washouts. Similarly, Amtrak often paints ties yellow when there are gauges or instrumentation mounted on the tie and they want tamping crews to be careful while maintaining the ballast around those ties. The defect detectors shown in the image are from Part 1 of this series. The culvert design is more suited to a MILS module than the PennLUG standard ballast, but the blue tie can be placed independently.

Varying the type of ties on your layout can also be a simple way to add some detail. While branch lines and short line railroads may use exclusively wood ties, most Class I freight railroads (BNSF, CSX, CN, etc.) do not use just one type of tie from end to end. There is a wide variety of materials that crossties are made from, as well as the forms those materials come in. Concrete ties are used for high tonnage or high speed lines; plastic composite ties, synthetic ties, and tropical hardwood ties are used in wet areas where treated hardwood would be susceptible to rotting; and steel ties are sometimes used in yards, as they need less ballast than regular wood ties.

From left to right in the image above:

• Reddish brown tiles representing wood ties (my personal color of choice for wood ties),
• Dark tan tiles, representing a tropical hardwood tie,
• Medium nougat tiles, representing a Fiber-reinforced Foamed Urethane (FFU) synthetic tie,
• Two versions of concrete dual-block ties, one with studs for the fasteners, represented by light bluish grey tiles and plates,
• Three versions of concrete ties using different tiles and plates, represented by light bluish grey tiles and plates to for different designs,
• Two versions of plastic composite ties, represented by black or dark grey ties (on dark bluish grey ballast),
• Dark brown tiles and plates, representing a steel tie.

Concrete ties come from multiple different manufacturers, each with their own designs. If a railroad had multiple types installed they would typically be in large sections, rather than a mix of different ties. Concrete ties and steel ties typically use elastic fasteners rather than steel plates and cut spikes used on the other types, so the chunkier fasteners can easily be represented with the stud of a plate. Dual-block concrete ties have a steel beam in the middle connecting them, which would be buried in the ballast. Though they have yet to be widely accepted by North American railroads, some railroads are experimenting with dual-block concrete ties. Steel ties are not commonly used on signalized tracks as the rails need to be electrically isolated for the signal system to function properly. Additional variation can be achieved by mixing slightly different colors, like reddish brown and brown for wood ties, black for weathered wood ties and brown or reddish brown for new wood ties, and light bluish grey and light grey for concrete ties.

Some railroads also have test sections of track where multiple different types of ties are installed, with measurement devices monitoring their performance and wear. Shown above is a possible test site, with small bunches of multiple different tie types, relay cabinets housing testing equipment, and a pile of old crossties that were removed from the track, including a broken concrete tie. (See Part 1 of this series for more of the relay cabinet and piled ties) Piles of new ties of any kind would also be fitting!

Hopefully these examples help get some ideas going. Be sure to share photos of the details of your layout to inspire others too!