Ballast or Trk Weathering-First?

Oh, I definitely ballast first, then weather track, ties, and ballast all at once - just like nature does!

There is no need to ballast first and hand paint the track.

Use masking tape on the ties that stick outside the rails. Then use cardboard cut about 5 inches by 12 inches to hold and mask the inner ties as you spray the rails. It's easy and quick.

Then ballast after it is dry. Ballast up to the top of the rails.

Oh, use rag to wipe off the tops of the rails as you go along. Use the appropriate thinner on the rag if you have stubborn spots.

The neat thing is the glue you're using will also further weather the rail as it dries.

Ballast first. The moisture of wetting the ballast and glueing it will likely undo your weathering efforts

I followed Dennis Brennan's method as he described in his book.

1. Paint the rails. I airbrushed mine, but you can hand paint the rails at anytime, and I've even went back and touched up rails by hand from plaster slops and scratched paint.

2. Ballast.... add paint (earth brown or grimy black) to your glue mixture to weather the ballast at the same time you glue it. Or glue it first, then go back with a paint/water wash and weather it. You can add the black wash between the rails for that grimy black stained ballast, or just some "spills" of oil and grease at random locations.

3. If you really want to weather and detail the track, go back and brush on some chalk or weathering powder to the rails and ties at random, white, grey, and yellow.

Track and ballast naturally weather at the same time. There is no right or wrong way to do this, whatever works best for you.

Guess you haven't seen the Black Diamond Railway. Rich went back and air brushed the rails long after the ballast had been done. In fact, the whole layout was pretty much done before he painted the rails. Came out just fine.

I have atlas track that is not ballasted, so I do not know if this makes sense for your track.  Initially, I tried to live with my atlas tie stock color and used the color markers to weather the rails.  I had a lot of track to do and the rust and brown colors was marginally better than untreated rails.  I was dissatisfied with both the rail color and the stock tie color so I took advice from those who painted both the rails and ties at the same time. I used earth brown camo from rattle cans and for me it worked to get a better tie color and darken the rail sides.  Now, if a want to ballast I can do so.  Detailing the weathering can come later as well.  I think spraying your track and ties with your base color preference first would be a time saver especially if you use rattle cans.  If you use an air brush, then perhaps the order is less of an issue.  I like the ideas of others that apply a wash to the ballast to break up the uniform ballast color.  Even the mixed granules are too uniform if left as is.  IMO of course.  Hope you get good results.  Please post photos as you go.

Air brush the rails first, then ballast. If you do the reverse, you will quickly find out what ballast is not adhered. I am speaking from experience. The loose ballast blown all over the place, besides being a mess, now can find its way into switch machines.

Sure didn't on our layout. I sprayed all the track & turnouts with RustOleum Charcoal Green (no longer produced anymore), cleaned off the tops of the rails with lacquer thinner on a cotton rag, then ballasted everything.