Greetings,
What color ballast do you use?
I use a medium size light/ dark gray blend for HO scale.
I use black cinders around the engine facilitys.
Mark in Texas
I’m with you. originally I was going with black then I realized after looking at pictures I had it all wrong. there are some locations I maybe using a rust or oxide colour. depending on scenery and what the pictures dictate.
I’ve just finished using my last pure bag of medium grey on 9 feet of new track which will be the first bit of layout that visitors see. Or was it medium buff?
If I do the rest of the layout, I have a big container of mixed ballast that was recycled from my previous layout. I may think of doing the yard in this and buying some pure bags for the mainline.
I know that CPR and CNR in our area have different ballast colours – it’s very noticeable when the tracks cross at junctions.
Useful topic!
This is good to consider after laying trackwork.
I remember seeing rust colored ballast near major railyards or industries where freight cars are frequently parked. Also seen rusty looking ballast on sidings where track maintenace cars would sit for days or weeks at a time. I’m assuming that during rain storms the rust on some freight car sides and trucks washes down to the road bed.
Cheers and High Greens!
I have thought long and hard about this and have not got it down yet. After some trials I think I’l go for a blend of fine WS buff/grays and a few ballast types and some Carrs cinders/ash from here in UK. Then I’ll get it down and weather and airbrush it - possibly quite heavily and then wonder what all the fuss was about!
Chris
I use different color ballast to tell a story of my track. I use Woodland Scenics, some old Campble, and most recently I discovered Arizona Rock & Mineral Co.
http://www.rrscenery.com/index.html
I have also used variations of garden sand, and some fine granular mixes from home improvement and lawn and garden suppliers.
I use one color for mainline and sidings, a second, muted color for secondary trackage, and a different color altogether for the “other RR” at junctions. Around yards I will use mixtures with some or more “cinders” in it. At the club one night, I was ballasting track on my module - with different colored mixes. A member who has worked for the 1:1 boys came over, looked for a minute, and said “This is a Junction!!”
Is it now?? [^][:D]
A work buddy of mine is a geologist, so long ago I decided to take a little extra care with my ballasting and scenery. [:)]
I ended up using fine sand for most of mine - at first I thought it looked too light but it’s darkened down a lot due to dust, residue from track cleaning (I use a Peco cleaning block) etc - it now looks ok. Only snag is I ran out halfway and couldn’t get any more, so the rest is done with fine brown gravel (think it’s Woodland Scenics but not entirely sure!). I suspect if you could get darker sand (or paint it after installing) it would look very convincing - it looks right in terms of texture at least. Hope this is of help!
I use whatever’s closest in color to what my prototype roads used. And lots of natural clays and soil around the engine facilities, in addition to Woodland Scenics cinders (and I grind the cinders as well!)
I’m still not sure what colors to go with, but my track plan has both mountain and flat plains areas, as well as track yards, turntable, and engine facilities. All areas are probably going to be different colors and textures. But I have not really determined what color for what location just yet.
The family is going on a vacation in late March to the Four Corners area (Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah) I was thinking of collecting a bunch of dirt at various locations and shipping them back home. My wife laughed when I told her of the idea! [:O]
Thanks,
Ryan
I used fine light gray and dark gray with some (3 teaspoons) or black mixed in a WS shaker container. Looks pretty good. I was going to use medium but I thought it looked a little big for HO.
Just my 2 cents
Jeff
After i laid my track, I took a 3 hour ride on a highway that runs along the CSX mainline and checked the ballast color and various dirt colors for ideas. Ballast was easy,“light gray”, however the dirt varied from sandy white to dark brown and some red clays. So my track dirt varies in color along the tracks. But one thing i should have done like “jhoff310” said is i should have added some grimy black in my yard.
I purchased a bag of “oil spill” clean up stuff from walmart for $2.99 (10kg ish) and then sieved and sifted it using my wifes ‘old’ flour sieve to obtain the fine ballast sized chippings. These chippings are very variable in colour containing a range through light and dark greys with a splattering of black. I have ballasted approx 25ft of double track mainline and have about 3/4 of the fine chippings left, so it’s very cost effective. plus I still have the bag of oil spill for any motoring mishaps as 99% of the chipping were too big to use on the layout. I am currently weathering various areas with ‘grass’ also rust, earth and coal using very diluted paints which is going well.
Howdy. I use ARZ rock and mineral N scale ballast on my pike. The color I chose was the " pink lady" color. Mostly seen on the CNW trackage.
One thing that I did find out, once you apply the wet water mix and then the water/glue mix the ballast color gets darker.
Adios
The CNW pink ballast. Now if i only knew where to get some
You could try mixing W/S purple sand with fine light gray ballast or to sprinkle the purple sand on top of the ballast before wetting and glueing
i use a medium grey blend by WS
Sometimes–not all the time, but sometimes–it pretty much depends on your topography. I model the Sierra Nevada mountains, so a lot of the ballast used there comes from river gravel, which is a mixture of everything from almost white rock to dark granite. I use Woodland Scenics light gray, medium gray and a little ‘cinders’ in the mix for the mainline, and my yards are a mixture of rust, buff and light gray, to denote lightly ballasted track. I use a lot of Cinders around my engine facilities to represent spilled oil. A railroad that used to run to my hometown in the Sierra foothills used a lot of crushed quartz from mine tailings in the area, and the Central Pacific in the area around Gold Run, CA used so much of the mine tailings in its roadbed that they had to post guards along the right-of-way to prevent ‘high-graders’ from stealing the ballast for the quartz, and whatever gold might not have been leeched out, LOL!
Tom
Great question, I’ll be spreading ballast sometime this week. I want to use light gray with a little bit of cider mixed in for the mainlines and cinder for around the engine shop, sideings and yard.
For my main running lines I’ve got a light grey ballast, on the approaches to turnouts at the yard I have a mix of black cinders and the light grey, moving through to black cinders in the furthest reaches of the yard sidings (since these areas would be left alone being out of the public eye.
I also use the black cinders at the entrance to the tunnels and a little way inside, making the entrances darker.
Ian
I remember reading years back that a western U.S road, either the UP or Rio Grande used “Slag Ballast” on certain mainline sections. I remember seeing the picture in a book called: Trains, Tracks, and Travel. Printed in 1956. The mainline was neatly dressed and the ballast itself was “Jet Black”!
Thought it looked unusual. I’m going to look for that photo and post the background info on it. I’ve never seen other photos of rail lines using a black colored ballast.
Anyone know if this stuff is still used today or why was it used in the first place?
Cheers![;)]