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That white ballast of the Central Vermont Railway........hmmm...
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The UP tracks in Bellwood, Illinois, have a multi-color (e.g., pinking, purplish, reddish, yellowish) quartzite that seems much harder than the IC-spur quartzite. Come to think of it, some of that UP quartzite does look like what I remember seeing in the rocky parks near Baraboo. The IC pink quartzite has a different, somewhat more sandy texture, and is similar to a type of crushed pink quartzite sold as bagged landscape stone. ("Tiffany Pink" and "Pink Starburst are trade names I've seen applied to pink quartzite landscape stone around here, although "Tiffany" seems to be applied to other stones as well). <br /> <br />Some "granites" contain iron- and manganese-bearing minerals that might break down to give a dark coating, although air pollution might be another source of discoloration. New ballast along the busy BNSF/Metra line west from Chicago seems to get stained pretty fast, and that's got a lot of darker granite-like rocks (maybe gabbro or something similar) plus some finer-grained rocks that look like basalts. <br /> <br />Anyone know where BN and IC got their ballast? <br /> <br />Eric <br />
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