Howdy Guys, I just wanted to post a stupid question and I hope it doesn't start off a firestorm. Why is it that I see a lot of photographs of layouts in the Gallery section that have beautifully manicured hills, roads, tunnels, water, bridges, and ground texture, but when I see the yards there it is again, UNFINISHED YARD WORK! Some have painted their track, but most have just mounted their track on roadbed and left it sit with a "I'll get to it later" note attached to it in their heads. Granted the rail yard functions properly and they can run the trains, but a layout looks much better (IMAO) when the yard tracks are ballasted and ground cover is added. Here is a tip that my local hobby shop guy told me about finishing yard tracks, he said to make it a habit to do a little yard detailing at each operating session so you spread the chore out over a period of time. Do some ballast work one week, some ground cover next week, etc... The yard supervisor will thank you for the attention! Just my two cents. George
George, I've never modeled a yard but I know that some modelers mainly focus on operation and scenery is non existent or sparse at best. The other end of the spectrum is folks like myself who mainly focus on scenery. Personally it would drive me nuts to leave a yard bare and in an evening I would pour sifted soil mixed with fine ballast or cinders everywhere and do the old soak and glue routine. Then I could place details and buildings wherever I felt like it. Just an opinion of course. Some folks could care less about scenery.
Yards are very difficult for most people to model because you are NOT allowed in them. Most yard pictures do not show the truth, therefore, most yards I've seen are grossly inaccurate. Yards are dirty, disgusting places, even on the Frisco. The ground is littered with all sorts of debris, busted ties, sand mounds in the rails, spills, coal in-between rails, grain mounds from spills, oil slicks, tie downs that broke on the ground, holes, uneven ballast, water puddles, muddy conditions, pieces of rail, tie plates and fish plates in piles, ties randomly stacked, along with tools, etc., all on the ground. Rails are NOT nice and neat like the main lines. They are broke, busted, and disgusted. Flat spots, broken ties, missing ties, missing spikes, loose spikes, uneven rails, rusty rails. You get the picture. A yard is totally unlike the mainline, except most folks can't get themselves to make their yards look like that.
I am definitely more on of an operator than a scenery guy... It is actually one of my least favorite parts of the hobby.... The problem I have is with people who rush to get scenery in place before testing and making sure everything works. I actually prefer to run at least one operating session before ballast goes on new track work just so I can test it for imperfections. Paul
George, you are exactly right and I'm as guilty as anyone for not detailing my yard. I do have a pile of scrap next to my boxcar yard office, but that's about it. I have held off on painting my yard track, even though the rusty appearance of the rest of my track would suit it well. As far as ballast, I am reluctant to put down any, because I don't want to foul the turnouts. No quite sure when I am going to get up the courage to do the work, but someday I'll tackle it. Pat Moreland, Union Mo.
When going for my MMR back in 09, my yard was one of the first things I finished. I painted the rail, the track, planted weeds. Basically I added about all the detail that I could think of. Looking back there really is a lot more I could have done. Things I can think of including spills of things such as grain, chemicals or sand and the like. I have spare ties and sections of rail lying around. I finished just enough to get the required scenery for my Master Builder certificate. I have plenty left to do on my layout. I may never get it done. In my case I know one thing for sure. Once I got the layout Operating almost every other aspect of my hobby slowed way down. I am having too much fun running my layout. I hope that all of you can get to that point with your layout. Have fun! Bob Wintle MMR Parsons, Ks.
Paul, you are so correct. I rushed laying my tight flextrack curves and now there's a place that gives one of my locos a fit. My next layout will have generous curves. I'm considering building more of a switching layout.
Jim, please describe your definition of "fit". In reality that is realistic and would be resulting in a train order, "slow order at MP XXX." There's another added section of realism for you to model.
Manny, I had a pilot truck that occasionally derailed at a certain spot. Turned out that replacing the weak truck spring with a stronger one from the Bachmann scrapbox fixed the problem. My track work should've been better regardless. It will be next time!
