Painting or Ballasting FasTrack

[txspecial]

Has anybody tried to paint and/or ballast Lionel FasTrack?  I just thought I'd ask for the collective wisdom of the forum before embarking on it. 

My goal is to level the FasTrack with the adjacent ground, as is the case in yards, i.e. eliminate the raised profile of FasTrack.  I think I may be able to do it with 1/2 foam glued to the banked part of the track, but then there's the question of how to blend the edges, which led me to the question posted. 

Yes, I know FasTrack is not ideal for real high rail, but since I've already got the track, I thought I'd try to see how good it could be made to look.

Thanks in advance for any thoughts or guidance.

Bob

[Anonymous]

Has anybody tried to paint and/or ballast Lionel FasTrack?  I just thought I'd ask for the collective wisdom of the forum before embarking on it. 

My goal is to level the FasTrack with the adjacent ground, as is the case in yards, i.e. eliminate the raised profile of FasTrack.  I think I may be able to do it with 1/2 foam glued to the banked part of the track, but then there's the question of how to blend the edges, which led me to the question posted. 

Yes, I know FasTrack is not ideal for real high rail, but since I've already got the track, I thought I'd try to see how good it could be made to look.

Thanks in advance for any thoughts or guidance.

Bob

Bob,
You don't want to ballast FasTrack because it is already ballasted.  To blend the top of the track to the foam, I would simply glue some ground cover to the top of the FasTrack and the foam, the ground cover will fill the gap between the FasTrack and the foam.  I would recommend covering the rails before gluing the ground cover.

Brent

[Jumijo]

Bob, apply some caulk to the joint (board and FasTrack, then paint and apply ground cover. As we discussed, I opted not to paint my FasTrack, but if I did, it would have been with acrylic craft store paint. A wash of it would really make the texture pop on that molded ballast. Buy a piece and practice on it with different paints and techniques. A 10" straight is only $2-3. Short money for an experiment that might just yield incredible results. And if you don't like it, the acryllic paint will wash off with isopropyl alchohol.

Jim 

[chuck]

I've painted the rail sides rust to make it less "tubular".

 

[Frank53]

I agree raising the height of your untracked area to near the height of the ties or rails adds realism. The fast track "crest" is a bit high.

Likewise with the king of all track systems - tubular track.

In the photo below, I have tubular track (the King of all track systems) on corkroadbed:

To ballast to this height would have looked funky, so I built up height of the terrain to the top level of the cork:

To do this I used Sculpt-A-Mold, which would be a major pain with Fast Track. You can use foam or other such material to build up the area, and I would stop just short of the Fast Track height. You can then ballast from there.

In the photo below, I wanted to get the terrain much closer to the top of the rails with a street crossing in the area. I added a piece of ceiling tile to build up the height:

It's still under construction, but you can see how the top of the rails is nearly the same height as the ground levels.

[Rolo Tomasee]

 Chuck, that looks great. How much track do you have and did you mask the track off and spray it or brush it? That looks like alot of work. I just got my first train set and really like the FasTrack that came with the set. I am already looking at purchasing more track for a bigger layout and I think the rusty side rails make the track look even more realistic.

[chuck]

Masking is kind of pain in the *.  I've done track both with aibrush and with round #3 Sable.  Both look good, not a lot of difference in time as masking is the big time eater.  I used the 3M blue stuff.  Trick is cutting thin strips to mask the outside rail tops.  The center rail and outside ballast is easy to mask.

[txspecial]

Brent, Jim, Frank and Chuck,

Thanks for your prompt replies and very helpful thoughts.  I'm encouraged and will see what I can do (after all, I guess it's really all one big experiment).

Chuck, what type of paint did you use on the rails?  I'd heard of a Microscale fluid to anodize the metal, but have not been able to locate it on their website.  And I take it causes no loss in current or voltage?

Bob

 

[chuck]

I would be cautious about chemicaly altering the track.  I used rust colored paint.  I think it was Model Masters, possibly Floquil, maybe PolyScale.