Ballast size question

[trainboyH16-44]

Short, sweet, and helpful!
Matthew

[Anonymous]

"I put down ballast tha matches the surrounding rock, and I think it's working. Red ballast in Red Rock Canyon, Gray in the gray rocked town of Virginia, and dark brown everywhere else."

Seems pretty good

I guees that the short version of my last is that the colour of weathering is the reverse to what we usually expect... light shows up on dark for ballast... the new shows on the old.

Hey! that was short!

[trainboyH16-44]

QUOTE: Originally posted by David Foster

Why are you mixing such different colours of ballast?
It could happen... but usually a RR would get all of it's ballast in any one area from pretty much one source.
Ballast is HEAVY so it is usually only moved as far as it has to be.
It might come from a number of quarries but these wold be likely to be in much the same rock type unless you are in an area of very variable geology...

I put down ballast tha matches the surrounding rock, and I think it's working. Red ballast in Red Rock Canyon, Gray in the gray rocked town of Virginia, and dark brown everywhere else.
Trainboy

[Anonymous]

Why are you mixing such different colours of ballast?
It could happen... but usually a RR would get all of it's ballast in any one area from pretty much one source.
Ballast is HEAVY so it is usually only moved as far as it has to be.
It might come from a number of quarries but these wold be likely to be in much the same rock type unless you are in an area of very variable geology... you might get a mix of something like a hard limestone with a volcanic intrusion nearby... but I don't know US geology (It's hard enough working out which way round your country is... we (well I) think north-south... the USA goes an awful long way east-west).
Another possibility is a shift from furnace slag ballast to limestone. This would be blue/black to white becoming grey.... but the blue black could be all sorts of colours including red depending on the origin of the slag.

I'm not saying you're wrong... just trying to help out with detail. The first issue with all ballast colour is where the rock came from... in modern track. You'd pretty much have to go back before 1900 to get other than rock ballast unless the line was very cheap/broke, temporary or (maybe) serving a quarry/mine and using tailings.

I suggest that you look back through my earlier posts.

I like the notes on weathering ballast.

may I suggest...

1. Decide on what your new ballast colour would be... depending on source... look at
any examples of new work on your favourite road and in any MoW cars.
A. Then decide what way the colour is going to develop over time...events... and...
2. Decide if there have been any big changes ... i.e. material type/colour.
3. Decide how old the ballast is.
a. Heavier use/more profitable lines get re-ballasted more often.
NOTE... a massive hauler would have massive track... you don't want to put a
Challenger in the dirt... so, subject to getting in between the trains the big coal roads
had very highly maintained clean, well graded track.
b. Some lines almost never get re-ballasted... and the track may be pretty awful.
4. Decide how (if) re-ballasting has occurred.
a. Has it been cleaned right out and completely replaced?
This can happen on plain track but espescially happens when any major
alteration is made... like changing a grade, putting in an new bridge (usually
under rather than over)... this may include re-aligning a grade... when a
diamond is taken out, when switches are altered (including replaced), when a
major change in traffic (e.g. Powder basin coal) brings both sudden new
prosperity and weight of traffic, when a line is brought back into traffic, when an
adjacent or alternate route is abandoned (upgrading your route may be needed
and/or part of the deal... savings from the dead route may help pay for it... where
there has been a washout or landslide. .... where track type has been
changed... e.g. a change to concrete ties. A change in rail weight... usually
applies with traffic change.
b. Has it been taken out, cleaned and topped up... with other cleaned or new material?
This could apply in most of the above cases. New material is much more
common (here) than recycled... most recycled material goes to the construction
industry as hard base material for things like car parks... I suspect that far too
much of the original ballast has been worn down below the required size... it
may have become to "flakey" and not have a long enough anticipated life for the
work to pay off.
c. Has it just been topped up with new? (Was this from the same source)?
Top ups may have been regular (not necessarily frequent) or random. They
may be patches, short lengths or long runs. just to add interest they may be
different across the track... if material is being lost on one side... again one
side may need cleaning out more often... in the days before machine ballasting
it was less work/cost to maintain as required than to shift the whole lot out...
this means a difference in ballast by era. Gangs of men could strip out and
replace as required a machine sweeps the whole works.
5. So ballasting can have been -
almost never... yeuky mud coloured track
occasional.... frequent... layers or patches of difference
regular to a clear pattern... may be quite clear distinction between older and newer
material colours blended together or new stuff sitting on top of old... the new may be
in patches or strips (depending on how it was shoveleed out, tipped or run out of
hoppers)
a major change... either a clean or a replacement... this shows up best as a clean
break where the old stuff ends and the new work begins... this may be a patch or a
long run.
Large new works usually start from a clear feature:-
a milepost
one line in multiple lines
on three track this may be repeated with three bands of ballast (and others in
yards alongside)
junctions / switches
these work two ways... the junction or switch may have the work done and not
the plain line or vice versa. With machine worked track there is usually a gap
between the feature and the start of work ... this is often about the machine
length.
Diamonds will be done clear of the rail bars and possibly a rail length each
side where the work runs through one route or all four ways round where just the
diamond has been done. This is to make the diamond as stable as possible
and reduce bad ride in all directions... if a train crossing on one route is causing
damage it will distort the track on the other route.
Crossovers may be worked on one track or both... the one track work may be for
a short interval.... or the whole crossover plus a length or two each side may have
been done... ... and I haven't even touched on changing all or part of the rails of
switches.

