RAILROADING!
My most memorable memory was in the cab of h-7 2-8-0 #734.
<———734 at Cumberland Md.
Anyway model railroading is my favorite hobby.But my model railroad is under construction.While it is no were near finished my train collection is growing, and GROWING.
Along the construction of my layout I will give posts on my experiences and progress!
HAPPY MODEL RAILROADING!
Hello!
It’s Lukas here, and I thought that I might share some information about track ballasting.
I’ve read several tutorials, and thought that I might give a summary, and add my own twist:
Materials you will need:
-Isopropyl Alcohol (99% will work, but 70% works the best)
-Regular White Glue
-Water
-A Plastic Fork (A different stirring utensil works as well, but this works very well because of its prongs.)
-A large paintbrush
-A small paintbrush
-An eyedropper/Medicine dropper (Either will work, size is not important, but it’ll go faster with a larger one.)
-Ballast: In the article I used a small ballast, of the medium grey color from Woodland Scenics, but you should choose a ballast based on prototype, color, and especially size. If it’s not the right size, it won’t look correct.
So, the first thing you need to do is get all of the materials together. You don’t want to start mixing the glue until you have the Isopropyl alcohol poured out, because as soon as you mix the glue, the glue starts slowly sinking to the bottom.
Next step is to mix the glue. All of the tutorials say to mix the glue 50/50 with the water, but I’ve found that it sinks too fast with the 50/50 mix, so I adjusted mine to about 60% water, 40% glue. Keep your glue mix and Isopropyl alcohol close by while you are working.
First start by pouring the ballast on top of the tracks, over the ties. Then take your large paintbrush, and run the brush through the tracks like it’s a train. Keep brushing until you see the ties, and you’ve got a mound on either side covering your roadbed:
If the cork roadbed is not completely covered as of yet, pour a little more on the sides, and shape it with the large brush:
Now you want to take your eyedropper, and fill it with the Isopropyl alcohol. Drop it slowly over the ties outside the rail:
You should be able to watch the ballast change from light grey to dark grey. If it doesn’t change color all the way, go over it again with more Isopropyl alcohol. We want it to soak all the way through the ballast, because it breaks surface tension. If you don’t put the Isopropyl alcohol on first, the ballast will ball up with the glue, and form bubbles of ballast on the surface. It will only sink through if you put the alcohol on first.
Once you’ve saturated all of the ballast you’ve put on the tracks, you’ll want to start with the glue. (By the way, you will want to put the alcohol in the center over the ties, to prevent the bubbles. Don’t just put it on the sides.) Apply the glue in the exact same fashion as you put on the alcohol:
It should appear white just for a few seconds before soaking in. If bubbles form, don’t worry, they will eventually be sucked down, and you shouldn’t worry about popping them. If during the process of adding the alcohol and glue you exposed any roadbed, carefully use your finger to reshape the roadbed before the glue dries.
And you’re done for now! All that’s left to do is wait for it all to dry. It usually dries overnight, and sometimes faster if it’s hot out.
Here’s my finished result:
As you can see, there is some excess ballast on the sides, that skittered away when I brushed it on. You can clean it up with a vacuum cleaner, or scrape it away later.
And here’s a train running over the newly ballasted area:
That’s all for now!
Hello! I am rather excited, because I have finally started to add some scenery to my Mountain/City themed Railroad. First, here’s an overall picture (it’s rather blurry, so it’s just to give you an idea of what this section will look like).
You can see that there will be a small river/stream running through the center, between the two mountainous banks.
The next picture shows a front view of the scenery. The pine-tree-looking trees are Noch pine trees, with a little dark green Woodland Scenics ground foam. To tell the truth, I was not very impressed with these trees, but I made them work. To layer the ground, I mixed a little blue with a lot of orange paint to make a dark brown base color for the ground. Then, I took the finest real dirt from my yard, and sprinkled it on the wet paint. I then sprayed it with Woodland Scenics diluted matte medium to secure it in place. While the matte medium was wet, I sprinkled on Woodland Scenics “Earth” colored fine ground foam. I then added rocks, deadfalls, and small bushes. Lastly came the trees. The poplar in the center right is from Faller. The pinkish deciduous tree on the right was made from a plant that grows in my backyard. The small flowers in the bushes were from the same plant.
The next picture depicts the deadfall, flowers, homemade trees, and rocks in the front:
Lastly, I’ll show a shot from behind. The deciduous tree in the foreground, along with the other small trees are from Woodland Scenic’s “Starting Modeling” kit. I was lucky enough to pick the kit up at a Garage Sale for only $2:
Thanks for taking a look!
As someone who is just beginning Model Railroading, I made several mistakes, and several decisions that led to a lot of frustration on my part, that I will tell you about, and hopefully you will avoid.
So, it started when I wanted to put a grade on my Layout. The grade was cut with a Woodland Scenics Wire Foam cutter, but it went down too sharply at the end, and was breaking the couplers off of the cars that went up the grade. So I dismantled the track, and then leveled off the part that was too steep, and made the grade a little more shallow. I glued the track down, but was very eager to keep working, so I cut more of the grade, and laid more track, running a few cars over the track to test it. Unknowingly, I picked up a little bit of glue on the wheels of the first and second cars. I noticed the glue on the tracks, and wiped it up, but not on the wheels. As they were rolled along, they picked up the grime from the tracks and the table, which turned the glue black, hiding it from visibility. So the next day, when I tested some track, I rolled the test cars up the track, and they derailed. I figured that it was an imperfection in the track, so I dismantled that section of track, and relaid it with different track. The same problem occurred, and I tried with different track and different roadbed. But the cars still jumped off the track. I figured it had something to do with the Grade, so I dismantled the entire grade, along with all the track I’d laid along the grade, and laid new track. Imagine my frustration when I rolled the test cars along the curve, and they still jumped the tracks. I took a break for a few days, and came back, determined to find the source of the problem. I brought in more light, and rolled the cars along the track very slowly, and eventually saw that one side of the wheel truck was higher than the other, and I finally figured out the problem. After going over the wheels meticulously with a knife, I finally got all of the glue off, and then rolled it over a pad of diluted rubbing alcohol.
My point here is that when you are a beginner, sometimes you need to take it slow, and that sometimes rushing (even if you are doing a good job) can cause you problems. Having since removed the grade, I don’t think I’m going to put another one in, unless it’s a professional one. (Woodland scenics makes some wonderful grade starters and grade maintainers.)
The last thing i’ll divulge is about sanding, and soldering. Early in my plan for my layout, I was going to have a European-style staging area, beneath the table. I laid the track going up to the top, and soldered the gaps. I then sanded them down so that they were flat, and tested them by running cars up and down. I then hooked up my DC system to the end-rails, and tried running some engines to the top. But they would stop at places where i’d soldered. This puzzled me, so I relaid more of the track, but then after going to Eastside Trains (Down in Kirkland Washington, one of the largest Model Railroading stores in the Pacific Northwest) I talked to the guy who deals with HO, and he explained that sanding the places where i’d soldered had likely rubbed some of the top part of the rail away; the part that conducts electricity, and runs it to the wheels of the engine. This failure was enough to make me scrap the idea of the European-style staging area, and put in a small staging area in the corner of my layout.
I hope that you beginners who have read this article know a little bit more about what to avoid when laying track.