Ballast & Switches

[Anonymous]

I am building my first model railroad [8D] and I am afraid of jamming switches with my ballast. How can I avoid doing this? My first thought was to cut out the roadbed under the switch (I'm using Woodland Scenics track-bed, which can be easily cut) and fill it in with ballast so that it still looks like there's ballast under the switch. Is this the easiest way? Is it really a problem?

[ARTHILL]

Put the ballast in carefully and take any stray rocks out with a tweezers. That will look better and be easier than removing roadbed and keeping things on plane. How big a problem any of it is depends on which switch machines you are using and how you are fastening down the ballast. The answer in all cases will be care and maintainance. Good luck. You will hear more from the guys who like this part better and are more artistic than I.

[cacole]

Real railroads don't ballast turnouts in the areas where the moving parts are, or if they do only about half the amount of ballast is used.

[selector]

I used masking/painters tape to cover the areas on which I didn't want the ballast to fall. It takes a few seconds, and you can then ballast away as per normal. Once your ballast is glued and dried, you carefully remove the tape. Presto, reasonably realistic switches that are 75% covered with ballast, and not a drop of glue or a single chip in amongst the works.

[Medina1128]

I spoon the ballast on the track.. brush away the excess with a 1" paintbrush...before I add the glue, I use a fitting over the end of my shop vac hose that I tape a piece of 1/8" vacuum hose to, to suck away any loose ballast from around the turnout moving parts. A couple of drops of light oil on the rivets/pivot points prevents the glue from sticking to the moving parts. Make sure you use a plastic compatible oil!!

[ham99]

Just be careful and keep the ballast below the tie tops and out of the guard rail channel. Put a drop of Rail Zip on the hinge joints before applying the glue. I keep ballast out of the space where the tie bar has to move the points [also away from the bar outside the rails]. Haven't had any problems so far.

[Seamonster]

Another method which some have used, but I haven't tried yet, is to apply tape to the underside of the turnout, keeping it off the throwbar. Then sprinkle ballast on the tape and dump or vacuum off the excess. Enough will stick to the tape to make it look ballasted but there'll be no danger of gluing ballast to the moving parts. You'll still have to make sure no granules are lodged in the moving parts.

[Anonymous]

For my N-scale layout, I had issues with the diluted glue finding it's way down the actuating rod's hole, and ruining the turnout machine/electronics. So I tried a method where I ballasted as normal up to a few ties away from the frog on one side, and several ties away from the points on the other. I then put some ballast in a paper bowl, and wetted it down with water and glue, creating a sort of "ballast paste", and then spread the "ballast paste" using a flat toothpick.

At first, it seems like it would take more time, but once I got the hang of it (after one turnout), it was a little faster and cleaner than the traditional method of spreading the ballast and taking the time to clear the little bits from around the moving parts and flangeways and carefully apply the water/glue. While it won't work for everyone, it worked for me.

---jps