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Ballast: How to lay rock so your model trains will roll |
by Paul J. Dolkos
Like a fine paint job on a locomotive, ballast is the finish coat on your track. It covers the many blemishes of roadbed construction, such as joints, shims, screws, and wire holes. More importantly, if done properly ballast adds a lot of polish to a layout.
Ballasting is usually the last finish work I do on any given section of the railroad. I like to at least add the basic scenery adjacent to the track to be ballasted, as there’s nothing worse than dropping a glob of white scenery plaster or paint on track once it’s ballasted. My layout happens to be HO scale, but these ideas apply regardless of scale.
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Add filler material to the roadbed as necessary, such as the foam pieces along the commercial turnout.
Paul J. Dolkos
| | Preparation
The first step is to establish a ballast profile foundation. This will vary with the type of track: main line, branch line, or spur. Spurs and sidings typically have lower profiles. Such cross sections vary with the railroad and the period of the prototype.
Ballast slopes can be shaped using plaster, Styrofoam, or a filler material like sand to augment the slope of the wood, cork, or Homasote roadbed base. Glue filler materials in place as necessary.
In general you want to avoid the trap of 45-degree jigsaw cuts and sharp edges and create a natural angle of repose for the ballast material. The steepest slope should be no greater than 1.5-inch of horizontal run for each 1-inch drop—in other words a 1.5:1 slope. Slopes of 3:1 and 4:1 are not uncommon.
Get rid of any sharp edges on the roadbed—such as the jagged corner on cork—and remove any little bumps of plaster along the right-of-way. They tend to stick up through the ballast. While you're shaping the ballast profile you can also make drainage ditches, although those should be allowed for when you design your overall scenic plan.
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Airbrush the rails, ties, and roadbed a flat dark brown.
Paul J. Dolkos
| | Painting the base and track
When you're happy with the right-of-way profile, airbrush the track and roadbed a flat base color. I like to mask areas such as switchpoints and paint those by hand. I use a dark brown such as Floquil Roof Brown, but other colors may be more appropriate to your locale. This paint takes the gloss off of plastic ties, colors the rails, and blends in any filler materials. Clean off the tops of the rails as soon as you finish painting.
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Glue cinders or other subroadbed in place before adding ballast. The spur above also has cinder ballast, while the main line will have gray crushed rock.
Paul J. Dolkos
| | Ballast material
I use mixes of various colors of Highball Products ballast as well as real cinders, but these methods work with products from any manufacturer.
If you have a combination of a cinder subroadbed and stone ballast, it's a two-step process. First apply the cinders along the shoulders. If the slope is steep and the cinders tend to slide down, apply a coat of adhesive first and sprinkle on a light coat of cinders. Once these set, you can add more since the roughness of the original layer will tend to hold the new layer. See fig. 3.
Be sure that your ballast isn't too large, especially cinders. It's better for it to be undersize. Pieces of prototype rock ballast typically measure about ¾" to 2½". I find that many materials labeled for N scale work great for HO. Although we usually think in terms of ballast as being rock or cinders, many different materials have been used, including slag, sand, earth, and even oyster shells along some early coastal branch lines.
Always use less material, rather than more. Ballast is difficult to remove once glued in place, but it's easy to add. Ballast generally should lie below the top surfaces of the ties. Use a brush to position every stray granule, and be sure to remove stray ballast from the tie tops and the rail base. This might sound tedious, but it doesn’t take long if you don't heap on a big pile and then try to distribute it.
With some ballast material the ties will take on a dusty look, but that will disappear when you glue the ballast down. Again too little ballast is far better than too much.
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An old glue bottle works well for dribbling the glue mix onto the track, and a hairspray bottle provides a fine mist for wetting the ballast.
Paul J. Dolkos
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Once you’ve wet the cinders, saturate the area with the white glue and water mixture.
| | Securing ballast
Once the loose ballast is positioned, you can begin to wet the ballast. I use water with a couple of drops of dishwashing detergent in a hairspray bottle, which provides a very fine mist compared to most other pump spray bottles.
Initially point the sprayer up and let the water cloud gently fall on the ballast. This light mist tends to keep the ballast from being blown around. Once the surface is slightly moist you can be more direct with the spray. Use enough water so that it soaks deep into the ballast. If only the surface is wet, then the adhesive won't soak in and the result will be a loose, crumbly crust. If a detergent bubble forms in the ballast while spraying, creating a mound, burst the bubble and soak the spot. If a little ballast gets out of place, you can generally nudge it back, but be careful.
Once the ballast is soaked, dribble on a 50/50 mixture of white glue and water mix . An old glue bottle to apply the mix will do, and is less tedious than an eye dropper. As long as the ballast is well soaked, the glue mix will spread throughout. If the underlying ballast isn’t thoroughly wet, the adhesive mixture may float some of the ballast. Spray some water on the spot to correct this.
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Add the ballast carefully, keeping it off the ties and rails. Weathering will blend the newly ballasted area with the existing trackwork.
Paul J. Dolkos
| | Precautions and final touches
The glue can lock switch points into place, so to prevent this, apply light plastic-compatible oil to the ties under the points. As the glue sets, move the points back and forth to free them. Keep the ballast in the point area at a minimum, well below the tie tops.
Once the adhesive sets, but before it's completely dry, knock off any stray pieces of ballast that have adhered to the rail sides or tie tops. In high humidity it may take a couple of days for the glue to completely set. I find that ballast is darker after it has been glued.
As a final touch, lightly overspray the track structure with thinned roof brown or another appropriate color to slightly weather the right-of-way. Not only does this represent dirt and wear and tear from passing trains, but it also cuts some of the stark contrasts present on newly ballasted track.
With a bit of care, ballasting can transform toy-like track into a realistic scale model.
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