Thought I'd share this since I would have found this helpful when I was researching whether to ballast my fastrack.
Step by step, here's what I did:
1/ Darkened the overly light plastic roadbed on the fastrack by rubbing with black compressed chalk
2/ Used woodland scenics track painters to paint the ties, rail sides and add some 'rust'
3/ ballasted with Brennan's better ballast, wet with alcohol and glued with equal parts glue, water and woodland scenics Earth undertone. Also added some Brennan's ground cover around the edges (this will be a starting point for further scenery)
The below shows the result. I still have work to do - namely clearing some of the tops of the ties (it's pretty tough to keep them completely clear when applying ballast, but quite easy to run your finger along when dry to pull off any major ballast on the tie tops). I also want to work some more on the track centers since getting ballast in there is tough due to the plastic roadbed.
