I am building an Ho scale layout with code 100 track. I may eventually lay ballast, but I’d like to lay the tack on a roadbed initially without ballast. All other considerations aside, which roadbed would look the best without ballast?
Best is in the eyes of the track layer. I would try cork painted grey or black.
Homabed from Cascade Rail Supply. It’s already gray and is available with 30 degree slope.
You could lay track on cork “old school” and spray paint it. Ballast it later.
Used Rustoleum Camo brown here:
Another vote for homabed from Cascade, way better than cork…ballast later or not.
Ballasting should be done after everything is running well and scenery is being done anyway.
Sheldon
You can just lay cork sprayed with a rattle can called stone, think you can get in gray and brown. It has specks in it and looks not half bad.
I like the rattle-can stone idea… Reminds me of the really old-school approach of tacking sandpaper on a 1X3 lumber base to simulate a stone base.
Simon
Once you have the track laid and operational, why delay ballasting? It’s one of the easiest-to-do-jobs on your layout, and, along with painting the rails, gives you the most bang-for-your-buck that you’ll ever encounter in model railroading.
Wayne
On balance I’d say unballasted cork roadbed, with its dark and somewhat mottled look, looks a bit more like prototype track than unballasted homa-bed or homasote with its uniform gray color and visible texture. Painting the homabed or homasote would help, as pointed out earlier, but painting the stuff does tend to lessen its sound deadening qualities in my experience, and also makes it a bit harder to drive in spikes for hand laid track.
But I’d also say that while cork and homabed both have their virtues and both are worthy of consideration, it seems to be putting the cart before the horse to choose the one that looks better without ballast, when at some point you will ballast.
If you do use cork, and it took me a while to learn about and believe this, it really helps to smooth out the cork roadbed once it is laid by using a large flat (lightly) abrasive sanding sponge. There are little bumps and bulges on cork roadbed as it comes.
By the way and slightly OT, at one time LifeLike sold bags of “ballast” that was nothing more than ground-up cork roadbed. It has a sort of pepper and salt look.
I first heard about the rattle can of stone texture idea in an MR article by then editor Terry Thompson, so I gave it a try particularly under some turnouts where I was assuming I would not be ballasting around the moving points. I think that is what Thompson’s article was about. Yes it does give a somewhat more ballasted look than plain cork. However it has a genuine texture and thus the turnout was not sitting on an utterly smooth flat surface but on a slightly rough pebbly surface. Also the spray itself is not easy to control. Worst of all I think I got exactly two uses out of my rattle can before it became hopelessly clogged (even with holding it upside down and spraying until nothing came out). If you decide to try it then plan ahead and think of all the areas you want to use it in advance so
Buy the Kato or Atlas stuff that has the road bed and “ballast” built in.
The only other time to lay track without ballast, is a logging railroad, like the Roddis Line, which weaved it way through the Wisconsin north woods, using track from the SOO line, and logs for ties. (Finished lumber from the owners mills had to be shipped on the SOO)
The only ballast was what wood debris fell of the log cars. When the logging was done, the SOO took back the track, and everything was abandoned.
Mike.
I’ll vote for painting cork roadbed with Rustoleum Stone Effects Gray.
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-Kevin
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Yes, why wait with ballast? Besides what Wayne mentioned, ballast looks very realistic. It’s easy to add and secure too.
Thanks for the reminder of what to add on the shopping list!
Since you wish to use code 100, you might look into using Bachmann’s nickel-silver E-Z track. It’s “click track” that comes with the track sections attached to gray plastic roadbed. Unlike Kato and Atlas click-track, where the track is attached to simulated ballast, E-Z track is attached to what functions as the roadbed. You add the ballast later yourself.
The only issue I have with roadbed attached track besides cost is that it looks sectional so I ended up ballasting it anyway