What an exciting option the appearance palette is! Extra strokes and extra fills can be added to an object to make many exciting styles which can be used over and over again.

Note: The appearance palette is only available for Illustrator version 9 and above.

1. Choose the line tool and click on the artboard. Create a line 40mm in length with an angle of 0° (this will mean it is a horizontal line)

2. Choose the Selection tool and with the line selected make it 10pt weight from the Stroke palette.

 3. From the Window menu choose Appearance palette if it is not already available.

4. From the Appearance palette submenu choose Add new stroke. 

5. Using the Stroke palette make this stroke 1pt, and dashed. (If the dashed line options are not available choose show options from the Stroke palette submenu). On the Color palette change the color to white.
  

6. From the Window menu choose Graphic styles and drag the horizontal line into the Graphic styles palette.

7. Draw a rectangle or ellipse and click on the new style in the Graphics styles palette.

Use the steps below to create a railway line

1. Repeat steps 1-4 above.

2. In step 5 change the line to dashed with a 3pt dash. For the second stroke make it .5pt width and black.

3. Repeat steps 6 and 7.

 Applying this style to the rectangle will not work because the angles will fill in. Just use this one on a line or ellipse.