Road Baseplates vs Brick Built Roads

[elleana]

I recently moved and am fortunate enough to have half a room dedicated to Lego to set up a town layout (mainly modulars). I've been collecting / building them for a while now (have all except Market Street and Fire Brigade which I do not care for) which have all been built according to the instructions. The relevant part about that particular point is that they have all been built to sit exactly on a 32 x 32 baseplate (or 2 16 x 32 baseplates, in the case of the Pet Shop). Now that I'm in the process of setting up my town layout though, I have reached a fairly significant decision point, which will greatly affect how I setup my town.

As mentioned in the title - road baseplates or brick built roads? I've done quite a fair bit of reading up other threads and am still no nearer to making a decision. Whichever way I go, it looks like I'll most probably have to tear down the first level of each modular I currently have and either relocate it so the sidewalks are on the road baseplates (I do realize I'll run into alignment issues but I am not particular concerned as it may allow me to create alleys) or raise them a plate or two higher than the brick built roads which sit on baseplates. I prefer the look of brick built roads and like that they also offer additional variety in doing things like road markings and slopes, as well as allowing for a variety of road widths, but road baseplates look pretty decent as well, and there is a somewhat greater contrast between sidewalk and road.

On the question of cost - I, like many others, find it somewhat annoying that TLG sells road baseplates in 2 packs, so one is compelled to buy a cross junction and a straight at the same time when one is mostly interested only in the straight. That being said, however, in the grand scheme of things it still works out to be a lot cheaper than having to buy plates. I've determined that 4 x 6 dark bley plates are the cheapest for raising buildings one or two plates higher, and 1 x 4 dark bley tiles are the way to go for the roads, but a mindbogglingly large quantity is still necessary for even a smallish town layout. That being said, however, I'm fortunate enough to have a day job that pays very well and still leaves a reasonable amount of time for personal pursuits, so cost isn't that big a factor, though of course if I didn't have to spend on this I could probably buy a large set or two with the money saved!

I am interested to hear from those with similar layouts and who went through a similar decision why they did what they did, and why. Road baseplates to save on cost plus they look pretty good anyway, or brick built roads cause only the best will do for your Lego town?

[glendo]

I have gone with brick roads.

Why?

- strength. Im building a modular village layout, and the strength needed to carry so much weight for mobility made brick roads a no-brainer

- flexibility. the village will be modified and evolve over time, so i want the ability to tweak roads as i need to.

- detail. I plan on adding my details on the roadways.

here is my work so far:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/91792571@N02/sets/72157640962762183/

[elleana]

I have gone with brick roads.

Why?

- strength. Im building a modular village layout, and the strength needed to carry so much weight for mobility made brick roads a no-brainer

- flexibility. the village will be modified and evolve over time, so i want the ability to tweak roads as i need to.

- detail. I plan on adding my details on the roadways.

here is my work so far:

https://www.flickr.c...57640962762183/

Wow - that's pretty close to what I was considering. Could you let me know how many plates thick is your base (I probably don't need it to be as strong as I don't intend to move it around) and the size of the various plates you used? Thanks!

[cimddwc]

I'd prefer bricks lying sideways instead of tiles. Looks much smoother than tiles with their slightly rounded edges.

[lightningtiger]

I use 8x16 tiles as for my roadways.....1x4 tiles for line marking....in New Mannum.

I use standard road plates for my plain city layouts.

[glendo]

Wow - that's pretty close to what I was considering. Could you let me know how many plates thick is your base (I probably don't need it to be as strong as I don't intend to move it around) and the size of the various plates you used? Thanks!

my 'mega-plates' are built on baseplates, and go 4 x plates high to the 'ground'. the tiles for modulars footpaths will the 5 x plate level high.

[ER0L]

Guess you already know the road system we are actually preferring (and which was even developed prior to the LCS).

The idea is to separate roads, pavements and buildings in order to get much more flexibility (even odd widths are possible like with the Painted Lady above). You just have to place your buildings on a 5 layer founding - this height matches exactly the measure of SNOT roads and pavements. No alignment issues at all. On the other hand building crossroads is a bit more challenging than just placing a roadplate ...

