Transitioning different ballast colors?


P

PMW

Well-Known Member
I'm about to start ballasting my yard and know that I want to use a different ballast than the mainline. I have two long (given layout size) sidings (A/D 1,2) which come off the main and the yard body comes off of one of those.

Where would a plausible place be to change ballast?
How does this happen in the real world....one color directly changing to another? Some kind of transitioning?
Perhaps a different color for the A/D tracks and yet another for the yard body?

I appreciate your thoughts. Thanks
 
I have seen ballast change abruptly, especially on the lesser used track. In fact, within the space of a few hundred yards 3 or more different ballasts.

The BNSF mainlines around here, however, ballast is generally pretty consistent throughout. The older sidings are often lower in elevation and ballast may appear degraded, smaller aggregate, sometimes appearing as just dirt with some gravel in it, sometimes railcars are parked there for months, like a storage area.

Dave LASM
 
The only reasons to see a substantial change in ballast size and/or colour would be when the old supply ran out, or the contract did and the rails had to find a new source from a different deposit, or if the ballast in place had to be taken up and replaced, but the previous conditions I listed had taken place in between the deposition of the old layer of ballast and the new. In such cases, the change takes place over a few feet at most. Less than half an inch in HO.
 
Selector said:
The only reasons to see a substantial change in ballast size and/or colour would be when the old supply ran out, or the contract did and the rails had to find a new source from a different deposit, or if the ballast in place had to be taken up and replaced, but the previous conditions I listed had taken place in between the deposition of the old layer of ballast and the new. In such cases, the change takes place over a few feet at most. Less than half an inch in HO.
Click to expand...
Good info thanks!
 
R (34).jpg


This is how I picture rail yard ballast.
Whatever is available with mix and match.
End of the day, it's your miniature world.
Make yourself happy. :)
 
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