Tuesday, January 22, 2019

Moving on to ballasting

 So, I have moved many cars down the main line and blocked everything up.
 I had to clear the yard so I could paint the track in about 60% of it.
 The cars come into the other room. The unpainted ones in front are the next tranche of cars to be painted. Mostly hoppers.
 Too many projects, too little time.
 So, I have gotten some ballast down with the help of the gang. I spent the week before painting the yard and and main line. Then 2 days cleaning the rail heads of the paint. My finger is permanently colored from the acetone and paint combo.
 You can see the uniform color of the track and turnouts as the wood ties paint up the same as the plastic.  I have to glue the main line ballast down and then I can put down the Arrival and Departure track ballast. Then glue that. Lastly, I get to put down the cinders in the 5 track yard.
 Some of the fellows started on the other end of the prepared area. The main line required two levels of stone - a fine sand filler of the kerfed portions of the road bed. I am trying to save on the  expensive main line stone to be sure I have enough. If I used just the main line ballast, filling the kerfs would double my consumption. You can see I have a lot of tracks to ballast!
 The toothbrush is the end of the filler placement. So I will have to push that on to be able to continue the white ballast.
 Just another view of the project.
 It is starting to look good.
 Where the foam brush sits is the end of the Arrival and Departure tracks. That will be a grey ballast.
The cars are ready to get back into the yard so I have to move along.

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