I’m using this track which has a light gray roadbed/ballast that isn’t very realistic, I’ve tried using black India ink and alcohol but I’m not satisfied with the appearance. Does anyone have any suggestions on how to get a more realistic color?
Welcome to the forums.
I believe you are in O scale, if you click on Classic Toy Trains, at the top of this page, you will be talking to mostly O and S scale folks.
However, your question is one several folks here have askes about HO and N scale track with the same type of built in roadbed. From the responses I have seen they seem to have some success by adding a thin layer of ballast. A coat of ballast colored paint might be better looking than using glue to hold the ballast, especially if you used a textured paint. Not sure about the looks, so I would suggest an experiment on one or two pieces before you go all out. As with any ballasting be sure to keep grains away from your turnouts.
Good luck,
With my HO Kato Unitrack (similar to the Fastrack) to make it more real I “paint” the sides of the rails with a product called Neo-Lube which is available thru Micro-Mark. It dries to a flat dark gray and to my eye makes the rails look better. Then I paint some of the ties with dark brown or dark gray so they aren’t all the same uniform black.
If the alcohol/india ink wash doesn’t give the results you want, you could try using chalks or other dry colorings.
If your track is down permanent you can first paint the rails with either roof brown or railroad tie brown to simulated rusted rails. clean the tops of the rails off after the paint is dry but not too long as it will be harder to remove. I sue either a bright boy or alcohol if you use acrylic paint or thinner if you use solvent based paint on a Q-tip once thats done you can ballast the track just as you would with any other track flex or sectional. By spreading dry ballast in between the ties and cleaning it off the tops of the ties with a brush then hit it with a wetting agent. I like to use 70% Isopropyl alcohol and then with an eye dropper or pipette dribble in a 50/50 mix of white glue and water. after it’s all dry you may have to go clean the inside flanges of the track here and there to assure good operation but if your careful this will be a very minimum amount of cleaning. I have seen tis doen on Kato n scake track as well as Lionel O gauge track such as yours and you coud not tell it was sectional track.
With Fastrack, the “ballast” goes right up to the top of the ties I believe. You could add ballast on the side to get away from the straight lines on the edges.
http://www.lionel.com/products/ProductNavigator/_ProductImages_590/6-12014_1930.jpg
This is a common question on the O-gauge forums. Most use a wash of some kind. I use full-strength white glue on the shoulders of the plastic ballast, then spoon on a light-grey ballast. Painting the rails helps, too: 