Frieght yard roadbed?

[cowenox]

Hi,
I'm just curious, do you use roadbed/ballast in your rail yards or do you omit it for more realism?

I'm definitely putting cork roadbed under my main line, but I'm thinking of keeping it out of my switching yard.

What do you all think I should do?

 

[D&J RailRoad]

I used sheets of homosote for my yard then applied a thin layer of ballast over that.

 

[rgeiter]

Cork (sheets) and ballast. Absolutely!

 

[rgeiter]

What the cork sheets look like before ballasting.

 

[santafewillie]

do you use roadbed/ballast in your rail yards or do you omit it for more realism?

In all yards, I use cardboard, like cereal boxes, under the track, more for sound deadening than height. My staging yards do not get ballast, but visible yards and industry spurs do get it. I model in HO and use HO cork roadbed for main lines and unsplit N scale roadbed for passing sidings.

What do you all think I should do?

That's up to you, each layout has it's own unique features and owners whims to be dealt with.

 

[JeffH]

I have only spurs that support industries on my layout, so I don't have your traditional yard. I didn't want to risk having random cars roll back onto the mainline by itself, so all my spurs have a slight decline that starts a few inched after the turnout, and end up at ground level in like 6 or 7 inches. I used the first 6-7 inches of woodland scenic 2% inclines, but thought about using inexpensive wood shims that appear to be of similar grade (roughly 2%).

The spurs will have ballast, but the tracks are sitting directly on the surface... no roadbed other than the ground level.

 

[MilwRoader_Steve]

HO-er here. I used WS foam sheet for my yard track area:

 

[Mixed Freight]

Hi,
I'm just curious, do you use roadbed/ballast in your rail yards or do you omit it for more realism?

I'm definitely putting cork roadbed under my main line, but I'm thinking of keeping it out of my switching yard.

What do you all think I should do?

What I have done in the past...................

No mainline roadbed in the yards. They're yards, not mainlines. I have used cork sheet, available in rolls at craft stores like Hobby Lobby or Michael's. It's slightly thinner than 1/8". Just one sheet, cut to desired size, under all the yard tracks. Ballast the yards with fine black ballast or sifted real dirt or something similar to replicate the look of real, prototype yards. As a matter of fact, simply find pictures of prototype yards and try to duplicate what you see in the pictures. Yards are generally not ballasted to mainline spec's.

Or you wouldn't even have to use any cork or roadbed if you don't want to. Yards are generally pretty flat anyway.