Ballst First or Ground Cover?

[Rotorranch]

What do y'all do first? Ballast, or ground cover?

I'm building a photo set/diorama/display board, and I'm at the point where I need do to ballast and ground cover.

Rotor

 

[Secondhandmodeler]

I ballasted first and then added the ground cover. That way I could get the ground cover to look like it had grown since the track was ballasted. I don't worry about bits of random green here and there on the track. That is easier to clean up then random piles of ballast. Others may feel differently than me though.

 

[Selector]

With care, it can work either way. Some people ask if the tracks should be rusted and weathered before ballasting or after. Well, there are pros and cons for each way.

In my case, I prefer to make the scenery up to the roadbed first. I then pour the ballast so that it flows naturally onto the ground cover, and add some coarse ground cover at the bottom of the ballast when I want to simulate natural incursions over time. Note that trackage used daily will be well maintained and that the users will spend money to keep such incursions to a minimum. They use chemicals and steam guns to battle back weeds that want to settle into the ballast.

For the track weathering, I find that the rails, tie plates, and spikes will rust over time, but that the rust will be encouraged via gravity and water to migrate downward and over the ties and ballast just at the foot of the rails. So, with that in mind, I weather/rust my rails as a last step so that the paint bleeds naturally over the ballast and tie surfaces, just like in real life.

A bit over done in this photo, but you get the idea:

 

[Scordicus]

Ground cover first.. After all, nature was there before the railway came along eh...

 

[Secondhandmodeler]

With that line of thinking you had better do all of your scenery first and then lay the track. After all, that's how the real world works.

 

[Motley]

Ballast first, then ground cover.

 

[TrinityJayOne]

With that line of thinking you had better do all of your scenery first and then lay the track. After all, that's how the real world works.

That'd be an interesting way of doing things! Imagine making a large scene to scale, then blasting through plaster mountains to make tunnels & cutouts, and cutting your trees off at the stump to provide lumber for bridges!

 

[Scordicus]

With that line of thinking you had better do all of your scenery first and then lay the track. After all, that's how the real world works.

If you wish to call in the miniature diggers to prepare the ground then by all means do lol..

I did of course mean after the track is laid.. Ballasting should be pretty much the the last major thing you do..

I'll clarify myself a little.. We'll presume that were building a flat layout.. After preparing the road bed with cork, foam lino, what ever your choice is, paint the ground with a cheap emulsion, we'll say brown for standard earth tone, a Mocha or coffee colour is good..
Once that's dried, we then lay the track.. You can weather the track before or after laying, totally down to personal choice..
Once the track is down, mask off the edge of the rails, slightly wider than the sleepers/ties (about 3-4mm in HO) then start to apply your ground cover in what ever way you prefer, then remove the masking tape..
Once this ground cover has dried, you then have a slight shoulder which will stop your ballast from spilling all over the place and moving when you apply it & the fixing medium (normally white glue & water although some people use different products)..
Once this has dried and you have cleared off the excess, you can then add any stain/colouring that you wish too to the ballast, this really is down to personal choice.. Like wise is adding any weeds to the track or surrounding wayside..

The logic behind it!
It's all about layers.. It's quite simple really, you can't go backwards, well, not without a lot of effort anyway.. You can't paint under the sleepers/ties once their down or once you've ballasted and certainly not without a lot of effort not to ruin everything else around it.. Remember, your mimicking/recreating the real world, so simply think about what was there first - the chicken or the egg!?! lol...

 

[Secondhandmodeler]

I understand the logic behind doing scenery first and then ballast, I just don't agree with it. The ballast can be somewhat unruly until you get it shaped and spread perfectly. Having to work around scenery that's been covered right up to the right of way just seems like an unnecessary hassle. I put money on it that whatever scenery you do before ballasting will need to be redone after ballasting.

I also think it's a big reason why you see so many layouts without ballasted track. It's the perfect excuse to not do what most dislike doing anyway, ballasting. "Well, I'll ballast when I'm done with everything else". To me it was the single most important thing I did to help my trains stop looking like a train set.

This is one of those things where there are obvious disagreements. To the OP, either way works just fine.

 

[Scordicus]

I understand the logic behind doing scenery first and then ballast, I just don't agree with it.
{SNIP}
"Well, I'll ballast when I'm done with everything else". To me it was the single most important thing I did to help my trains stop looking like a train set.

To the OP, either way works just fine.

Which indeed I have no problem with whatsoever.. And your right, it is each to their own, I'm just simply passing on my 30+ years of experience..

The fact of the matter is, that as you have stated, the majority of people (but certainly not all) leave the ballasting until last.. The other reason for doing this (as well as completing the other scenery first) is so that you can run all of your rolling stock over time whilst you finish the other scenery to make sure that you have no track running problems.. Once you've ballasted the track, it's a major job to take out and replace that problem switch/point or out of gauge piece of track...