Ballasting Question

Usually a good idea. Using a water soluble glue will enable you to make changes if necessary at a later time.  The glue will also hold the track in place permitting removal of screws or nails if desired..

I'm sure there are some who choose not to glue the ballast in place, but I always take the time and effort to glue it down.  That results in a much more even and realistic-looking roadbed that will remain in place over time.

I thought I remember reading an OGR article some time back where the fella had a double main and glued the ballast on the outside out each main and did not ballast the inside of the mains.  His logic was... were is it going to go, since it's trapped by the tracks?

Has anyone every tried that?  Like it?

This is all you really need.

Ballast, wet water, white glue/wet water mix, 5 oz. cups and brush[es]

Wet water is tap water with a couple drops of dishwasher liquid per quart[yellow squeeze bottle]. The glue mix is 50/50 white glue and wet water[red]. Many use 60/40 wet water/white glue mix.

Loose ballast becomes a mess over time.   If you want your layout to be a mess too, go ahead.

It's not the trains running that cause the mess to happen.  You can't really clean the layout.  You must exercise extreme care at all times not to touch the ballast, so uncoupling, rerailing, and track maintenance will be a nuisance since with all those you end up potentially touching the ballast.  What happens when you accidentally bump the benchwork too hard?  What if you sneeze the wrong direction?  Use a ground throw? Run a car off the track? The ballast moves.  You will always be rearranging it.

Furthermore, loose ballast migrates into turnouts and plays havoc with their operation (it fouls points and gets into flangeways and around throwbars).  It creeps into other things affecting layout performance, such as attaching to locomotive lubrication and getting into the gears.

If you glue it, how easy is it to clean and remove the ballast from the track? How will the track look after cleaning it? Thanks again!

If glued with the ever-popular diluted-white-glue-and-drop-of-detergent method, you can loosen the track later with an application of boiling hot water.  Then clean and dry the track and it should be good to go.

If you don't glue it, all those smooth running engines you have might not be so smooth after picking up some ballast in the gears Oh yeah, and don't sneeze in front of the layout either.

just get one granule of ballast caught in your engine gears and you will rue not gluing down the ballast.. BTW even glued ballast can come loose over time so it will warrant periodic monoitoring