Is Ballast Necessary???

I have a small layout (about 3 1/2 ft by 9 ft) which I've been working on for over a year. It's finally at the stage for ballesting. In fact, I've done some on about 6 ft (real feet) of track. I've used techniques I gleaned from a number of books and articles. But, anyway I do it, it's messy and extremely time consuming. (As almost all the articles had said it would be!) In my case, it's further complicated by the fact that the only way I can reach track at the rear of the layout (i.e., more than 30 inches away from the front) is by lying on pillows place across the layout. That action is required because I don't have any "access ports".

All that being said, I wonder if I really need to go to the trouble of gluing the ballest to my roadbeds?

I have Atlas Code 80 Flextrack glued on Woodland Scenics roadbed which, in turn, is glued to the base board. My entire track table was built using 1/2" MDB on a 1X2 cross-braced frame. Believe me, it does not move or wiggle.

So -- can't I just spread the ballest between the rails, trim the height as necessary, and leave it???

Will read, and appreciate, any comments, pro or con.

 

David Barrow's famous Cat Mountain and Santa Fe, hand laid code 70, then commercial code 83/code 70, then "dominoes," did not glue the ballast on the track. It is your layout, so...

I glue the ballast on my layout to hold the track firmly and to allow for vacuuming and cleaning.

 

Ballast is for esthetics, if you leave it loose cleaning becomes a problem no vacuming also a piece could wind up in the gears of one of your locomotives if left unglued.

 

Stan....of the many enjoyable things that model railroading brings, ballasting will bring a grown man to his knees. I find that ballasting best happens when there is nothing else to do and the includes washing the car. I do a very little at a time and over time you may complete the ballasting.....now, if someone would develop a automatic ballast laying machine, they may find that vacation to a south sea island. When it is completed, you can stand back and truly admire a job well done.

By the way, living a Bellingham could you please leave a few dungeness crabs for us Texans?

 

Necessary? No
Must do? Yes

 

My two cents...

Yeah, ballasting scares me. Never had the guts to do start doing it on my old (and only, and now gone) layout.

There's got to be easy ways. You know one? Share it please. ;-)

 

For what it's worth, I hate ballasting, but found several things to make it easier:

- use a real stone ballast, NOT woodland Scenics which is actually crushed nutshells.
- use a 30-40 weight - small HO scale ballast instead of the "sand" sold for N-scale. It looks more like rock and is easier to handle.
- put it all down dry, spray/squirt with alcohol, then squirt white glue solution in.
- do no more than 36 inches at a time
- fix all problems before it drys
- keep a deep flange euro car handy to smash rocks out of the track guage before it dries.

It works fairly well, but is still a pain,

Lou

 

I must admit to hating ballasting too. But over the years I've developed a technique that is about as efficient as possible. Here's what I do. First, I use rock-type ballast, not Woodland Scenics stuff. The rock ballast is heavier and stays in place much better. Arizona Rock & Mineral is a good source (or has been in the past).

Next, I take a 3 oz. paper cup (they are sold in grocery stores for the bathroom) and fill it about half full with ballast. I then collapse one side of the cup into a small spout. Now I sort of shake the cup back and forth over the track (parallel to the track, not across it) until the center and sides fill with ballast.

Next, I take a stiff artist's brush about the width of the track (9mm!) and brush away any excess ballast in the center of the track and on the sides.

Ballast looking well-groomed now? Then the next steps are pretty traditional. I've got a spray bottle that does a VERY fine mist; this is important - I tried probably 20 different spray bottles until I found one that would do a really fine mist. Otherwise, the spray will move around your carefully laid ballast. Wet thoroughly with "wet" water (I use a couple of drops of dish detergent). REALLY wet it. Next, I have a large bottle of what used to be Elmers white glue. I fill the bottle about 40% with glue and 50% with water, leaving about 10% air space to shake the bottle and thoroughly mix the glue with the water. Now I open the top about a turn, lay the tip on the center of the track, and apply a heavy bead of the dilute white glue mix down the center of the track. Basically, the entire area between the rails is covered with the glue mixture - it's a river of white stuff. If the ballast was thoroughly wet beforehand, the glue will spread out through the ties to the sides beyond the rails. This keeps the mess pretty well contained to between the rails. Leave overnight, and the next morning everything will be solid. Now drag a small screwdriver down the inside of each rail to clear away any small specks of ballast that might have gotten glued to the inside of the rail. Clean the tops of the rail. You're done.

John C.

 

The Easy Way

I used WS fine gray ballast, so here it goes.

