hey everyone im doing a desert aka western style layout in arizona im going to ballast my track but what is good ballast? is there a better kind? im looking for ballast that they use in the west. any info will help! thankyou…keith
Take a look at this site: http://rrscenery.com
I haven’t used it (I’m not at the ballast stage yet), but it looks interesting. My LHS carries it, so I have actually seen the stuff. For desert scenery, they probably have something that fits.
In my part of Arizona, the Union Pacific uses white granite ballast, the same as anywhere else in the country.
An older line that was built by the Santa Fe sometime in the very early 1900’s is ballasted with copper smelter slag, which is black and was plentiful in this area.
Much of Santa Fe’s ballast was river rock; SP used some of this, too.
I’ve been modeling the WP in the Nevada/Utah deserts. They used the same black smelter slag there as in the wetter climates. D&RGW also used black slag (much from the same source as WP in Garfield, UT) in various climate zones. The railroads don’t necessarily use ballast that blends with the surrounding deserts, since it may originate where the rock color differs from its final surroundings anyway. Unless you’re modeling a shortline that doesn’t get its ballast from a class one’s source (and many buy ballast from the class ones), you probably don’t have to worry about matching the color to the scenery. Pick a color you like and go for it.
[#ditto]
I live here in Phoenix and depending on where you are, its different colors all over. On the lower UP main it has the whiteish popular color. Up here in Phoenix, you see the dark ore stuff. Kinda dark grey. Over on the BNSF main you got light gray with some reddish hue ballast too. The yards are a complete mix. Recently, some track work here in Phoenix was done on one of the UP lines that ran south out of Mesa and they used light gray ballast. A new switch was put in and the used a ligh reddish color ballast…
Hence the above feelings, unless you want to model a specific section or get real protypical, I would just pick you fav color and rock and roll with it.
(Oh thats bad… [:D])