To ballast or not to ballast

I have always questioned whether it's worth it to add ballast to any track with a center rail in that it could never look all that realistic. I mean, that rail is right there in the middle...you can't miss it. That being said I do have a bucket of the stuff that's gone unused ever since I bought it a couple of years ago. I may try it just to see.

Try different ballast

I think it looks much better without the ballast. The track itself is gorgeous - if it were easier to get in the US, I'd swap out my FasTrack in a second. It doesn't have to look "realistic" to be cool.

I think that since Peter is using what looks like Kelly green felt to simulate grass, either having no ballast, or a darker color ballast like charcoal gray, would work better than the white ballast. 

I think it would look a little better if the ballast were a bit darker maybe, but interestingly, I would also say I think that if choosing to ballast that type of track, it would also look better with additional ties which should be easing considering the existing ties are wood.  Just cut more the same size and add.  By no means am I suggesting my track mods and ballast are great or even good by any standard, but  I was going for a presumed look that might have been done in the 40's  by some dad building a train set.  My track is tubular Lionel with center rail painted flat black and the sides of the outer rails flat black and the rusty with large grain ballast.  In hind site I would get smaller grain ballast next time, but will live with this for now.  It is  what it is.  For your layout, you might consider just using a grey colored felt as the roadbed instead of actual ballast, they would also be pretty good looking with the stock track un-modified.  Might also help with a slightly lighter green felt for the grass.

What product did you use for the sound deadener?

I would like to change the tone of the green I used at some point and add a bit of grass etc...

I personally like the way ballast looks, even if you are doing a toy train kind of layout versus hi rail of some  sort (just me). One suggestion would be to  use some sort of roadbed under the track, it would give a defined edge to the ballast (any ballast not on the roadbed would not have glue, and could easily be cleaned up), and would work whether you have the green mat down or not. 

I’m trying something different with the new layout, textured spray paint. It’s kind of a pain, had to lay out track, tape the area off, remove track, take the platform outside to paint, then back in, but I really like the look. 

Thanks everyone for your feedback, I appreciate your thoughts and ideas. I think I'm going to leave the track "unballasted", and stay with the original Swiss toy train effect from the 1950's. I have all of Buco's old catalogues, and none of their display layouts illustrated have the track ballasted.....there isn't even any sound deadening material under the rails!!! 

The "new generation" Buco company in Bauma, Switzerland only use a thin packing type underfelt under their display track depicted in the various pages on their new website https://buco-gmbh.ch/

Dennis......the underlay I used was a commercial grade thin rubber type anti-slip blanket that the department/hardware stores here in Australia sell to line the bottom of large kitchen drawers to stop plates/pots/pans from skidding around inside the drawer when its opened or closed. I bought a couple of rolls of the stuff to line the boot (trunk) of our car to stop the groceries skidding around on the way home from the supermarket (also to stop the carton (case) of beer from "zooming" around in the boot on the way home from the liquor store).

It was easy to install and certainly holds the track in place without the need for screws etc.

Thanks again everyone, and happy railroading from Peter (Buco tragic) down under.