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Concrete for ballast?
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I suggest you look at recent threads on ballast to see what the ballast is doing in the prototype. You are doing this to a smaller degree, <br /> <br />Back in the 60s / 70s my Dad ran 0 Gauge in the garden on a deck which started at about 4' high. The deck was made of two 2x1 timbers about 6' long with 1x1 cross braces about 12" apart. There were also some diagonal braces on the wider decks that supported multiple track and/or curves. Between the 2x1s a surface was provided by perforated zinc sheet. This was naturally weather resisant and drained freely. <br /> <br />Track was a mix of home made wooden sleepered and (when it came on the market) Peco... would you believe that no-one knew how it would stand up to exposure to the weather? Peco has proved to have no major weather problems. <br /> <br />Now then.... BALLAST... we used aquarium gravel and fixed it in place with good old fashioned creosote... the fence preserving stuff that came from coal/coke gas production and stang worse than nettles if you got it on your skin. The creaosote gave the ballast a good colour and glued it absolutely together without blocking the spaces between the pieces of gravel... this means that the ballast itself drains... you don't get water retained in it and therefore you don't get ice in winter and that doesn't disrupt the track. <br /> <br />Any using cement will give you a concrete track bed withno drainage and no flex. You will also have to break out concrete if you do any maintenance or changes. There was never any trouble removing the creosoted aquarium gravel. <br /> <br />Have fun!
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