Ballasting Sidings and Railyards

[ezielinski]

I know that there shouldn't be large ballast profiles for anything other than the mainline. Most yards you see are dirt - plain and simple. I just laid one of my sidings and laid the track in WS fine earth blend. It just doesn't look right.

What does everybody else use?

Thanks in advance

[Anonymous]

I've seen plenty of yards with ballast easily visable, not just dirt. Try mixing in some ballast on top of or in with the earth blend in a small section of the yard. The worst that could happen is you have to redo that section.

[tstage]

ezielinski,

I'm glad you brought this up because I was going to ask it over on the Prototype forum.

I was looking through The Model Railroaders' Guide to Locomotive Servicing Terminals by Marty McGuirk last night and noticed that hardly any of the servicing terminal or yard tracks had any ballast at all. All but the newer facilities had the tracks 1/2 exposed in packed dirt, with not a piece ballast in sight.

You'd figure that there would still be a need for drainage - even in a yard. Guess not...

Tom

[Anonymous]

try using some cinders mixed in with your dirt, alot of older yards had just cinders for ballast because it was plentiful and free, also some bigger yards do see maintenance more frequently so ballast is common. depends on the effect you' re trying to acheive. you can also dry bru***he ties with light gray and white to make ties look aged,as tie replacement in yards is not as frequent also.

[ezielinski]

I have that same book and saw the same thing. I looked at and photographed various yards/industrial sidings, and noted very little ballast. Does WS make an earth-colored ballast? Would fine brown ballast mixed with earth foam work?

[jecorbett]

I ballasted my yard with WS Fine Gray ballast. It looks OK but if I had to do it over again I would use Fine cinders. I have seen photos of prototype yards, some with ballast and some without. Most of the yards around were I live appear blackened so I'm guessing at one time they used cinders. I've used cinders in my loco servicing facilities alone with a little ballast and I like the effect. Mine is a transition era layout.

[Medina1128]

Yards generally tend to be darker than mainline sidings for a variety of reasons; fuel spillage, oil, coal, etc.

[tomikawaTT]

Amount of visible ballast in yards is directly proportional to the affluence of the owning railroad. N&W/NS has lots visible, but some lines ballasted once, ?? years ago, and have done nothing since. The latter tend to have mud 'ballast', sometimes over the rail tops!

Color of ballast is a ??, depending on prototype location. Cinders were frequently used on roads which burned coal (they had to put the contents of the ash pits someplace!) but very uncommon in the desert southwest. Spilled lading (coal, ore, grain) might make a mess in one spot, but will hardly be uniform. There will be a LOT of coal around the loading bins of a colliery, but not a single black diamond fifty yards away. (That is the effect I will strive for when I finally ballast my own colliery yard, after twenty-five years of using that module without ballast.)

The reason that yards have no visible ballast slope is that the area has to be level enough to walk on safely. I don't know if that was an AAR directive or a Federal regulation, but it does make sense. Better-maintained yards frequently had underground drains below the ballast, or even visible storm drain grates here and there.

[Anonymous]

See my posting in the main forum on New Scenery Material. I posted it before I got to this subject.

I am using a product called Spectra Lock Part C. It's a grout system with lots of colors available. I mix Platinum and Raven to get a realistic dirty, gritty gray color for my yard. I have a sand mine on my pike so I need beach sand. Antique White fills the bill nicely.

Regards,

Jimbo