Let’s say that ballasting is just about my least favorite thing to do. Somedays it is tedious, gets on my last nerve and tries my patience. (Ask me how I really feel). So, i have been looking at your pictures - some of you are very precise ala Cody Grivno precise and others of you just seem to spread it and not worry.
Now I understand for realism sake there are different looks - but what camp do you favor and why? Are you in the ‘very precise’ camp or in the ‘let’s spread it and get it over camp?’
I try to get it to look good, but often it doesn’t make the grade. Like others , I find it’s one of the most tedious jobs in the hobby. When done right it looks very realistic but, like many other things, it’s certainly not my strong suit. Maybe it’s a patience thing.
I think using a foam brush makes this tedious job a little easier. I trim a 1" brush so it just fits between the rails & drag it along at about a 45 d. angle. It doesn’t dislodge the ballast grains like a bristle brush does.
Ballast? Ballast? Whats That? LION builds subway train, does not need too much ballast, not in tunnels or on elevated structure. It is required on embankments and in open cuts.
LION uses no built up roadbed. Trains running in an open cut need it not. As a matter of fact even the embankments on the NYCT seem to be innocent of roadbed.
Ballast? LION buys ballast in 25 pound bags at Walmart. Him has over 14 miles of mane lion railroad. Actually, it is CAT LITTER! LION sifts it through a window screen, and give the big lumps back to the cats.
LION spreads it where needed, but does not glue it. Gravity works just fine, thank you.
From what I have seen ballast in the real world is not nearly as neat as folks try to make it on their model RR. If I have a few specks on my ties and a little uneven shoulder it looks more prototypical than a perfectly groomed track. As long as it does not interfere with operation and you can live with it, don’t lose any sleep over it.
The old Rock Island tracks are very near my home, and they are now used by Metra for its commuter trains. When I stand on the platform and look down at the tracks at the station and beyond, it is not pretty and there are definitely pieces of ballast on the ties.
I try to do a good job with my ballast, but I’m not always successful. On the other hand, when I’m done it doesn’t look “inadequate.” In all likelihood, we are our own worst critics on stuff like this.
I do scenery slowly, a few square feet at a time, and the ballast is generally one of the last steps. So, I try to keep up with “finishing” each small scene, and that involves a few feet of ballast, at most, in one session. That way, I don’t have an overwhelming amount to do all at once, so the task isn’t so dreadful.
Once again I’m the odd man out…I like to ballast my track as you would see it on a urban industrial branch and that means I lighty ballast with a mixture of cinders,dirt, and dark gray ballast.For “dirty dirt” I lighty overspray the track with a mist of Floquil Grimy Black in the rattle can.
I pretty much do the same as Mr.B. Ballasting is one of those things that really needs to be done. I only work on one area at a time, roughly about 1 to 2 feet only, and I stay with it until it is completed. That last step is to ballast that 1 to 2 feet, and then move on to the section.
I actually find ballasting sort of fun. It calms my heart rate and gets me happy. However, the amount of my layout that has been ballasted is maybe only 25%. I don’t apply the ballast until the adjacent scenery is completed and on much of my layout, the scenery is only shelled up.
As far as having any philosophy about it, I only try to make it look like the real thing. I can get it so it is graded perfectly; but, when I use wet water to wet it down and dribble on the scenic cement, it can get moved around and the last thing you want to do is try to move it back into position when it is wet. I know this from experience!
I see that there is a ballasting car made by Ballast King, for $239.00. The advertisements says it will cut your ballasting time by 90%! Maybe it’s worth it, for those of you who hate the job.
If you ever watch train MOW crews, the last step is redistributing the ballast which involves running a shovel blade over the sides giving it a very groomed appearance. I imagine over time the ballast settles and gets moved by trains, and mother nature giving it a less groomed appearance.
However I have seen Penn Central and Forrestry track that was just the ugliest thing you ever seen.
Your not the only one Brakie, at least as being odd man out. I don’t get it, whats all the angst over ballasting? Maybe it’s me being weird but I’ve always enjoyed it. [*-)][%-)]
The old mainline of the Northern Pacific/Burlington Northern and now BNSF in my local area is very well groomed. I am talking about the tracks between towns, not in the towns and cities along the way. Staples Minnesota, which is a division point on the BNSF, has a 1.5 mile long, 8 tracked yard that appears to be ballasted with dirt. (An interesting feature of looking at this area on Google Earth is that the layout of old roundhouse at Staples is still visible. Te same is true at Dilworth, near Fargo).
I thought it was pretty fun and went through it pretty quickly granted it wasn’t the best. This time around I’m going to be far more conservative about the way I ballast. code 55 doesn’t sit very high. I was also going to borrow a play from the Model railroaders “Building the BN” by putting electrical tape on the bottom of my switches and ballasting them. then flipping them over to rid myself of extra ballast.
I work from photographs and try to convey what they show. In the machine maintenance era ballast doesn’t look the same as when track was maintained mostly by hand. It also varies between adjacent tracks. Bear in mind that sloppiness tends not to scale down, so to make your model ballast look “right” it may be necessary to employ more care than your prototype does.
Ah ballasting. I used to cringe the thought of ballasting. Now i have a different approach and its not that bad. On my main layout, I laid all the track and never finished all the ballast, because it looked like a daunting task.
In my extension room layout, I’ve taken a different approach. Now I’m laying track, and finishing the scenery and ballast on each scene. Now I don’t have to worry about going back and looking at all the tracks that need to be ballasted, and thinking Oh My God thats a lot of work. Its already done!
The only area I find ballast not looking as real as it should on some layouts is around turnouts. Some are all neatly groomed following the shape of the turnout. Sometime the prototype is like that, but more often than not I see prototype turnouts surrounded by a lot more ballast. Sometimes it looks like the turnout is sitting on (or in) a large island of ballast. Not following the shape of the turnout at all.
Ballasting the track is certainly among those chores I like the least (only soldering is worse), so my next layout won´t see any ballast. Before you start to say “for crying out loud” - all of the track will be set in cobblestones, each individual stone carved out of a layer of modeling clay. Guess what´s easier to do!
LION sifts it through a window screen, and give the big lumps back to the cats.
