Tunnel Liners - General Discussion (Model Railroader)

I’ve lined the entire length of my subway tunnels, since I use a train-cam in the subway and they’re all visible. This is an early picture during construction, before I put the top on. This is more a “cut and cover” model than a bored tunnel, but it may give some ideas.

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I spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to make curved walls, but then one day I looked up and stared at the ceiling. Duh, there it was. The “textured ceiling” look was what I wanted. So, I cut some 3-inch wide strips of thin styrene, and mixed up a thin hydrocal slurry. I rolled that on to the styrene with a paint roller, just the way the ceiling painters do by adding plaster to paint to get that effect. After the hydrocal set, I sprayed it with cheap gray primer, and then misted with black rattle-can spray. Once dry, these sections could be curved to both inner and outer curves of the 18-inch radius tunnels.

The catwalk base is balsa wood, which I soaked in water overnight before bending it to the curve. The handrail is made from floral wire, cheap, easy to cut and shape, and already colored green. The conduit on the wall is plastic coffee stirrers, wired on through small holes because glue wasn’t holding them very well. I ballasted the tunnels with black “cinders” from Woodland Scenics.

Don’t know if it’s still available, but Woodland Scenics used to make a tunnel liner mold in their line of rock molds. It’s one half of a rock-walled tunnel. You take two of these and tie the together at the 1/2 arched top with plaster cloth. They’re about 5" wide, so it takes about three or four of them lined up to give enough coverage visually for most tunnels. The nice thing is that these liners can be left loose, so you can move them out of the way from underneath if you need to clean track, etc.

Three approaches:

Straight sections of concrete-lined tunnel sidewall - made a mold (including a safety bay) and poured in hydrocal. About twenty were used to line the far side of a tunnel visible through the fascia.

Tunnel through blasted rock - crumpled tinfoil pressed into wet hydrocal. After removal, our artist (not me!) painted the hardened plaster, then a lot of black overspray from a rattle can (tunnel used by steam locos.) Another `visible through the fascia’ location.

`Just block the view.’ Black construction paper, backed up with heavier card stock. Only meant to keep the understructure out of sight in a tunnel that isn’t likely to be looked into.

Each valid for its intended application. None valid in all cases.

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Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, - with lots of tunnels)

Thanks for the pictures and all. I guess I should have mentioned that the tunnel is in the back corner of a turn and anyone would have a difficult time seeing into it or much detail

just a small affair really. That left end tunnel is going to be behind the mock up building and some trees so I’m not too concerned about it.

I think I might go with the Woodland Scenics model if it will fit inside the opening.

I have another tunnel that is right up front and may do something a lot more elaborate with it.

Thanks again for the help!

Jarrell

Yes, the WS mold will work well for this situation. The tunnel’s section is also wide enough to accommodate curved track. DJ’s great pic kind of show you what it looks like, low key and meant to just cause the eye to assume it’s really a tunnel, rather than another illusion perpetrated by model railroaders.

Don’t know if your portal comes off for easy access, but it’ll be a cinch to set the WS liners into place if it does. Once you have them tied together at the top, they are self-supporting. So long as you have or can make your sub-roadbed wide enough to so they have a place to sit, you’re good. I just measured mine. They are just short of 4" wide on the outside, about 3 1/4" wide inside the arch.

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