Ballast

[Anonymous]

One of my cats jumped onto the layout while I was gone and dragged cat litter onto the table... Does cat litter work well as ballast?!

[jfugate]

Not recommended ... most kitty litter is formulated to absorb water, so if you try to glue down kitty litter as ballast, the moisture can cause it to swell.

Plain sand of various colors or store-bought ballast is safer since it doesn't swell when moisture is applied, as you may do when gluing down the ballast.

[jfugate]

One other thing if you use sand or some other natural source for ballast. Make sure and get yourself a magnet and run it through the sand to pick up any metallic dust, metal ore, or metal fragments.

If that stuff ever makes it into your loco motor, it can do very bad things. The advantage of store-bought model RR ballast is it's already been cleared of any magnetic materials in advance.