Making gargraves ties more realistic.

Eric's trains has about as real looking track as you can get with three rails. The right size ballast (most people use too big) and trackside details make the picture look right. You could distress and hand weather every tie then use ballast the scale size of footballs and ruin it.

Eric's Trains uses Ross, Atlas track. So do I.  

Buy the way:  this my 101st post!  

davidbross posted:

Real ties aren’t perfectly cubed, solid, brown blobs  

I’d like to get more grain and cracks and missing pieces in them and make them weathered gray.  Any thoughts on how to efficiently add detail to the ties and how to weather them.

Not worth doing. Unfortunately you chose the wrong track for that type of detail. Everything about G.G. is incorrect.

Large ties, hi –tubular rail and spacing. Best to paint rails the color of your (road operating region) and apply a nice ballast to make it blend in better.

I made that mistake several years ago as well. When it’s all said and done, you still can’t shake that middle rail.

Sticking with 3r, my choice would be MTH SCALE TRAX if you can find it. Even today, I still like the look of Lionel Super - O.

The only thing I came up with was to dry - brush the ties to get a worn look...

the ties are wood right? i’d try coarse sand paper and bleach, it seems like way more trouble than it’s worth imo, that’s a lot of ties...

At best GG provides a better representation of real track than tubular.  If real roadbed is the goal 2 rail proto 48 provides that.  If I were to do it over MTH scale trax looks best but I am committed to GG and Ross.

 I’ve used a fine tooth hobby saw to distress wood by dragging it across the ties. Hard to do with the rails in place. Especially with 3. Micromark sells a wire type brush for similar effects. Unless your modeling a very small layout or an aging branchline it just seems like a lot of work.

 I do like what SIRT did with the dry brushing technique.

Since there's that big rail down the middle, we may be into straining at gnats and swallowing camels territory.

I have GG/Ross/Curtis. The wood ties "weather" nicely just with ballasting, age, rail cleaning and dust. This is why i prefer them to plastic ties by anybody. I do wish that they were a bit smaller, but....

Photo #1 is a piece of old, used Curtis track that I got (a batch of it, cheap-ish) from eBay this summer and used in my layout addition. GG/Ross compatible - same wood ties and such. Pre-curved 072 section, hence the "spikes" (really good-looking 3R track, actually, especially after I spray-painted it).

Photo #2: 30+ year-old GG track on my layout. The wood, being a natural, porous material, in some ways ages - weathers - better than any plastic can; it can't help it. Of course, the track was spray-painted before it was laid. The "feel" of the wood ties is realistic/real, even if over-sized.

Can't say as much nice about the lovely rail gap and joiners. Suave.

When I stained my ballast, I thought the ties didn’t stand out as much and took on the colored ballast wash.  You see the difference below.  I used roofing granules for ballast.