Ballast touch up

[Rene Schweitzer]

In addition to how often you touch up your ballast, it would be interesting to know what you use as ballast (chicken grit, limestone, crushed granite).

[BudSteinhoff]

I use granite chicken grit (grower) and soak it with Tite bond II to 2/3 water mix.
Holds up very well even with all the heavy rains/floods in my area.
Bud[8D]

[Anonymous]

Here in Connecticut I use 'processed stone', which is the fine grains that are produced when our area traprock quarry is crushing traprock. In some areas this product is called 'crusher fines', 'screening' and 'stone dust'.

[Anonymous]

My Dad was the stone mason in the local cemetary. Because space ran out they only burried cremated remains. He had a load of stone dust delivered for the new stone walkway. But he always used to point to the pile and tell the newsy neighbors about how backed up they were getting the remains in the ground. They didn't bother him much after that. I think of him everytime I ballast the railroad. Does anybody sift the ballast to separate it from the dust?

Tom in DE

[Anonymous]

The GGRW is only two years on the ground and the ballast has yet to entirelly filter into the base gravel. I reballasted the GGRW two times in 2003. I use "crusher fines". The method I usuallly use is a no nonsense method of piling the crusher fines evenly upon the rails and spraying it down with a pnuematic garden sprayer. A garden hose would have too much force. I think in about 2 more years the crusher fines will have no place to go and will be solid.

By that time I will have a more track layed down, so I will be reballasting for sometime into the future. Thankfully, my daughter enjoys helping out in ballasting and is quite good at it. Being only 12 years old, she does alot of good work for the line. She has alot to do with making the GGRW what it is today.

BTW. I purchase my "crusher fines" from The Home Depot for $3.00/50lb bag. That amount of stone will do about half of my railway.

I enjoy reballasting because it enhances the realistic look of the rail. Most of the awesome comments I get about the garden railway involve how realistic the track appears.

Embrace reballasting. It is one of the things that links our minature railroads to the prototypes. If you don't ballast then you are not really putting down the rail in true fashion!!

Pete

[bman36]

Hi All,
Here in Manitoba we have a great deal of limestone. You can pick it up at the quarry yourself for $5.00 a ton. Yes that's right, $5.00 a ton. Very cheap if you own a truck. I use 3/4 down limestone for the base and 1/4 down for my ballast. Limestone gets soupy when wet so I prefer 1/4 down granite or rainbow rock for a much nicer appearance. Springtime after the frost is gone means ballast time. Then maybe again in summer if needed. For spreading try using a short piece of round concrete form. Get the diameter as wide as you want the ballast to spread. Notch one end for the rails and stand it up on the track. Fill with ballast and slide down the line. Hardening the notched area of the tube with CA glue helps to avoid the tube shredding as it slides. Takes a little practice but is easy once you get the hang of it. Later eh...Brian.

[Marty Cozad]

I've tried almost everthing listed above, I am now tring Fly ash on the high line from our local power plant. They use it like crusher fines in new rural driveways. I have in the pasted glued grit down but in time it chips up then you can't work it. Plus I have long free floating runs so I need the track to move in heat. Takes me about 20 mins to go around the lower 450' loop with gloves before an open house. then its fine till next open house.

Here the scrap iron MOW train is heading up the grade to Duncan on the high line.
Always find what is cheap around your area, cause track work is half the fun of RRing.

[GRR7315]

'Crusher Fines' here, been on the ground for about 3 years and have gone thru 2 summers of heavy (I mean heavy) thunderstorms/downpours) washouts everywhere in the 150' short T; then in spring and fall the helicopters from the neighbors trees and seed pods come down in between the ties and in the switches. It is amazing how they work themselves in the crevices and cracks.....

Hopefully, this summer, will be back to upgrade and level track with the 'crusher fines' portland cement mixture. Spring/Fall maintenance are highly time consuming and I have been contemplating bringing all to waist high (like live steamers).

