New(er) dk bluish grey roadplates

gelkster

Was wondering if the 443xx series of dark bluish grey roadplates (from 2005-06) have slightly wider lanes than the older 80s ones, to accomodate the 6-stud City vehicles.

Judging from their scarcity on Bricklink, are these HTF in the USA?

I'm considering going from the older line to the newer versions, if anyone cares to trade...

Bumblepants

I thought the only difference is now the T is paired with the straight section. Maybe that was just wishful thinking though

M1J0E

Yes the newer ones are wider.  I’m not at home now to check mine, but IIRC, there are 6 studs exposed on either side of a 32x32 plate, leaving a 20 stud wide road section.  I think, if I remember right, the oldest ones have 8 studs exposed either side of the road, leaving only a 16 stud wide road section.  

M1J0E

M1J0E

A visual might help. Looks like some older roads are even narrower than I thought. 

Paperballpark

Not sure if you're aware, but I think the green plates were airport baseplates. I could be wrong though!

Bumblepants

Looking through the road baseplate tag on brickset and it would seem the first roadplates had 9 studs to the side. Later they pushed it out to 7 with a bigger bike path. In the '90s it went to 8 studs and then in the '00s widened to only 6 studs on the sides.

Pitfall69

Paperballpark said:

Not sure if you're aware, but I think the green plates were airport baseplates. I could be wrong though!

You are correct; the green ones with the solid centerline are Airport plates and not "road" plates. Before the solid dark bluish grey plates, they had green/dark bley roadplates. I have them all, but I like the solid dark bley plates the best. The green ones I used for residential/suburban areas of my town/city before I tore it all down.

Oldfan

^Although, there are some 8-stud green road baseplates from the Town Jr. era of the late nineties.  The green curved roadplate in the picture here is one of those (I believe).  The green straight, t-, and cross-road plates in the picture here are from the airport sets.

gelkster

Are the newer road plates presumably HTF/sought after in the USA, as reflected on Bricklink?

M1J0E

Paperballpark said:

Not sure if you're aware, but I think the green plates were airport baseplates. I could be wrong though!

Nope you’re definitely right!  Good catch.  Yep, I had that set as a kid, and it came with more baseplates than I’d seen before.  I believe they’re the same size as the road plates of the era though, just with slightly different printing.  They seemed to work well enough for a housing type area that would have smaller/narrower streets & more green.

M1J0E

Oldfan said:

^Although, there are some 8-stud green road baseplates from the Town Jr. era of the late nineties.  The green curved roadplate in the picture here is one of those (I believe).  The green straight, t-, and cross-road plates in the picture here are from the airport sets.

Thanks for the info!  It’s an odd size plate, it’s an odd inbetween size of road / number of studs to be sure.  I threw it in my cart as a random piece on a BL order, needing a curve to complete the layout & happened upon it.  Similar enough printing for my tastes anyways, as I didn’t realize there was an inbetween size from the ‘vintage’ 80s era road plates and the ‘modern’ 21st century ones. 

M1J0E

Pitfall69 said:

Paperballpark said:

Not sure if you're aware, but I think the green plates were airport baseplates. I could be wrong though!

You are correct; the green ones with the solid centerline are Airport plates and not "road" plates. Before the solid dark bluish grey plates, they had green/dark bley roadplates. I have them all, but I like the solid dark bley plates the best. The green ones I used for residential/suburban areas of my town/city before I tore it all down.

Oops sorry I didn’t see you’d already answered the question.  Yep, definitely airport plates.  Any pics of your layout?  I’d love to get ideas & it sounds like you did yours similar to mine.

davee123

From an old thread:
https://forum.brickset.com/discussion/comment/18061#Comment_18061

Various types of road baseplates:

A) 1978-1985:
9-stud sidewalks, gray roads, gray sidewalks, with green stripes

B) 1986-1996:
7-stud sidewalks, gray roads, gray sidewalks, with green and white stripes

C) 1997-2001:
8-stud sidewalks, gray roads, green sidewalks, with green stripes

D) 2002-2004:
6-stud sidewalks, dark-gray roads, green sidewalks, and yellow stripes

E) 2005+:
6-stud sidewalks, dark-blay roads, dark-blay sidewalks, and white stripes

Below, these are:
A B D
C E A
B D C



DaveE

SumoLego

If I stare at this long enough, does the answer reveal itself?

M1J0E

Awesome write up thanks Dave!  I didn’t realize the roads actually got wider then narrower, before getting to their current width again.