Track Bumpers

by Dan Crowley

Through necessity I had to come up with some track bumpers.  I had finished the yard, and needed something in place to prevent the rolling stock from overshooting the end of the track.  At first I just used a track nail, and it functioned really well, but didn't look prototypical.  So I gave some thought to how I could make it look more prototypical.  The following pictures show how I took an Atlas track nail, sequin, some styrene and a small piece of scenic foam and turned them into an inexpensive track bumper

The ingredients

Bend the nail using needle nose pliers as close to the head as you can get.

Thread the bent nail through the sequin hole

Drill a hole through a track tie and into the road bed.  Plant the bent nail and sequin assembly.  Cut two strips of styrene, and glue them to the back of the sequin, at a 45 degree angle with the other end terminating in the ground.

Paint them a color of your desire and then glue a small piece of scenic foam on the front of the sequin.  I used a paper hole punch to cut out circles, but you could just cut little squares of foam to work.

Easy to make and inexpensive are just a couple of things these have going for them.