Ballasting and painting track

[Gary S]

Do you do the black wash on the whole thing or just the ties? The ballast as-is looks sort of too 'new' particualrly on sidings - I'm wondering if a dilute black wash over the whole thing would tone down the ballast a bit as well. Also what sort of wash? I would think the india ink/denatured alcohol type would probbaly unstick all the ballast, what about some black craft paint thinned with rubbing alcohol?

So far, I have only put the black wash on the ties. It is just craft paint thinned with water.

I'll eventually get around to darkening between the rails a bit, but since I'm using a mix of ballast colors, light gray, dark gray, buff, with a pinch of black and brown, it doesn't really seem too clean, it looks pretty good as is. I don't think a wash over the ballast would loosen it any, and I'm sure plenty of folks have done this. The small amount of liquid wouldn't mess up the dried glue, and even if it did, it would dry back in the normal state.