1. Take your ballast, and put it in a bowl or container of some type. If you have a small bag, you want to put this stuff in a small container for step two. It makes it easier to get out.

2. Take a spoon, a table spoon seems to work best. Spread the ballast BETWEEN the rails only with this spoon.

3. Take an old toothbrush, and the cheaper the better, as the cheaper ones have nearly square heads, and start smoothing out the ballast between the rails that you laid in step two. Don't worry about the sides yet. Chances are, you already have ballast flowing over the sides anyway.

4. Once the ballast between the rails is spread even with the ties, take some ballast and touch up the sides of the roadbed. Make sure the ballast is level with the ties on the outsides of the rails like it is between. Make sure that all visible ballast is below the rails as much as possible. You'll have plenty of time to pick out the strays later. You could use a standards guage for this, but it's not necessary(I just got a standards guage, so all the portions of my layout you see ballasted were done without one).

5. VERY IMPORTANT. Take a bottle of rubbing alcohol with a spray head on top, set to mist. It far enough away so that when you spray, the ballast gets wet but doesn't get so saturated that it starts to wash away. DO NOT TOUCH IT.

6. Spray alcohol soaked ballast with WS scenic cement. Go drink beer for a day, and DO NOT TOUCH IT.

7. Once dry(I leave it for 24 hours), run a train over it and see where the strays are, and pick them off the rails.

It doesn't take long. I've got about four or five feet of track to ballast this weekend, I can do a step by step with pics if you guys are really that interested.

 

All of the above and: If it the track is 30" or more back, and presumably not as noticable, save all that work for the foreground and skip the tracks in the back, or give it just a very token ballasting; such as one shoulder (the exposed one) of the roadbed only.

 

my mom is a nurse..

anyone tried putting glue down first?

I'm certainly no expert, only done a few feet of my own track, but I was able to use a syringe to draw up a mixture of elmers glue and water and use that to squirt a little dab between the rails. I then simply sprinkled the ballast on top, let dry and vacuumed off the excess.

It doesnt sound any more time consuming than other methods

-Nutey-

 

Yep, tried that, there is one problem with this method. The ballast sticks to the top of the ties. It is best as others have explained, to brush the DRY ballast so that it fills the gaps between the ties yet leaving the tops of the ties exposed. THEN, wet & glue.

Maybe I am weird, but I like ballasting track. Think of it as a challenge:teeth:

 

Druthers...

I have to go with the standard disclaimer, "It your railroad so do what you like". If you don't mind that the track isn't ballasted, no one else should either. At 81 climbing around on a layout doesn't sound like fun to me. I'd move on to scenery, or building buildings, or whatever. Ballast may make track look most realistic, but perfect track running on bare plywood doesn't change much. Besides, I think forming hills out of styrofoam is much more fun than ballast any day. If someday when it's close to being "finished" you can always come back and do the ballast later. The important part is that you enjoy what you do.

 

I too dislkike ballasting in n scale and used textured paint in my yard which i dont think looks too bad and it was a lot easier, picture here
http://usatrains.fpic.co.uk/p36993952.html

paul

 

Paul (Whoppit), the texture paint looks quite effective, especially in a yard situation.

As with Ken (Cleggie), I too like ballasting for the challenge and use fairly well the same method as John (jdcolumbo) does. You can clean off any excess on top of the ties before the glue mixture dries.

Av8rTX makes an excellent suggestion for ballasting the furthest tracks.

 

Ken (Cleggie) & Gary if you're anywhere near Ithaca, NY in the future stop in I have a ton of ballasting for the both of you.
I thought I would like ballasting and boy was I wrong. I've been using WS, wetting it with alcohol and then adding diluted white glue. I still find the WS will still float but it's better with the alcohol. Is there another supplier of ballast that members could recommend besides Arizona Rock & Mineral (I'm not sure if they have the matching WS grey I've already been using.)

For Ken & Gary this question is off the subject, when I was in Australia in 2000, I noticed that in the farmlands there was an extremely narrow rail system that went along side the fields to transport the crops. Yet it seemed to me, that the RR grain cars on the tracks appeared to be wide and unstable. Was there any reason for this design? Of the people that I was with no one knew the answer.

 

I'm a weirdo, because I enjoy ballasting. I have to admit, you must get into the "mental zone" first, because it is tedious. Once I'm in ballast mode, I try to do a chunk every day until finished. The looks of finished ballast inspires me to get it done.

 

I'll remember that if I ever get to that stage air fares are cheap these days!