My summer home’s Cha-Cha Chesapeake N scale switching layout is primarily for operation. It incorporates an Inglenook Yard, a Timesaver and an industrial district in a 19" x 70" area atop a couple of Ethan Allen base units in the den. Scenery consists of a number of profile-type buildings to represent the industries, and the track is laid on Celotex (like Homasote), whose natural brownish color resembles earth. If you squint a bit, it looks pretty good. The problem is the appearance of the otherwise wonderful Kato Unitrack. The uniformly gray roadbed is just too toylike, but I don’t relish spending the hours it would take to ballast it. Can somebody recommend a wash or texture paint that might make it blend better into the semi-scenicked layout?
Alcohol and India ink would make a good wash, or just some watered down black acrylic paint. You can use oil based chalks too. Many folks weather their ballast, regardless what type they use. You can also add a little ballast along the sides of the Unitrack to break up the straight edges if you want.
I have a small section of that type of track I used for a removable section. I removed the track and just sprayed the roadbed part with Flex-Stone paint. Mine is HO. Not sure how it would look for N.
You would be surprised how little time is needed to ballast that amount of track. Take a small section and give it a try. You could ballast in about the same time it would take to do a wash or otherwise weather it.