Coastie71The Woodland Scenics ballast supposedly will cover 50cu in
Hi Gary,
I think that you might be interpreting the coverage incorrectly. The large bottles contain 50 cubic inches. One cubic inch of ballast will cover much more than one linear inch of track because you are not applying the ballast 1" deep or anywhere close to that.
Exactly how much track 1 cubic inch of ballast will cover will vary depending on how wide and deep the ballast will be, but let's assume that the ballast will have a normal profile and is being applied over cork roadbed. That means that the ballast will be roughly 2" wide and will be an average of 1/8" deep (less between the ties and more outside of the rails). If you do the math, 2" x .125" = .25 cubic inches. One cubic inch divided by .25" = 4.0 linear inches. Multiply that by 50 cubic inches per bottle means that each bottle should cover 200 inches of track (16.6'). Your track is 375' divided by 16.6 = 22.6 bottles of ballast.
My math is probably suspect because there are so many variables, but I think you see my point. Twenty three bottles of ballast will still not be cheap, but they will certainly be less than the 90 bottles that you thought you might need.
Dave
I'm just a dude with a bad back having a lot of fun with model trains, and finally building a layout!
I'm trying to estimate how much ballast I need to buy for my double mainline ho railroad. My estimate is there is about 375 feet of track total (not counting bridges and planned tunnels). All of it is on standard size cork roadbed. The Woodland Scenics ballast supposedly will cover 50cu in and they go for $10 each. I'm calculating that I would then need about 90 (32 oz shaker bottles) of this stuff to do the whole layout. Thats $900 bucks. This seems like a ridiculous amount of money for ballasting a model railroad.
Does one bottle of this stuff really only cover 50 cubic inches or does it really cover alot more or does anyone know of a cheaper method.
Never thought I'd be spending this kind of money for ballast and that don't cover the scenic cement I need (don't know how much of that stuff I'll need) and also plan on using the Tidy Track track painter (rust) to do the rails and that's another one I can't even estimate how many of those I'll need. There probably is a cheaper method for track painting like spray painting the track, but I'm uncomfortable doing anything that might interfere with train or turnout operation. I figure I can get away without painting the outside of the rails facing the backdrop and the inner rail that you would have a hard time seeing on the double track closest to the backdrop.
Appreciate any help/feedback.
Gary (Coastie71)