So you can see that, like your highway after the utility people have been around a few times, the track ballast can be pretty patchy.

The thing is to work out the story you want to picture in your ballast.

The yards will be one story (or sets of stories)
Sidings, loops etc may be another bunch of distinct histories... a loop holding sand hoppers regularly may have a distinct strip of sand from leaking hopper doors... again you may have a big spill patch where a car has derailed or been side-swiped - usually near/at a switch- On older layouts there would be interesting effects on roads that held livestock trains... livestock needed feeding and disinfecting... weeds could be encouraged. Grain cars also spill...
Then you get to your main track(s)... what has been going on... over 50 -20- 10 - 5 - 2 - this year?

THERE IS A BIG ISSUE about spills ... especially on main tracks... the loads are supposed to get to the consignee and fuel is supposed to go up the stack NOT onto the track. Gearbox oil doesn't maintain the loco if it's on the ballast. Mucky deposits ONLY develop where there is heavy traffic over time... so... in loco yards, where locos idlle for long periods or where cars either stand as warehousing or get banged about (to shake dust out... as a by-product of switching not deliberately).

Then ther'es atmospheric pollution... look at the crud on your auto if you park near a big industrial plant... multiply that by 10s or 100s for plant and period and the track in some areas got blended to dark grey with everything else in some areas... in others the weeds came in.

What makes cleaning / replacement necessary is the infiltration of other matter and the degradation of the ballast material.

From a modelling point of view... once you've worked out your history... you want to choose your ballast colour(s)... assuning that you will use a few and then weather... you lay the oldest (usually darkest) first and then build up. Later you add the weathering.
A Black oil patch will show up much more on new ballast... but it will be much more distinct and localised. (and new ballast - a repair - will stand out like crazy in a heavily soiled length of track... possibly where the track became so clogged it wasn't draining and began to "pump" under locos and cars and has therfore been dug out and repaired... this especially occurs around rail joints.... which are a whole different subject... but look at film - especially of passenger yards in the bad days... the worst vertical track movement is almost always at rail joints... which are the weakest part of the track... almost like having a hinge in the middle of a bridge.
On old track (maybe in a yard) a white, yellow or red sand spill will show up... again in a distinct pattern... was the spill a big dump and largely cleaned up? Did it slop over the end of an over filled car? has a car with a bad door run through a few times?

These are all ways that you can build up the picture that your layout is painting... they say as much as the micro-scenes with a fender bender or a cop pulling a truck over.

Like my writing... they can go on adding forever...

Wherever maintenace is needed, in progress or recently done... or where only one side of a crossover has been completed... Slow Orders may be in force...
The slow order may be on either track of the crossover or both... depending...
You can have a track in need of work slow ordered next to a track that has just been worked but not finalised that is slow ordered.
This means that you can have a reason for all trains... including hotshots... to run slowly through your layout. If you have multiple track (2 upwards) you can slow order some and not others. There are always slow down and speed up zones either side of slow orders.

This gives you more time to enjoy your trains... also if you can only fit in a short run (so there is no way for an intermodal to get up to speed) you have a reason for traffic to run slowly... other than building a switching layout.

Whenever work is going to be done, is ongoing or has been largely completed there will be signs of material and machines being prepared for the job, standing by or waiting to be removed... sometimes old ballast as well as old ties and rail are left dumped for some time (defered maintenance...forever).

The best thing, if you can, is to go and look at the real thing SAFELY and work out what has been going on in the area you are looking at... it's a sleuthing job.

