Hi all,
I was wondering if crushed coal would be an acceptable substitute for the black “cinder” ballast that Woodland Scenics sells for sidings. I have ample coal supplies, but not enough cash to spare for the “real” stuff.
Would I have to worry about acidity ruining things, or will I be fine?
Thanks in advance.
I suppose I can really only venture a WAG on this one. I haven’t needed to do this in awhile but I used to go out into the dry washes hereabouts and collect a bucket full of sand and gravel which I would then pulverise into N-Scale ballast using a gee-yard-sales-are-terrific blender. Using various sizes of screening I would sift it into various sizes for use as ballast; rip-rap; talus; etc. I suppose you could use this procedure on coal but you would have to break it into “managable” sizes before pulverising it.
Not really sure of “prototypical” black ballast, however.
Coal is carbon. Carbon is a conductor. I would.put both leads of an ohmmeter on a piece to see if it might short out the track.
Coal looks like coal. If you want your ballast to look like that, I suppose you could try it. I use sand for most of my ballast, and it’s pretty cheap. Some I get from the home center, some from outdoors if it’s a color I want. I haven’t had problems with magnetic/conductive material in the sand.
Here’s a photo I’ve used in other threads showing sand as ballast on my layout.
Depending where you obtain it coal also carries some oil that can precipitate out and creep. Most coal that is available in the few remaining coal yards is what used to be called #2 slacker coal. That means that it is from the bottom of pits where there are a lot of oils or it has had oils added to it to make it ignite more easily in a auger stoker.
Most model coal provided by several manufacturers is pretty dry.
Seal it down with a white glue solution over the top. This will stop the dust also.
I have coal all over the place in a coal yard with a spur siding in the middle of it. I’ve not sensed a parasitic load across it between the rails. Interesting thought… never even considered it when landscaping.
see ya
Bob
I have some real coal I’ve used for certain projects. I store it outside and noticed that some small rust stains have formed, but it’s in the rain sometimes.
I would recommend trying it in a small area first–test the concept. BTW, you’ll make some dust when you crush it. At least I do, when I hit it with a hammer.
Richard
Anthracite or Bituminous? And from what part of the country? Some coal contains high amounts of sulphur or other minerals and not pure coal. Maybe enough foreign material to cause electrical shorts.
Coal is black, cinders are various shades of gray with a slight hint of some rusty red. I guess if your a coal hauler, spilled coal along the right of way would be expected.
Are you sure you can’t afford to buy ballast, I’ve never thought the cost for ballast to be that much and a large bottle of the stuff goes a long way.
Coal is dirty. If you wonder why your fingertips have black smudges, or worse, if your wife wonders why your shirt cuffs have black smudges, this may be the answer.
Better than lipstick on the collar, I suppose…[swg]
Coal is useful from our modeling perspective because it looks like coal even when crushed into small particles. That is, it is black and has some glossy surfaces. Cinder ballast is not black and is not usually glossy (although some cinder products from foundries can have glossy surfaces from where it melted).
If you use coal on the sidings, what would you use around the coaling tower or coal-loading facilities? I have used real coal around the coal tipple and it looks good simulating what has been spilled in that area over time. While I’ve seen a lot of dark ballast in Appalachia, my opinion (worth no more than anyone else’s) is that actual coal would look too black as general ballast.
Bill
Sounds like a good idea, but I wouldn’t do it, mainly because of electricity. I think that real cinders would actually work better than coal. The best thing with cinders is that you just need to wait for the end of winter to go out and shovel up some cinders for your layout. Didn’t cost me a penny.
Believe it or not, it really can be conductive but what I’ve found is that you have to crush it into a powder to get this effect. I use powdered coal not as ballast but to represent coal dust under my loadouts. You can probably see some of this in the pics link in my sig. The issue was at the tipple called “Fireking”.
The conductivity was enough to trip up a Digitrax occupancy detector but in my case, not enough to cause operational problems. I noticed I had a tripped block detector all the time and was pulling my hair out trying to figure out what was going one. Finally started cutting gaps in one rail for the sidings as part of my troubleshooting and hit paydirt for the second gap for a spur under a tipple where I had flooded the rails with coal dust and problem solved. (It was glued down with white glue obviously)
I would bet you’ll never see an issue with crushed coal as you just can’t get it packed tight enough to get conductive. I used crushed coal under the tipple called “Joan” and so far have not needed to gap those rails.