I'm wondering if cinder black ballast would be ok to use for my layout, most everything I have seen is shades of grey or tan. We are modeling a heavily forested and green area in the 80's era with BN, UP, and SP locomotives. We have this sandblasting media at work that is a nice cinder black or really dark grey color if it's "correct" for somewhere(not modeling any particular area) I want to use it because its free as much as I like. Criiticism or feedback welcome...
IIRC, I thought the Rio Grande used black ballast on their tracks.......can any of the DRGW guys in any scale answer this for sure? (Paging Hemi............ )
Parts of the D&RGW mainline in Colo have pretty dark/nearly black ballast. I used that same media on an HO set a while back, but thought it was too purely black, and had a shine to it. You may want to overspray or mist it with dark brown or dark gray paint before using it just to give it a little less uniform look.
I mixed the cinders into the grey blend, and used mostly cinders around the mine and loco shops. as an extra tidbit, the gravel road is aluminum oxide sand blasting medium. Be sure to pass a magnet over it before using, to remove anything the motor could pick up.
I planned on it, most of our sand is used blasting structural steel so it'll have lots of it in it. I think I'm going to pour it down a tube with a bunch of magnets taped to the outside of it.
the Luzerne and sesquahana which has former D&H trackage thrue here and what conrail bought but had to immidiantly give it to the L&S and they have most of it coal/black rockey stuff so that would look cool whith allitle bit of black ballast mixed in because in the ballast pile i sit on to see trains when i'm bored and my mon and dad are working and that has a piece of coal or a cunk of a some kind of thingamabob kind of black rock
Ballast Might want to mix washed masonery sand of the same size into your dark sandblasting stuff. Run a magnet through it before using it too. The bonded ballast method should work OK. I used Woodland Scenisc medium ballast in a mix as follows 2 parts Buff 1 part Dk. Brown 1 part Brown and 1 part Grey blend.
Yes, Rio Grande used slag cinders from the Pueblo CF&I plant until it closed to ballast portions of the mainline. It is certainly prototypical to use cinders or slag as ballast. Of course you can weather it a bit if it isn't fresh ballast which will dull or gray it a little bit.
In this photo, you can see the siding track has a dark gray cinder ballast. Another, more dark cinders, and some more. Plenty of older prototype inspiration here: http://www.drgw.net/gallery/PGClassic
I use Southern Pacific BLACK CINDER from Arizona Rock & Mineral Co. on my "High Desert & Sierra Railroad" Stefan My Gallery
I am worried about the metal in the sand. Just make sure to really glue that sand down well as the metal specs could get into things like motor magnets.
I did a test piece of track mounted to plywood scrap today and it worked pretty good. I used a large flexible fridge magnet to scoop out a little ballast at a time and apply it to the track, then soaked it with a mix 2 parts titebond white glue, 8 parts water, and 1 part rubbing alcohol. with the help of a hairdryer on low it dried very fast about 15 mins. I then took some dirty brown paint thinner and brushed it down all the ties and feathered it down the sides a little and it looks great. It took most of the shine off and made it a little less black. I'll post some pics tomorrow if I can get them under the size limit. Thanks for all the pics and links that was a big help to see some real railroads with black ballast.