[golfman]

Hello.

My idea on the long run is also to have a City layout composed by Modulars.

Although I like the oficial LEGO roads I probably will do my custom roads.

[Dr Leg O Brick]

I've been using XL grey plates due to price and availability (I started using these in 2009/10). Back then I didn't have many buildings, so it was the best thing. Now it's a pain in the rear, and is actually hampering my building currently, though I'm after the 90s style roadplates on eBay.

[Xyver]

I use the standard road baseplates for my City, though this does mean I have a fairly wide footpath if I build modulars to the standard, but by the time you add in street lights and a few other things it doesn't look too big. This could also give the oppotunity to put some parking bays along the side of the road, so the minifigs populating your town have somewhere to park.

I raise all my buildings by an extra plate, so the tiled footpath is 2 plates high. This allows me to use cheese slopes at the road crossings and gives a higher gutter which looks better. This also means that you can use both the T-junction and 4-way crossroads as straights by continuing the footpath over the side road sections. I realise the dotted side lines don't continue, but that is barely noticeable on a large scale city. I have also cut some roadplates in half to give me more flexibility with my layout, this also saves having too many crossings close together as you cut the crossroads in half and put each half and either end of the street.

I do 4-5 shows a year with my city, so it is constantly packed up, moved and set up again. Road baseplates and nice and easy to move and would take up less space then any brick built system.

Brick built roads do look much better, but they are very expensive and brick intensive, something that is good here in Aus with the higher prices and lack of availability of decent quantities of bricks.

[fred67]

The only thing that bothers me is the cost; I will certainly not do sideways plate building. I was planning on redoing the modular baseplates with regular large plates, though, which could subsequently sit on a baseplate, but not fully filled to let it come off easily and even run wires underneath. I would do the same for roads; building the roads on plates, then attaching them to baseplates just because I think it'll be easy. Again, not being fully connected (just a few 2x2s spaced out, to make it easy to disconnect and, again, run wires underneath that can be used either for lighting or just wires for vehicles to automatically follow.

That's my plan, anyway, and I think it'll cost a lot less and take less time than building sideways with plates. Plus intersections will be easier, lanes wider than than standard road plates, and I don't care about turns because a city laid out in blocks doesn't generally have any, but if it's a stair-step pattern in a needed curve, so be it. Interesting that, no matter which way you decide to do it, if you do your own, it can look nicer, have details like gutters and drains and manhole covers, and hide wiring.

Anyway, whatever you decide, good luck on your town layout...

[elleana]

Yeah, I think I'm drawing the line at SNOT roads, thats just far too parts intensive. Leaning torwards brick built roads though, sounds like lots and lots of possibilities.

[ER0L]

Correct me if I'm wrong but I guess in terms of roads "brick-built" and SNOT means the same - otherwise you'll need lots of tiles which is even more expensive. Our roads consist (but please don't tell anybody ) mainly of black 1x2x5 used bricks which are quite cheap since you can't use them for hardly anything (if you're not into LotR, that is).

But it's also true that I've never compared the real costs between the different possibilities. And that is because I believe that roads (and cars, of course) are a prominent element of a Lego town, much more than e. g. interiors of buildings you don't see from the outside. That's why even roads should meet the complexity and style of the CC buildings to get a consistent appearance of the whole thing. The rounded corners of a SNOT pavement at a crossroads for instance are an aspect you can hardly achieve by using plates of any kind.

Anyhow I'm very interested to see what you'll come up with.

[alois]

I think that a snot build road is best when you're trying to mimic tarmack. But I went for tiles. They give the look of cobblestones and are easier to apply. I raised the buildings one brick by laying loose bricks under the baseplates. The baseplates of the roads themselves are also slightly raised to accomodate the tram track.

[elleana]

Just an update to this thread. I started out with tiled plates, which I thought was rather inelegant. I finally gave in and moved to brick roads and am very satisfied with the result. Picture should be self explanatory.

Word of wisdom to anyone going through the same thought process. Just bite the bullet and go brick built. I used 1 x 4 black bricks and white/yellow plates, all of which are reasonably cheap on BL.