Brown Fine Ballast Shaker

A ballast bed is not just stones under the ties

A layer of crushed stone under a line handles three tasks at once. It spreads the load from a tie into the subgrade, it leads water away from the structure and it mechanically holds the track panel in place. A modeler sees mainly the last of these, because it is precisely the sharp grain, wedged into itself, that gives a line that typical disordered surface. Smoothly poured silica sand never evokes such an impression, because its grains are worn smooth and reflect light too evenly.

Why a brown shade of all things

A brown bed matches a line that has been in service for a long time. Dust from bulk loads, rust flying off wheels and oil from bearings soak into the stone season after season, until the original color of the stone disappears under the deposit. It goes furthest on industrial spurs and in sections with heavy freight traffic, where crushed material from the wagons is added on top of that. A line with a brown bed therefore comes across as lived in, whereas a light one looks as though it had been opened last month.

The tub and the way of pouring

The material is closed in a tub whose cap works as a sieve, so it can be dosed straight from the hand without a scoop. It is poured between the ties, evened out with a soft brush into a slope and only then fixed with thinned PVA glue, into which a drop of dish soap belongs; that breaks the surface tension and the glue soaks right down to the bottom of the layer. Anyone wanting to save themselves repairs should first pour a thin trial layer onto a piece of cardboard and look at how the shade appears once it has dried; a damp layer is always markedly darker than a finished one and the difference tends to be surprising. Glue, track and a baseboard are not part of the delivery.