A shelf layout emerging from a turnout

[svedblen]

Ballasting got postponed some. I did not want any of the pink foam to show under the edges of the ballast, so I needed to apply some basic paint first. But before I could paint I needed to create the basic landforms. Not that there should be any dramatic forms on this layout, but I did not want it to be entirely flat either.

I removed foam in some places and added foam in others. The latter at the back, along the backdrop. This also helps in making the transition from the layout itself to the backdrop less apparent.



After some spackling and sanding I then painted the whole thing with a tan acrylic paint. Great overall improvement, as always when you do this step. But at least I get equally surprised every time 

[ednadolski]

Great progress on this!   It's a real treat to follow along as it all takes shape!

I'm really liking the wood ties. I've tried a variety of ways to paint plastic flextrack, but my efforts inevitably come out looking like, well, painted plastic (just imagine!).  In O scale the texture of real wood is even more effective and can really be appreciated.  Great job too with the coloring and roughening them up!

JMHO, I prefer to ballast before laying the rail, I find it easier than trying to force ballast under the rails and then trying to brush it off rail/tieplates/ties.   You can drill small holes for wires and fill them back up later.  And don't forget about the joint bars! 

(Side note, the one hopper all by itself looks a little lonely....  )

Ed

[svedblen]

...I prefer to ballast before laying the rail.... You can drill small holes for wires and fill them back up later.

Thanks Ed. As you can see below I have started on the ballasting, but guess who forgot about the wires to come later? 
I have planned to bury the wires in the foam and have them come out on the back, rather than drilling through and have them visible on the underside. So I will need to pry the ballast loose between some ties. Fortunatly this was only the first stretch.

When ballasting I used a few different materials in order avoid getting things to uniform. I imagine that a small outback operation, while not neglecting its trackage, used what was at hand or could be obtained at a reasonable prize, rather by going for a standard "by-the-rule-book" ballast. Thus, when topping off with additional ballast they could have been using a completely different material than the previous time. At least that is what I pretend has been the case here. ...or why not just rely on Ed's law 

Here is what I used



1 - Rubble I collected when they where laying the slabs for our patio. Not the sand for the actual setting bed, but what went under that. It is crushed rock in a variety of sizes.

2 - Sand from a children's sandbox, if I remember correctly 

3 - Model railroad ballast, from Arizona Rock & Mineral. This is their large scale PRR Light Gray ballast. I bought it when I built the turnout around which this layout is built. I think the stones are a little to large, and also to rounded. To use only this material gave the whole thing a kind of whimsical look. At least in my eyes. That is the reason I started to blend it with other stuff (and invented the story above to go with it).

4 - Some more model railroad ballast, this time HO ballast from a German company called minitec. Unfortunately they have gone out of business. To bad, since they did great ballast. N scale too.

I first applied the crushed rock along the outside of the bitumen subroadbed. This is more or less just a filler, since most of it will probably by obscured by other scenic material (grass, weeds etc.). But if any of it sticks up it could give a nice effect.

Then I put done a layer of the sandbox sand between the ties. This is also more or less a filler, and serves the purpose of hiding the bitumen below, should there be any gaps in the layers above.

Next came the ballast from Az Rock & Mineral, topped off with some minitec ballast. Here is a picture showing the various steps



And a side view



To fix things in place I used the standard method - wet with alcohol and then soak with a mix of white glue and water. When dry it looks like this





This was the first stretch of the main, so on to the rest! After that it is time to deal with the spur/siding, which will get a slightly different treatment. More about that later.

[svedblen]

Not much progress since last, but I have done some more ballasting. When doing that I reached two of the ties which I had weathered to look like new ties, recently replaced. I wanted the ballast around those ties to also look new and fresh. The problem was I did not have any such ballast, suitable for O scale.

