Gray Blend Medium Ballast Bag

Real ballast never has one color

A line is repaired stretch by stretch over its life. After tamping, stone is topped up from whichever quarry happens to be hauling, after a closure a few meters stay lighter, at a turnout the stone is mixed with sand from the sanding. The result is a mosaic of shades that a single-color scatter cannot imitate, because the eye recognizes regularity at once. The blended version solves this problem in the bag already: it holds lighter as well as darker gray grains and while being spread they compose themselves into an irregular surface on their own.

The medium grain size and a large package

The middle of the three grain sizes offered is the most universal. On a model it corresponds to the stone spread under the ties on ordinary lines, and at the same time it does not look coarse even in the smaller sizes of models. The package is twice the size of the other bags of the line, which makes sense with a material that covers long stretches and with which topping up in little amounts would be awkward: stone added from another batch need not match in color.

While working it helps to pour from a cone of paper and to follow straight away with a soft brush, so that grains do not stay on the tops of the ties. Those would then soak up glue during fixing and stay stuck in the most conspicuous place. It pays off to see to the web of the rail before spreading, because it is from there that the excess is hardest to remove.

At the edges of the profile it tends to show where care for the track ends. By a main track the stone edge runs sharply right down to the foot of the embankment, while by a dead-end siding grass pushes into it from below and the stone disappears in the soil. Such a detail costs a few minutes of work and says more about the age of a stretch than the color of the material itself.