I rebuilt the east yard end towards the end of 2023 but never recorded it here. At some point in 2024 I became interested in making my Peco turnouts resemble mid 20th century SP track practice. I was able to get a PDF of the SP common standards for turnouts. There are 70 pages each covering various components of the turnouts and how they are installed.
The first phase was an experiment to model track in dirt up to tie top level
The turnouts and track were glued to .030 plastic sheet with cockpit cement. Rail and turnouts were then painted and weathered as needed.
I used 2 mm thick craft foam material available a craft stores such as Michaels as the fill between ties. First material is cut to fit the outline of the turnout (in this case multiple turnouts and track) and glued around the turnout and track outline. I paint the the foam with titanium oxide to get the color of dried adobe clay dirt common in my area. This will of course vary by the area of the country you model. I lighten colors as much as possible as we are not usually viewing layouts in full strength natural light.
Strips of the foam material are cut about 3 mm wide and then into 15 mm long pieces to fit into space between ties between rails and 5 mm long pieces to go between ties outside the rails. The Code 70 Micro Engineering track ties are about 4 mm apart. Spaces between between the frog and switch ties in the turnouts varied along with lengths. The turnouts shown are the Peco #5 (4.5?) small turnouts I am using for yard trackage.
I glued the pieces or 3 mm strip between the ties with cockpit cement. While the clue is still wet, use a very small square blade tool (I use a spudger) to be sure the material is fully fitting between the ties.
After the glue dry another thick coat of your ground color paint (mine is the titanium oxide) is used to cover any gaps between the outline foam material and outer tie foam inserts.
There will be further blogs on this subject when I can spare the time from modeling.
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