tips for ballasting a turntable area?

Well, from what I've garnished in the past, a lot of railroads used spent cinders from steam engines for ballasting in and around anything and everything in the yard areas.  Which would be pretty much dark (black), then.  If you look at old pictures of steam/early diesel era yards, you would notice that a lot of the track is pretty much sunk in to ground level, with lots of dark ballast everywhere.  Yard trackage obviously didn't need to receive the same high-speed maintenance grooming that the mainlines did.  Just a good place to make good use of all those spent cinders from steam locomotives.

Of course, there's probably some exceptions here and there.  But in my opinion, you'd be perfectly prototypical in using dark ballast on your turntable storage tracks, and all around any roundhouse or engine storage shed you might have. 

thanks!! great info!

Covered in dirt with some small ballast and sand....dont forget dirty...very dirt area.

An easy way to do it is to take some sand and dye it black using an india-ink/alcohol mix. Mix in a bit of black aquarium sand to give the glint of anthracite or vitrified ash.

Another suggestion; you might want to edit your thread title, as nobody, but NOBODY in the real railroad world,  put ballast on a turntable.

Laidoffsick posted:

Not to derail this thread, but where did you get those interesting yellow wheel-stops?  Don't believe I have seen them before...

I think RRs did not purposely make roundhouse track look bad - they evolved.    I think they laid them decently with ballast.    Most RRs had much wider tie spacing for non-mainline, maybe 2-3 levels as the speed was less and use.    And the over time, roundhouse tracks would see a lot of cinders and dirt and oil and coal dust and since speeds were slow, there was no need to maintain nice clean ballast for drainage and what not.   

So basically you see the are being black cinders or nearly so in most places.   Not sure where oil fired locos lived.   

By the way, those yellow wheel stops are available unpainted.    I have some painted rust color that I painted.    I think they might have come from Scale City Designs.   

NS Conway yard many years ago.  We were allowed a walk through of the turntable area.   Answers to a few questions about oil/grease/dirt.   

Note the oil absorbent  material. 

The existing turntable pit was a collect area for any oil or spilled fuel, piped to a treatment facility that removed all oil from any discharge water. 

Turntable pit area.  Lots of oil and grease. 

There was a sander/ hand sander for the pit rail. 

Hand sander, yellow. 

Oil and fuel spill a major concern.  Most oil and fuel spill was limited.   This may be the largest spill that we saw.  Note that this facility was removed/upgraded 5 or 6 years ago. 

We modeled the hand sander.  

PRRrat posted:

Laidoffsick posted:

Not to derail this thread, but where did you get those interesting yellow wheel-stops?  Don't believe I have seen them before...

Tomar offers those Hays Wheel Stops.

prrjim posted:

I think RRs did not purposely make roundhouse track look bad - they evolved.    I think they laid them decently with ballast.    Most RRs had much wider tie spacing for non-mainline, maybe 2-3 levels as the speed was less and use.    And the over time, roundhouse tracks would see a lot of cinders and dirt and oil and coal dust and since speeds were slow, there was no need to maintain nice clean ballast for drainage and what not.   

So basically you see the are being black cinders or nearly so in most places.   Not sure where oil fired locos lived.   

By the way, those yellow wheel stops are available unpainted.    I have some painted rust color that I painted.    I think they might have come from Scale City Designs.   

They weren't really concerned with looks.

Many RRs did in fact purposely use up cinders in ballasting yards, service areas, and, in some cases, industrial trackage.

Hot Water posted:

Another suggestion; you might want to edit your thread title, as nobody, but NOBODY in the real railroad world,  put ballast on a turntable.

I've been Hot Watered again!...all good..love the feedback!

One of those great Jack Delano photos from Shorpy. Bensenville, ILL 1943 - a little yard maintenance.

https://www.shorpy.com/node/60...ze=_original#caption

Ballast in the turntable pit.    Frostburg MD.  The turntable wall and pit rail bearing is concrete.  Also the center pivot is concrete. The pit floor is stone/most likely limestone with some nice weeds. 

We modeled the pit rail bearing concrete and ballasted/stoned the floor of the turntable.   Sorry no weeds, though we did add some green later pictures. 

Hey Gerry. Here are some pics of my old layout around the turntable area. My modeling style as always been "neat and clean" so you will not see too much dirt and clutter.

Most everything got covered with (2) different sizes of rubber ballast and then sprayed with an alcohol / ink solution. The track is Gargraves that I paint.

Have fun, post some pics when you get rolling.

Donald