Painting track on Foam roadbed

[festx]

I am model RR newbie and this is my first post.

I visited a local model railroad club's open house yesterday and one characteristic of their HO layout that stood out to me was their track looked extremely realistic. At first, it looked like it was code 83 with brown ties but after inquiring, it turns out that they use code 100 flex track with black ties. A club member informed me that they spray-paint the track brown and sand the paint off of the top surface of the rails before they install it. I would like to achieve the same level of realism on my layout, but being a newbie, I didn't think that far ahead and I have completed about 90% of the track work. I can spray-paint the track in place without issue, but I am concerned that the ballast glue will not adhere to the painted WS foam roadbed. I plan on performing a few experiments on this but has anyone had issues doing so?

 

[festx]

Thanks for the response and sorry for the vagueness. They spray painted the track brown before it was installed and by "foam", I mean Woodland Scenics Foam roadbed.

For the spray paint, I thinking of using latex based that is foam safe so it wont eat the roadbed which is glued to a plywood base. I am more concerned with the ballast glue adhering to the painted roadbed.

 

[DCCinstalled]

The ballast should adhere to a painted surface just fine...

 

[RexHea]

Don't know how they did that. My experience with flex track is the sliding rail will not slide without a lot of effort after painting...a lot of effort. I believe you will be better off spray painting after the track is down.

Ditto: No problem gluing ballast to painted WS foam.

 

[festx]

Awesome! Thank you guys. I will post a pic of the painted track.