Hopefully I can word this well enough so that all of you understand my inquiry. When transitioning from a ballasted mainline or secondary track down to, say - a “level” yard covered with cinders, would the graded track be ballasted all the way down to where it meets and levels out to the yard? If not, where would the ballast stop?
I’m looking to mimic a steam/early diesel servicing track area in the early 40s. Although I can find pictures of yards that are “cindered”, I’m not entirely sure how far a track is normally ballasted as it descends into a flat yard.
I will try and post a picture later tonight of what I’m attempting to do on my layout. Thanks for the help…
Here’s pictures of what I was trying to describe above:
The cork roadbed in all three images is for a spur that will be ballasted. The white ramp transitions from the spur down to the servicing yard. Diesels will follow the straight section of the turnout; steam will take the diverging track.
Again, what I’m trying to figure out is how far down the ramp the ballast should extend before it meets the cinder base in the yard. Or, do I have some flexibility in that regard.
I hope that makes a little more sense. Thanks again for the help…
The ballast used on the main track would stop on the diverging route not sooner than after the last long tie of the turnout. Where it stops after the last long tie would depend on whether the yard track has to be raised to the level of the main track before it reaches the last long tie. If the yard track is considerably below the main track, there will be a ballast “run-out” to raise the yard track. This run-out could consist of either the junk material such as cinders used to surface the yard, or the higher quality ballast used to surface the main track. Some of the factors that will affect this decision is the quality of the main track surfacing, which in that era, on other than a major Class 1 and other than a major trunk line would probably be pretty low-quality at such a location.
Much of the railroad track in the early 40s, even the main tracks, was surfaced with very poor quality material by today’s standards. There were large portions of main lines not surfaced with anything better than pit-run gravel that was full of fines. Typical “ballast material” sold to model railroaders is much too clean and uniform in size, shape, and composition to be representative of almost all the ballast of that era. A secondary track leading to an engine terminal, unless this is the PRR at Enola or some other exalted location, would likely be poor quality pit-run material mixed with cinders, chat, local mud that’s worked up into the track from the subgrade, or who knows what. When labor was cheap, the quality of the ballast wasn’t all that important. If you study old photos carefully you begin to realize just how crummy most of the ballast was in that era.
RWM gave a great answer. All I can add to it is that from the yards I’ve seen it appears to me that no great thought or effort went into the “transition area”. For all practical purposes, once the switch is cleared then the poor quality ballast (and even worse quality track work) takes over right away. It’ a little like the railroad just gave up at that point and said “good enough whatever” and thought no more on it.
This is an example on a CSX line. Notice how right after the switch the track drops suddenly to ground level and only a thin bed of ballast supports the track. The train will be moving about 5 mph at this point, so shoddy track is just fine. Even the transition area at the Wilmington DE Amtrak yard onto the high speed line is not much better than what is pictured here.
You have much leeway in modeling a “transition” area [;)]
This is a case of a photo being worth a 1,000 words! Note the different colors of ballast, the irregularity of shoulders, the drainage provisions, the weeds. Model railroads are far, far too neat and clean.
This siding leads off the main and drops down by the thickness of the cork roadbed to service this industrial area. I carried the mainline ballast out to the end of the switch ties, then used mainly cinders. On the actual sidings, ballast is mainly dirt and weeds:
Here, the mainline is at the same elevation as the sidings, so I barely widened the shoulders of the ballast on the main before switching to cinders. The cinders eventually mix with dirt and weeds, along with spilled lading, as the sidings progress away from the main:
You’re correct, Larry, but even though I have no yards on my layout, I thought that a couple of pictures would demonstrate my way of making a similar transition. The loco servicing area on my layout is handled the same way, although all tracks are ballasted with cinders - unfortunately, even if I had a picture of it, the transition would be more difficult to see in a photo. [swg]
Wayne,No problems always happy to see a pix of your layout…[tup]
I just wanted to mention a industry spur is privately own and the ballast could be anything from regular ballast to cinders-I knew one warehouse complex that had their track embedded in concrete pavement like street track…
Railroad yards ranges from well maintain to cinders and weeds-even today you will still find some cinders in older little use outlaying yards.
Transitions from main to industry spur or out laying yard could be 1%…I knew of a foundry that had a rather short but steep grade…The track was built on a fill and the foundry came later.Old GP7/9s and Alco RS units would really lug coming up that short grade with 3-4 cars
I looked through some more photos and I could only come up with these. The first is the actual point of transiton off the main line, the rail turns from 135lb to maybe a 113lb? In any case, the yard rails here date about 1918, other rails along the same track date from the 1930’s up to I think it was mid 70’s. Yards are the last item on the list for a railroad to maintain.
This next photo is where the main line starts to the right of the photo and where the lighter ballast takes over. I don’t have a better photo, sorry. Note the more or less uniform ballast in the yard (and the very high quality rail work!), but lots of dirt, weeds and trash. As brakie pointed out, there are any number of ways to ballast a yard and transiton to the main.
There are several things that you might like to consider.
Date - this is a variation of “era”… but allow me to waffle… It looks to me like you are working in the “transition era”… but at which end of it? … or somewhere in the middle? You have seperate routes from the switch for steam and diesel so to some extent i take it that you have seperate depots? If so might we assume that the steam depot is old and possibly being run down? At the same time the deiesel facility might be more or less new… As far as date within era goes we therefore have a whole bunch of variables…
Location - much more simple. Depending on where your railroad is it will source ballast from different locations. I don’t know if it’s possible for you to search posts of over a year ago under “ballast” to find stuff previously posted on this. The basic rule is that - except where very heavy traffic both pays for and demands the import of high grade ballast over a longer distance ballast will normally reflect what is available withing the RR compny’s territory or close by.
Traffic - heavy traffic demands and pays for good ballast and also for regular maintenance. Lesser traffic gets less imput.
Local topography - If the location is wet ballast will require a high level of up keep or it will deteriorate rapidly. Something that goes with this is the life expectancy of ties and, to a lesser extent, of rails… if groundwater is acid rail is likely to suffer more. Also “detritus” ca be washed into ballast and/or material washed out of the ballast… including the whole formation being washed out… this is extreme but all these things relate to the “story” you can build into the image of the track that you choose to model. One thing to look at in the pictures posted so far is the groundwater - in th
