I am building a large coach yard to hold my passenger cars.
The layout is HO scale.
I have questions regarding the profile of the yard, the color of the ballast, and the method of applying the ballast.
First, the profile. The layout surface is plywood. Is it best to use sheets of foam or cork under the track or just place the track directly on the plywood? If it is best to use sheets of foam or cork, would you use HO scale or N scale sheets?
Second, the color of the ballast. Black, as in cinders? Buff, as in sand? Light gray, as in stone?
Third, how to apply the ballast thinly and evenly. How do you do it?
In my old, smaller coach yard, I used sheets of Woodland Scenics foam strips under the tracks in HO scale and just sprinkled and sprinkled Woodland Scenics Medium Cinders ballast. That proved to be too high a profile, too dark in color, and too deep and lumpy. I really want to avoid that in the new yard.
Don’t be too impatient – you have to wait for answers because this is not a live chat type forum. Now, to partially answer your questions:
What time frame ? What railroad ? What geographic location ?
In the days of steam, yards were ballasted with locomotive cinders. Most, of not all, track was not elevated for drainage like on a main line, so if it were me I’d put the track directly onto the plywood. This may create some drumhead type noise, but you’re not going to be running at high speed anyway, so the noise factor will be negligible.
For a more modern yard, the type and color of ballast used is going to depend on location more than anything else.
Hey, that wasn’t me calling for answers. I can be patient.
Time frame is mid-1954, freelance but simulating Dearborn Station in Chicago, so predominantly Santa Fe but also Wabash, Erie, C&EI. Monon, C&WI, and GTW. Throw in UP, PRR and NYC passenger trains for good measure.
This is going to be a passenger coach yard with a center access track for locomotives moving through the coach yard directly from the downtown passenger station to the engine servicing facilities on the other end of the coach yard.
a lot of larger coach yards that i have seen were paved between the tracks. usually concrete. the paving and wider track spacing allowed service personel to move their carts and equipment along side the cars and gave a good work area for washing and cleaning the outside of the cars. otherwise, i would just go with a fine cinder ballast. determining factor would be how much servicing and repair work was being done as opposed to just a lay-over yard.
I have enclosed some pictures of Sunnyside Yard which is basically the coach yard for New York City’s Penn Station. This yard has been in existence for about one hundred years. Note that the track area is ballasted with asphalt pavement for vehicle access. The track looks like it sits pretty high so a thin spreading of ballast may be the way to go. Personally I would mount the track to the plywood and use either cork or a hardboard to get the contour of the roadways.
John, that is very, very cool. Thanks for sharing.
When I look at that middle, or second, photo, it looks like gray stone ballast on the ground, concrete walkways between the tracks, and asphalt roadways in the coach yard for vehicular traffic.
I like that a lot, and that may be the way to go. I have some black and white photos of the Santa Fe coach yard at the 18th Street coach yard in Chicago, just outside Dearborn Station, and it appears similar to your photo. That coach yard, now gone since the late 1970’s had been in existence for nearly 75 years.
Check out my Yard. Youtube.com search for “diamonjim6” It may or may not be what you are looking for. There is one step that I have added since the video. That is “after the balast glue is dry and before I paint the track I use a stiff sponge (like an old bathroom sponge that will fit between the rails) and rub off the balast that might have worked its way onto the ties. Then vacuum off the loose balast then paint.”