I really don't see any issues with your track work Jim. It looks great. Remember, track in of itself is a model and just like the prototype, there is no perfection. I feel you've done a good job. The only thing I think that is missing is coal, sand, and other loose product, like sawdust missing. It all builds up. This isn't a complaint, just an observation. Zalma is B-E-A-UUUUUUU-TIFUL!
Hey George, I am one of the chief offenders here. Still looking for that right size, right color ballast. I would certainly take suggestions on the color. Think I am going to stick with N scale for size. It just looks right.
Rick, Most rail yards I have seen have a mixed bag of cinders, gravel, light and dark ballast, and sand. So, with that said just mix you up some cheap art craft sand in cinder black and light tan (original sand color) and add some dark grey N scale ballast in medium grit and call it good. Don't forget to spruce it up with all kinds of "junk" laying around and to be generous with the soot, rust, and mud pastels. Add some weeds, a a bit of overgrown grass, and a hobo drifter, and you get a pretty good replica. Anything is likely to be found in a rail yard so be creative! I even saw a dead deer that the engineer had hit laying in one once. George
Remember that when steam locomotives ruled the rails, that parked locomotives would actually blanch all the materials around them when the pop and check valves opened up and released pressure. Then everything would be a very light, dull gray. This means ties, ballast, rails and even rail cars on adjacent tracks. There would be no color.
That's right! Sparse actual ballast is the rule. Some small places where they might have repaired a derailment. Most older yards had very little ballast, some cinders and mainly earth from broke down grain and other products. Very little surfacing was done, because they wanted the center of the track low. Hence the term "bowl track" Keeps the cars inside them without brakes. There used to be a guy, who came to the model shows in Missouri, when I lived there who sold natural walnut hull ballast, I think from around Chillacauthe, not spelled right, but, does anyone have a lead on him? I would like to get some, it looks like Mopac rock. Bill Jackson
To All: Some say a picture is worth a thousand words so here are three. These were taken about 2 years ago of the Neodesha Frisco (now Watco) yard. It was in it's heyday a modest 5 track yard with the mainline being the middle track. Even after all of these years some things don't change. The surface material is mainly the chat mentioned in an earlier post and one can tell which tracks see the most use and vice-versa. Picture one is on the east throat of the yard looking westward with the empty track being the main. Pictures two and three were taken on the west end of the yard looking eastward with the empty track again being the main. Enjoy!
Bob, those are excellent photos of today's yards, but yard's under the steam era were very much different. With a totally different mentality towards maintenance, and different equipment on the rails, yards have morphed into those type of pictures. The chat discussion is excellent. Very similar to what was in Acca Yard, in Richmond, VA, on the southside of the yard. The farther north in the yard you got, the text changed to larger ballast and was a PITA to walk on. Now that was 1996-2001, so it may have changed, but knowing CSX and their cheap mentality, I doubt it. Take a look at the color photographs of steam locomotives in the Frisco Yards and you can see the details I was referring to up above. This is an excellent thread. Keep posting up good stuff!
George - Nary a firestorm in sight. This is a very interesting topic. I've often enjoyed looking at the photos in Frisco in Color of the yard trackage at Lindenwood. Even in the era of first-generation diesels, the areas surrounding the tracks have the appearance of greasy, gray dried mud in many instances, with flecks of paper and other detritus here and there. I'm going to try to recreate some of this around my the team and stock pen track on our HO Scale Olathe. I had some old N-scale size W.S. buff ballast and cinders that I've used so far on the track itself. Once we make it into the West Bottoms/19th Street area, I hope to make the yard trackage even better. I've wondered if poured plaster that's then painted appropriately will do the trick? One of the most interesting steam-era yard photos I've seen is one I saved from a Mainline Modeler from years ago of an N&W steam terminal. The space between the tracks looks like a muddy mess, with a small rivulet of water draining between the tracks. Now that would be a fun challenge to model. Best Regards,
