I am starting to lay track in the railroad yard and I need to find the right ground cover or ballast. I have been using Woodland Scenics Cinder Fine Ballast #B1376 on the transition area between the roadbed and ground.
It seems to be a little bit too black and too big in particle size for HO from what I remember of railroad yards. Is there a yard cover, which is finer and lighter in color out there?
I have also looked in some pet shops and department stores for the right material but have no luck so far. Tell me what you are using.
I don’t know what’s much finer than the WS Fine - that’s some pretty small particles. Possibly in cinders it’s too large, but the fine ‘rock’ ballast is, if anything, too small. I picked up a few rocks from the actual track and compared colors, the medium gray looks about right to me for my railroad, but a yard at least would likely have cinders or some cheaper material instead of the rock of a major mainline. The other maker of ballast that I know of is Arizona Rock and Mineral. They have a variety of real crushed materials.
I like the Highball products fine cinders for the yard areas. This stuff is real crushed stone (limestone, I think) and is very fine. I’m working in N scale so I need a very fine grain. It really glues down well, too. I use a misting of isopropyl alcohol as a wetting agent followed by dilluted matte mediul gently flowed out of an empty Elmer’s glue bottle. Unlike the Woodland Scenicks stuff which tends to float away (and into the switch points) this stuff really stays put.
Try Michaels or Hobby Lobby. I have picked up some black “sand” that is very fine. They also sell some very light brown. See if this fits your need. I mix it with the WS fine gray to get the effect I want.
I had the same sort of issue on my last layout that I just tore down. See, I’m in N scale, so I’m always looking for very fine stone. I found that if you go to some of the better pet shops, ones that specialize in fish, there is a huge selection of different shades of sand and rock for the bottoms of the tanks. I paid like $4.00 for a good sized bag of black sand that was so fine it was almost a powder. I took some of it out and misted it with some dark grey paint and then mixed it back in for some variety. I used that as a base, then sprinkled some slightly larger stone on top, pressed down on the top of it to give it a little more of a blended look, then secured it in place. Looked real good.
Hi Doc, The very finest-size ballast I know of is Smith & Sons “fines,” available in a range of colors including light and dark cinders. It’s sold by Scenic Express, www.scenicexpress.com. I use it myself, although in different colors – with our oil-burning steam power, we don’t have cinders on my part of the Santa Fe. So long, Andy
Thanks for the help guys. Unfortunately this ballast is something you have to actually see before you buy. So I will be doing some foot-work to run down the leads you guys gave me.
You can try Great Northern Sand & Gravel. Their packages are only $1.99 ea. so you can get quite an assortment for low cost. I am sure you’ll find something there. They have all sizes from dust and up. They also convert them to Ho scale deminsions for easier selection.
Jeff, did you find GNS&G locally, or did you order it direct from Ian in Yellowknife?
I agree, Great Northern makes an exceptional product, especially at the price, and with a better selection of sizes than I’ve seen elsewhere. The Woodland Scenics “Fine” ballast represents about 1" to about 3" in HO, whereas Great Northern offers a narrower size range – 1/2" to 1" in their 4080 size, for example. The TD4080 (see ballasts and sizes at http://www.ballast-train.com/products/crushed/crushed.html) might be a good darkish base, perhaps blended with crushed coal, for a yard.
I order direct from Ian. I don’t know anyone who carries it locally. He generally turns orders around quickly. I had a delay on my last order because he had an equipment problem. Some may not agree but I think Ian needs to raise his prices. His stuff is priced much lower than the competition. I use his stuff for gravel and other landscaping. I use Arizona Rock and Mineral for ballast because he has an NS blend which is pretty prototypical.
I just posted a picture in my Rail Images folder which shows a few different ballast types.
The main is Arizona Rock CSX/NS blend, the yard is Great Northern I think he calls dark gray (looks black to me) and the one next to the hill is Great Northern light gray which looks a lot like granite.
The loco shop building is Pikestuff, kind of kitbashed into something I thought looked okay. The sand tower if Walthers (2 per kit, one large and one small). Still lots of work to do in the area with other details. I’m using Joe Fugates powdered paint method to weather the track and it is great. Thanks for the tip Joe.
We have been mixing actual soil with the ballast to thin it. They say to heat it in the oven to kill the microbes, but I do not see why the alcohol wetting agent would not kill them. So far, we have no weird things growing on our layout.
I agree about cinders being too big. What is common in my area is to uses N scale cinders for HO. That looks much better for yards. Some even use N scale ballast but I do not. It makes a nice transition to differentiate the yard.
I live and work near the Colton yard, was SP now UP, and it has always looked like solid gunked up soil. I mean flat. Even when they did some changes to the track I could see they ballasted like any other track but it did not take long to go flat. I guess because it does not drain as well.
Would it be ok to use the finest ballast the add dyed plaster over it to give it that solid look? Then you could airbrush the gunk in between the rails to highlight the track. In Colton in between the tracks are a medium brown but in between the rails it is black.