Smith and Sons Ballast - A Comparison

[Chris333]

Smith and Sons was some guys shed near Columbus Ohio. He sold everything to Scenic Express.

Edit: He sold through Scenic Express.

[ridinshotgun]

Well, it's been about 30 days now since I tried contacting them, but still just crickets so far....

Ed

Well that is disheartening.  They were posting on face book up to 2020 but nothing since then and I find it hard to believe that they sold to Scenic Express since the ballast they sell is not like the versions S&S had.

Well guess it is ARM then.

[Chris333]

The Scenic Express part numbers were SS instead of SE and the names of the ballast colors were the same as Smith & Sons. But right now I no longer see them on the site.

[Chris333]

And maybe they just sold the stuff and didn't buy the company. Anyways Smith died in 2018:
https://www.therailwire.net/forum/index.php?topic=43754.0

Ok so Harley Smith and Dale Smith have both passed. Their Facebook page says something about a third gen taking over.

Also not Columbus, it was Chardon.

I did get the part right about it being a shed in his backyard     When I was doing Z scale another Z scaler went to his house and saw it all in person. He may or may not have had him do a run of Z sized ballast.

[ridinshotgun]

And maybe they just sold the stuff and didn't buy the company. Anyways Smith died in 2018:
https://www.therailwire.net/forum/index.php?topic=43754.0

Ok so Harley Smith and Dale Smith have both passed. Their Facebook page says something about a third gen taking over.

Also not Columbus, it was Chardon.

I did get the part right about it being a shed in his backyard     When I was doing Z scale another Z scaler went to his house and saw it all in person. He may or may not have had him do a run of Z sized ballast.

The thread you identified also identified that one of Harley's grandsons, Paul, had taken over after Dale died and they did fulfill orders after that.  I am pretty sure he was the one that created the FB page since it was created shortly after Dale's passing. 

Though it seems like around the same time covid hit they disappeared.  The number I had on my last receipt was for Dale's phone.  That might have been the year before he passed and I never had a chance to personally order any more after that order.  I wonder if anyone in the local NMRA knows what is going on since they were still doing operating sessions on the grandfather's layout post Dale's passing that the grandson Paul was hosting.

[NtheBasement]

What you see in a photo depends on a lot of things besides the actual substance that you are viewing, including light source (nothing looks like sunlight) and angle, the camera's color balance setting, file compression, and the screen or printer that you use to view the image.  Best way to deal with all that (but impossible with an aerial photo) is to include a grey scale card in the picture, and then put the card next to the image when you view it.  The card's color in the photo is always way different from the real card.

[robert3985]

I don't know if it's pertinent any more since S&S is gone, but #4 looks the closest to my eye, even though the white balance is not identical between the video and your sample.  The blue tinge in the video is just the sky reflecting off of everything and a polarization filter would get rid of it. 

Yes, an 18% gray card in both shots would be ideal, and that's what I did when taking my own reference photos of UP ballast in Weber Canyon a long time ago with my 35mm film Nikons.  I also picked up a dozen ballast stones of different colors to be able to physically match the colors with my naked eyeballs at home under my layout lights.

As for ballast size...when I compared the rock size of #4 between the ties on the outsides of the rails, it looks really close...but, when I compare the rock size laying on the center of the concrete ties, #1 looks to be more correct.  I don't know what that's all about, but, if it were me I'd try to match both the rock size and the color mixture of #4 as well as I could.

That's my two-bits worth!

Cheerio!
Bob Gilmore