Ballast, or Scenery?

[Harrison]

I am building my first layout, I have all the track and wiring done. What should I do next?

[UNCLEBUTCH]

Harrison

I am building my first layout, I have all the track and wiring done. What should I do next?

 Run trains, work the bugs out, make sure you like what you got.

Then do whatever you feel like doing. I believe it was decided that it made little to no difference as to what comes first.

I've done it both ways,and at times both at the same time.

If I'm looking for a ''something to do'' project, I'll ballest a few feet, quick and easy.

Whereas a couple of square feet of scenery can,and has,taken an hour or more

[Harrison]

Thanks

[Lone Wolf and Santa Fe]

I save ballast for last, making sure the track is good by testing it for several months or years first. lol But seriously if you have derailment problems caused by bad track work, ballast makes it hard to fix. So work out all of the track problems before you ballast. Some you might not notice right away until you've ran every single locomotive and car several times.

[AltoonaRailroader]

I would finish the track, as mentioned, work all the bugs out, then maybe a little scenary at a time if you're confident your track work  is good. But I'd save the ballast for last because I feel that it's the permanent finishing touches. This is coming from experience. :)

 

[kasskaboose]

What others said is correct.  Don't do what I did: think that once the tracks are down that it's time for scenery.  Nope!  Test, test, test some more.  Only after you do that with different locos, at different speeds and directions can you start on ballasting.

[angelob6660]

The same as above. I laid the track down and did the scenery first and the ballast second. 

Since the scenery is simple desert adding a gray blackish ballast looks really good.

[wp8thsub]

I do the ballast last.  It's far too easy to ruin ballast with the other scenery steps, and ballast material often needs to overlap into the adjacent scenery as well.

Also, I will often build up fills out of rocks/sand/dirt piled atop the scenery base, and apply ballast on top of those.  In such cases there isn't anything to even hold up the ballast until earlier steps are complete.

[railandsail]

Fantastic job Rob

[CNSF]

Ballast is scenery. I'm adding scenery to my completed, fully tested and de-bugged layout one section at a time. If you want ballast spilling down over rocks or other scenery, you have to add that stuff before ballasting. But if you want vegetation creeping up into the edges of your ballast, you have to put that in last. So basically, scenery has to be done from the ground "up". I usually wind up ballasting somewhere in the middle of the process - not the first step, but not the final finishing touch, either.