wat is a ballest?
if some 1 culd plz tel me it would be great becous im very new to this hobby[8D]
Ballast is the crushed stone that is placed under and around railroad ties partially as support, partially to help anchor them in place, and also to provide drainage for rain water.
On model railroads, it is usually added after fastening down the track. There are several brands. It gets placed in position, then glued down.
That’s a very quick explanation, there’s more that could be said. Hope this answers your question.
Regards
Ed
It is a bit difficult to answer your question since it’s a bit hard to make out what you’re trying to write…I assume your question is “what is a ballast”? (You spelled it right originally.)
Ballast is any material used to stabilize motion–in a boat, ballast is heavy weights at the bottom of the boat intended to limit the boat’s rocking back and forth in heavy seas.
In the context of railroads, ballast is a layer of rocks, cinders or other material located underneath and around the railroad ties. It is intended to stabilize the track (as the name implies) and absorb some of the shock of a train’s passing, and spread the weight out over a wider area. Without ballast, on soft dirt a heavy train will sink the ties and track into the dirt–on rocky land, ballast provides a stable platform upon which the train can run. Because ballast generally consists of loose rocks, one of the most common maintenance operations of real railroads is maintaining ballast.
Oh, “a ballast” is incorrect–one would simply call it “ballast.”
In model railroading, ballast is modeled using small rocks that are poured around the track and held in place with glue. Some types of track (EZ-Track and such) model the ballast layer as a solid plastic piece.
Is this a joke???
The grammar and spelling look too far out for the question to be serious.
Well, even if it was, it didn’t cost me anything more than a couple minutes of my time to reply to it.
Ed