OK, so I got the benchwork up and started to layout track. since I am going with an industrial switching layout I was going to skip the roadbed. Everything I looked at was just to big for N-Scale in my opinion. But while restocking the fridge I looked at the Bud box. single wall cardboard and quite thin too. So I used a mic. on it .060" works out to about 9.6". Just right. so I carefully opened up the box using a pocket knife and made myself a few 1" strips. Putting them down and then the track on top they looked just fine. The ballast should cover any goofs, and this is not a class 1 railroad anyway, so imperfections will abound. Besides it is 1944/45 here and we make do with what we got. We have a war to win! Thank you Anheuser Busch!
Shimming with poster board or construction paper will work, but...I needed a slight shim on my Peco code 55, so I used red and orange poster board. When I ballasted that area that had been shimmed, the orange or red color would bleed through the ballast dying the ballast red or orange. Rats!! So, I had to paint over it some. In my most recent ballast effort, I sealed the poster board with dullcote before ballasting. That did help a lot. Red ballast is just not believeable!
Aw .. maybe a cow got run over at that spot ! Just put a little plastic figure of a messed up cow off of the side of the tracks.
There you go! There is a prototype for everything! But, I seem to remember some layout showing human gore. That was considered inappropriate. But the cow story is a good one! Instead of the dismembered cow, just show a barbeque beside the track with some railfans there.
As for bleed through, I am keeping the printed side down. so it is just a light brown under the rails. b-b-q, how about a hobo jungle ?
