Raised on the Erie Lackawanna Mainline- Supt. of the Black River Transfer & Terminal R.R.
Hi!
I just took down my HO layout that had a 2x6 ft yard. While my mains were ballasted in medium gray, and the engine terminal in dark grey with cinders, the yard was done in a medium brownish ballast with some cinders thrown in, etc., etc.
As I recall, I used two of the larger WS packages (plastic like ziplock bags). I don't recall the quantity in each, but I suspect the two of them were about a pint. The 6 sidings were all mounted on sheet cork, and I brushed on some glue/water/detergent to give it a foot hold. The ballast was loose on the tracks but brushed off the ties so it wouldn't touch the wheels.
The next layout will be done in a similar manner, but I'll probably use a dark grey and not brown. By the way - for what its worth - I would not use black exclusively in the yard.
Mobilman44
ENJOY !
Living in southeast Texas, formerly modeling the "postwar" Santa Fe and Illinois Central
Hi: Don't know about coverage, but I'd suggest using 70% alcohol.
Hi: mobilman gave you some good advice about using all black for your yard. That is an excellent book. For my first attempt at ballasting the yard, I used a mix of black cinder ballast, with some med and dark green WS ground foam. But it turned out too green. Then I used black dry tempera paint, spread it with a paint brush, and sprayed it with wet water, then used a brush to blend it while it was still wet. That gave me the look I was after.
This was the original color.
This is the final color.
Anymore comments about using black in a yard? Seems like I've seen a lot of yards in pictures on this forum and also in model railroader books and in MR which were pretty much all black. Soon to make my yard, and I was thinking black, with some green material around the outsides.
Hal
CG.
Why dont you try Google maps and look at a couple of yards and see how they look. They all dont look like black cinders. When I worked for NS back in the Early 90s. I manly worked in yards that were mostly grey with a little back here and there. But thats Modern Day Railroading. The green was also around the edges of the yards and not inbetween the tracks. Yards are cleared of vegitation pertty good. Ya know a tripping hazard for Switchman Sam coming off that rolling Boxcar.
Also when ya poor your ballast, Tap the railhead with the handle of your brush. This viberates the ballast off of the ties and web of the rails. it also seats the ballast. Kevin
Hi again!
The thing about a "black yard" is that in the real world there is probably none like it. What I'm trying to say is that "black" is not a true color of nature. Yes, there is that rich dirt from the midwest but that's got all kinds of shades in it. And the coal yards - which probably come real close to "black", have a lot of blues and other shades in them. I've played (and worked) in several yards since the mid-50s and there were a couple that had a lot of black dirt (from oil/coal), but it was not the ballast. The ballast was always some shade of grey - different from the main (or applied lighter giving it a different hue) - but never black.
Like I said in an earlier post, my old layout used a brown color for the yard, and what I should have done was use brown for the dirt OR ballast and another color for what remained.
Another reason I find for not using black is that it is really dark and covers up a lot of details. The layout I just took down had about 4 "major" errors, one of them being coloring my rockwork a very dark grey - with various highlights. It just is too dark. Hey, the beauty of the hobby is its your railroad, and we all in the end do what we think is best.
ENJOY !!!!
The color of your yard will also depend on the era that you are modeling. In the steam era, the yards tended to be blackish because I believe the railroads used cinders for the ballast. It was cheap, close by, and there was a steady supply. When the cinders were gone due to the lack of steam, they had to use something else. When I visited Cass WV some years back, I discovered that cinders were not all black. There were brown and grays mixed in, and that was right out of the locomotives.
Just something to keep in mind.
Elmer.
The above is my opinion, from an active and experienced Model Railroader in N scale and HO since 1961.
(Modeling Freelance, Eastern US, HO scale, in 1962, with NCE DCC for locomotive control and a stand alone LocoNet for block detection and signals.) http://waynes-trains.com/ at home, and N scale at the Club.