Then I thought I should test to do some ballast from what I had at hand. So I took some of the rubble I mentioned in the previous post, the stuff I collected when they where laying the slabs for our patio. It is some kind of crushed rock, of all possible sizes, ranging from dust to pebbles about 1/4 inch. I put some of it in a strainer, like this



...and sifted it. Everything that could get through the mesh was gone. That left me we just the larger pieces...



...which I then poured into a colander, with holes slightly larger than the holes in the strainer mesh.



Shaking the colander made the smallest pebbles fall through and into the bowl below.



Voilá, my O scale ballast of crushed stones!

I applied that ballast, directly from the quarry, around the new ties.



Looking rather good, if I may say so myself 

P.S. The strainer and the colander were taken from the kitchen. Washed after use, with no one the wiser 

[lajmdlr]

Your ballast varies between very small & very large. Ballast is usually very uniform in size. Class I ballast varies between 3-5" & branchline ballast 2-4". Some of yours look to be from < l" & > 6"+. Take a scale ruler & measure your ballast. It shouldn't be too hard since you're O scale.
The ballast used by Los Angeles Junction Ry an industrial switching road looks more like an afterthought. Parent company Santa Fe must had a few ballast hoppers the wanted to empty. LOL

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[svedblen]

Your ballast varies between very small & very large. Ballast is usually very uniform in size.

Thanks for the info. Yes, I know it varies a lot, but that is more or less on purpose.

The ballast used by Los Angeles Junction Ry an industrial switching road looks more like an afterthought.

Interesting you say so, because that is more or less the impression I wanted to give regarding the half forgotten track on my layout. How well I will succeed is still an open question. In the end it might perhaps just look odd   
The fresh ballast around the new ties is however more uniform in size, once again on purpose.

[central.vermont]

I applied that ballast, directly from the quarry, around the new ties.

Looks nice with those new ties!!   

Looking rather good, if I may say so myself 

P.S. The strainer and the colander were taken from the kitchen. Washed after use, with no one the wiser 

are you sure of that.............ya never know who might be reading these posts!   

Jon

[Santa Fe Guy]

Looking very nice Lenart. You might want to give your ties a wash of Diluted black and alcohol and or Sienna it will bring out the grain even more.
Rod.

[svedblen]

Thanks guys.

You might want to give your ties a wash of Diluted black and alcohol and or Sienna it will bring out the grain even more.

I think I will try that. I thought myself that the grain did not show that much. But I will probably do the rest of the ballasting first...

[ednadolski]

Voilá, my O scale ballast of crushed stones!

Looks great!  That's a major benefit of 1:48 scale, you can really appreciate the textures.

P.S. The strainer and the colander were taken from the kitchen. Washed after use, with no one the wiser 

Hopefully your salads are not tasting too gritty lately 


Ed

[svedblen]

Hopefully your salads are not tasting too gritty lately 

Wait until I've done my own cinder ballast. Will give "Pasta Carbonara" a new meaning

[svedblen]

The lone hopper I have is no longer that lonely. It now enjoys the company of two more hoppers of the same kind. A fellow a$$-hat here on TRW was kind enough to offer them to me at a nice price.

So here is the entire fleet:



The rails which the BN car sits on are just loose rails temporary laid there for this photo.

[svedblen]

Once the main was all ballasted I turned to the siding. When I did the turnout I ballasted the diverging route with Arizina Rock and Mineral's steam era yard mix, which is supposed to be some kind of cinders I assume. Anyway, I continued with the same ballast along the siding. With some N scale cinder ballast mixed in for good measure. I will probably try to make it more uniformly black, using weathering powders.



Where the siding ends I also constructed a poor man's bumber out of two ties.

[nuno81291]

Just saw a bumper like that the other day... looking great! Any plans for the bumper? the proto I saw had small circle reflectors (like people use in winter to mark their driveway etc) and some white paint/stripes on the ties...will have to dig up the pic.

[svedblen]

No, I did not have any more plans for the bumper. In the only proto photo I've seen was just like this. No more. But I would love to see the photo with additional details, if you can find it.

I have used that bumber type as an inspiration before, on an N scale layout (see the pic below).