I prefer Medium ballast for HO. While it’s not strictly prototypical is size, to my eye it “looks” more right then Fine. Plus, I use Fine ballast for gravel roads and pathways, and like the visual contrast between the fine and medium.
Nick
I use a hand powered sausage grinder to grind up aqarium filter charcoal for coal loads in loco tenders & 34’ hoppers. I use a false bottom with the ground up charcoal on top for my 40 & 50’ hoppers. I also fill my coaling tower up with this material. In my engine service facility yard I laid down strips of cut up black shingles under the track and covered the top with the charcoal & cinders from WS. I grind up clay kitty litter with the sausage grinder to use as ballast on the other trackage. On my team tracks where the track is embedded in asphalt & concrete I spike my track straight to the 3/B" thick Blandex top of my benchwork. It saves money on ties or flextrack and the area is about three foot long with 2 tracks. The grinder has 4 different plates to make 4 different sizes of rock plateor ballast. I use the coarsest plate to make riprap to put in areas requiring fill. I use a mixture of fine and medium for mainline ballast. I use acrylic paint diluted with blue windshield washer fluid to stain the ballast a dark gray or light gray depending on which railroad its used on. UP & ATSF gets the light color while SP gets the darker color. Tweet.
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What do your sausages taste like? [dinner]