Waist high leaves buildings / switching sessions out of sight; oh well, I have a few days 'til spring/summer to make a decision. I guess GROUNDHOG PHIL might have been dreaming about my project.....

I enjoy reading the responses and experiences of you all; helps in decision making![:)]

[Anonymous]

I use a 1/4 inch river stone ,after the winter is over i go after and fill in the low areas . over the summer it seems to hold in place, it's the winter thats hard on it. come on spring ???? I can run the same trains around my basement ceiling in the winter . Ben in penna.

[toenailridgesl]

I use stuff called Dolomite (not the chemical), it's a bluish-gray tiny gravel, I think what you blokes called crusher fines. Has some sort of natural cement in it so that it sets pretty solid.

[Anonymous]

I use balast called quarry fines. It is a mixture of grayish-blue rock dust and small, crushed rock. It sets up like concrete when watered and stays put fairly well. It looks very good as balast because it is not too big so as to be unrealistic, but also not too small as to get everywhere and be too hard to work with. As soon as the rains stop, I'm going to go back and balast my entire line. right now only a few parts have balast and the newly laid track is unbalasted until the trackwork is finalized in the places it needs to be. this cuts down on the hassle of taking track up to fix a problem and putting it back down again as I often do on a few parts of my line.

[Anonymous]

I am in the fortunate position of having delegated ornamental ballasting to my wife who has done a really good job, but we are not into realism more iinto decorative effects.

We use crusher fines initially, then when we get it nearly right thence a thin layer of 75 % fines and 25 % cement, we then lay the track down inits correct position. We then place into position some decorative pebbles; then using a tupperware container with holes drilled in the bottom we dust the whole thing with cement. We then lightly but throughly water the whole thing in. Within a day it is all set and looks great. Not prtotypical at all but pleasant to look at and with interesting themes. We get a lot of different types of gravel and pebbles around here and they are very cheap. The cost of crusher is beyond me we buy it in 20 litre bags 5 at a time the price started off at A$9.60 for the lot and the last lot cost A$ 3.60 all up? hard to undrstand.

Our layout has now been hit twice by monsoonal depressions and we didn't sustain any real damage to speak of so I guess we must have done something ok to suit our climatic conditions and area.

I solder all my rail except at the points and have not had any prolems with expansion and believe me its hot enough. here as it is virtually in the tropics.


Regards Ian

[Marty Cozad]

I was thinking to: Some folks lay their track flat on the ballast rather than raised. That changes the need also. I've showed this photo before but this is standard height on our RR.
http://1stclass.mylargescale.com/NTCGRR/bnhm2%20006.jpg

Now heres Freds RR in Iowa
http://1stclass.mylargescale.com/NTCGRR/freds03%20006.jpg
Your style will change the need.

[Anonymous]

As I've mentioned on this forum in the past, I bond all my ballast in place on solid spline roadbed so I never have to touch up my ballast.
However, all my track is elevated and my ballast would fall off the sides if I didn't bond it in place.

OLD DAD

[vsmith]

QUOTE: Originally posted by Marty Cozad

I was thinking to: Some folks lay their track flat on the ballast rather than raised. That changes the need also. I've showed this photo before but this is standard height on our RR.
http://1stclass.mylargescale.com/NTCGRR/bnhm2%20006.jpg

Now heres Freds RR in Iowa
http://1stclass.mylargescale.com/NTCGRR/freds03%20006.jpg
Your style will change the need.

Marty, I've been trying to figure out just WHY your RR looks so real and that photo you posted made me realize what it was. Its the raised roadbed you have. I dont think I've seen another garden RR that has a real raised roadbed just like a fullsize Class 1 railroad. It really gives it that authentic look of a mainline carrier. especially when you get down to scale eye level then the realism is tremendous. I had to do a double take , I thought that was a railfan photo.

[bman36]

vsmith,
Very observant! I too was looking at Marty's shot and had to study the plantlife in order to figure it out. Good job Marty!!! Enjoy seeing the photos you post. Later eh...Brian.