I have been taking my time on my new layout making sure that the track work is at a level of operation were I am comfortable with all my engines running everywhere without any problems. With that said, when I find an area of track work I’m comfortable with, I will start to ballast. I’m not doing the entire layout all at the same time. To break it up, I’ll ballast a section then I’ll run trains for a week or two then ballast some more. I would consider my layout small. It’s an L-shape 12x17 with 5.5’ turn arounds. Like my old layout, I plan on an urban area as well as a rural portion. Finally my question. With that size layout and having these certain areas, would it be prototypical to change up the ballast in certain areas? I already started with a medium gray blend. What do you guys think would compliment that color and where could I put it? Oh I’m using Woodland Scenics. And please let’s not get into a discussion of which brand of ballast is better.
Different ballasts are quite appropriate. Each time a railroad makes repairs to a section of track the ballast may have come from a different source. A dirtier, oilier ballast is appropriate in the city, and a cleaner ballast out in the burbs.
To be honest with you, LION buys all of his ballast in 25# bags at Walmart. (It has a picture of a cat on the bag). You sift out the big lumps (return them to the cats, they will know what to do with them) and use the fines as ballast on your railroad.
LIONS do not glue ballast down, but then him uses no cork roadbed so the ballast has no place lower to go, and thus stays put (unless you scatter it with a motor tool or power drill.) When LION is done with signal project him will vacuum the layout of years of crudlings and the ballast will of course go to, but not to worry, there is more ballast where that came from.
You can also buy the clumping kind of cat litter, but then you have to go through with a tweezers and remove all of the blue things.
Oh well, with 14 miles of track you gotta cut corners somewhere on your costs.
Even in a small area, it would not usually be protypical for every track to have the same ballast. Varying levels of maintainance are normal, and along with those colors and textures of ballast. Finely textured material like cinders or just dirt are common on yard tracks and industry spurs (cinders less so after the steam era).
Unless you want a completely different color, pick up some dark grey and light grey ballast, take your existing blend and add one or the other till you get a color you like, this can be used anywhere as a repair or as a siding.
Though in general ballast color is fairly consistent on a given road or at least in an area, as it usually comes from the same place. There are differences. As Lion mentioned, repairs may not be the same color if they grabbed what was available, a washout near a culvert or new culvert installation. You don’t mention your era, but in the steam era, cinders were often used in yards and on nearby sidings. Early diesel era, some would still show, but later would have sunk into the yard and covered with other things. Also, remember that yards tend to be a finer ballast, as they knew people would be walking there and wanted a somewhat smoother surface.
Ballast colour is a question of area and geology and can be very uniform for hundreds of miles
Generally old is darker than new.
At frequently used stops and terminals can have oil contamination on old ballast where the loco’s stop
So you need a dark and light shade of whatever colour you are using and blend them according to where it is.
High gloss black and grimy black paint and black ink/wash can be used to represent the oil and grease stains at terminals.
on a 12X17 I would say its going to be fairly uniform having all come from the same quarry or supplier
Yards tend to be fairly level for safety reasons paths for switch crews in my local yard are done with fines which is much the same colour as the ballast. Where ballast can be seen it is smaller and much older than the main line and contaminated with dirt and all sorts and pretty much all at sleeper level.
Here’s the UP (former WP) yard at Portola, CA in 1985. Ballast is typical of many prototype facilities. The main track is at left on the bottom of the photo (the one the train with auto racks is on). It has mostly one color and texture of ballast, but there are areas where other types overlap into it, as with the dirt from the service tracks at left. The next track to the right often functions as the siding. It has ballast of different colors and textures from the main, and is less uniform. The rest of the yard tracks off to the right have various amounts of old cinders and dirt, and color varies even more from spilled lading and patches of ballast reflecting ongoing maintenance over time. The service and storage tracks at far left have a higher proportion of dirt.
Here’s the lead out the east end of the same yard. Note again the differences between the main (left) siding/lead (center) and storage track (right).
Even in a small area, ballast can vary considerably between tracks depending on how they’re used and maintained.
