Ballast Alternative ?

[Rico]

Just don't try cat litter!
Someone in the club brought in a huge bag of it once.
We didn't know what it was so we ballasted a good portion of track with it.
When we returned a week later it had expanded almost 2 inches high! The line was now elevated.

 

[ChevelleSSguy]

You can get 32 ounces of ballast at http://www.hobbylinc.com/htm/woo/woob1393.htm for eight bucks. That's probably enough to do 45-60 feet of track. If you had a really large layout, looking at the less costly alternatives might make sense but not for a small layout. Just spend the eight bucks and get to work.

While I am always encouraging folks to find cheap and free ways to do projects on their model railroad. I have to agree. But not just because that reason alone. But also because most dirt you pull out of the ground wont be the correct color for the balast that the railroad your modeling uses. That means your going to have to try and color it to match somehow. So in a nutshell, using dirt pulled out of the ground for balast is probably not worth the hassle of saving 10 bucks per container of comercially made balast. Although I wish you could buy larger bulk bags of it for larger layouts. I couldnt imagine spending 10 bucks a pop for an empire sized layout.

I have a few of them out in my barn, so the other day, I opened one up.
and put a screen from an old stormdoor,over a bucket. I just grabed a handful,right of the top. and what fell into the bucket, was almost a fine powder. so I not sure how that would work. maybe if I dug down more,it mite be better ?

Ron

I have a few sacks of that stuff too and just looked at it yesterday. Noticed the same thing even though I didnt open it. But I noticed how coarse the stuff was. I was thinking you could just use a strainer the appropiate size and just strain out the proper sized coarseness and just use that. I would think if there is powder not coarse enough and sand that is too coarse, then there has to be plenty of usable sand that is in between that and could be used just fine. No bugs to deal and appearently, its already good clean sand right from the factory.

 

[Beachbum]

32 oz (2 pounds) of coarse sand is $2.99 at Michael's crafts store. Looks ok for HO. Multiple colors - white, black, off-white, beige, light brown, dark brown, and funky things like purple. It also comes in a fine grade which looks like it would work for N-scale. Made by Panacea Products of Columbus, Ohio.

I bought a bag of white (modeling a line with limestone ballast) which seems to be quartz - it's a little sparkly. I'll hit it with an acrylic wash of brown or gray to tone it down.

I'm going to do a test strip with Code 100 Snaptrack to see what it looks like.