Then there is always litter that gets into/onto ballast... especially near fast food joints...

[trainboyH16-44]

Thanks, selector. I'll try that.
So far I've tried a wash of polly s Grimy black, and that looks great on the red ballast, but not on the gray.
Trainboy

[selector]

Use Burnt Umber and some dark grey, even add a little flat black, and make a wash out of it. Not a weathering wash, something about twice as strong. Then, apply it in a way that gives you the control you'd like (I did use a watercolour-type paintbrush), and colour the ballast inside the rails, and out to the edges of the ties. It will seep outward to the distance that looks natural. Later, when that dries, use a heavier black wa***o mark up a central drip line inside the rails, especially if in the transition era and earlier.

[trainboyH16-44]

Any tips on weathering ballast with a brush?
Trainboy

[Anonymous]

The "walking" ballast somtimes used in yards and to form trackside walkways is (in this country) "Meldon Dust"... and just that. It will pass through a 1/4" grid... try that to scale! :-)
I'd start by using an extremely fine sandpaper... any colouring will reduce the apparent texture / grain size.

Then again... once it gets compacted and/or other stuff in it, it becomes pretty much a smooth surface like asphalt...

One guide (if you can get to a safe location) is to walk up not looking at the material you are interested in (surprisingly hard to do) stop, close your eyes, open them and see how much impact that material / subject makes in your view. The clever bit is to NOT look directly at what you are interested in. ...it's a bit like night vision ... you can do it... but HOW?

I guess the reverse is that when you first look at a photo of the model (which concentrates the image) you don't want things like the ballast to leap out at you... try putting a similar picture of the real thing next to a picture of the model.

I think that it's the same with weathering.

Which means that you sometimes want the stuff to leap out and hit you... probably only when it's supposed to be new.

After all this stuff on ballast I'm so hoping to see lots of models with diffferent ballast and ties on different parts of the trackwork.

[mondotrains]

Being an analyst from way back, I spent hours and hours on this one. While the fine is certainly prototypical for HO, I think this is a case where the medium looks better. The fine, when glued down, even with matte medium which distorts the "finish" even less than diluted Elmer's glue, just looks too smooth....not enough texture. But as we all know, it's our railroad and we gotta do what looks best to us.

Hope this helps.
Mondo

[Anonymous]

None of it. Try N scale ballast with HO, it's much more prototypical.

QUOTE: Originally posted by cactusjawas

Using Woodland Scenics ballast what size is best for HO scale
Fine, Medium, or Coarse?

[selector]

David is correct...and that means fine, if that is the look you'd like. So, whaddaya want...prototypic scale, or looks, maybe both? Your choice.

[Anonymous]

The real stuff passes through a 2" mesh and starts life not less tha 1.5"... so all you need is a scale rule...

[trainboyH16-44]

I would say go with fine, but this is your choice. Take two short peices of track, lay them down as you would on the railway, and ballast one with fine and the other with medium. Wait a day and see which one you like more.
Trainboy

[Piedsou]

I personnally would never use anything larger than Woodland Scenics FINE.

I take one bag of light gray fine and one bag of medium gray fine and put them in an old coffee can. I then shake to mix and use this for my mainlines.

I use Highball N scale cinders for my yard areas. It's even finer than WS fine.

[orsonroy]

Fine is just about perfect for HO scale ballast (in N, it's too big!).

Here's a way to make sure the ballast you want to use is the right size: wander out to your local ROW with a HO scale figure and a small pile of ballast. Look at the models, and then look at what you're standing on. If they scale out the same, then the ballast is the right size.

[ac4400fan]

I use med,,But its all on what you want it to look like,you can play with a sample of the 3 to see what you want .i use fine for roads,that way when it comes up to a rr crossing with med looks more realistic.(think of a real rr, does a gravel road use the same size
rock as a real rr ballast) just a thought

good luck
Carl...

[grandeman]

I'll vote for fine in HO too.

[loathar]

I like the look of the fine in HO.

[nbrodar]

In HO, WS medium ballast scales out to between 3 and 4 1/2 inches. Which is good for road ballast. The fine between 1 and 3 inches, which is good for the walking ballast typically used in yards.

Personally, I like to look of medium. Fine just doesn't have enough texture for my taste.

Nick Brodar

[johncolley]

The fine is best, or medium is OK. The coarse scales out to cobblestones in HO and looks much better in O

[CrossTrack Trains]

Using Woodland Scenics ballast what size is best for HO scale
Fine, Medium, or Coarse?