09-26-2011, 01:20 PM
Tom;
I have a friend that has a rather large 1:20.3 scale outdoor logging railroad at his home and I know that he did not use any sort of glue to keep the ballast in place. I believe he used "Chicken Grit" for ballast that he purchases at a local farm supply company and it looks pretty good. Since it's a logging operation, in many places, he just filled in around the ties with a mixture of earth and ballast to get the look he wanted.
I remember him telling me that it would probably be a problem to actually try and glue the ballast down as with the extreme temperature changes we have here (like you do in Iowa), the track will often shift out of alignment in places over the winter and he simply has to make a few minor adjustments in the spring (adding more ballast if needed) in order to start running it again. Although I haven't talked to him for some time, I'm pretty sure that he probably had to replace most of the ballast this year after the 5+ inches of rain we had in one day this past June.
Biggest problem he ever had was the time that "Chip and Dale" decided to tunnel under a section of his railroad and that really caused him problems for a while, convincing them to move and getting the track back in to shape. Other than that, it's usually just a matter of removing leaves, small branches and a few weeds from the right of way and he's set to go.
I dabble a bit with the large scale stuff myself, although now I doubt that I'll ever get around to putting anything in the backyard, but were I to try it, I'd probably do like he did and just dig out the roadbed area, lay the track and then fill it in with some suitable size ballast.
The large scale, especially 1:20.3 (F scale) is really interesting. I love the large models of small locomotives, such as the Shay and Climax; not to mention the small Plymouth and Whitcomb industrial locomotives. The 1:29th scale equipment is fun too. Nothing like watching a large ALCo S-4 shoving around a couple of those large 50ft box cars.
I have a friend that has a rather large 1:20.3 scale outdoor logging railroad at his home and I know that he did not use any sort of glue to keep the ballast in place. I believe he used "Chicken Grit" for ballast that he purchases at a local farm supply company and it looks pretty good. Since it's a logging operation, in many places, he just filled in around the ties with a mixture of earth and ballast to get the look he wanted.
I remember him telling me that it would probably be a problem to actually try and glue the ballast down as with the extreme temperature changes we have here (like you do in Iowa), the track will often shift out of alignment in places over the winter and he simply has to make a few minor adjustments in the spring (adding more ballast if needed) in order to start running it again. Although I haven't talked to him for some time, I'm pretty sure that he probably had to replace most of the ballast this year after the 5+ inches of rain we had in one day this past June.
Biggest problem he ever had was the time that "Chip and Dale" decided to tunnel under a section of his railroad and that really caused him problems for a while, convincing them to move and getting the track back in to shape. Other than that, it's usually just a matter of removing leaves, small branches and a few weeds from the right of way and he's set to go.
I dabble a bit with the large scale stuff myself, although now I doubt that I'll ever get around to putting anything in the backyard, but were I to try it, I'd probably do like he did and just dig out the roadbed area, lay the track and then fill it in with some suitable size ballast.
The large scale, especially 1:20.3 (F scale) is really interesting. I love the large models of small locomotives, such as the Shay and Climax; not to mention the small Plymouth and Whitcomb industrial locomotives. The 1:29th scale equipment is fun too. Nothing like watching a large ALCo S-4 shoving around a couple of those large 50ft box cars.
Ed
"Friends don't let friends build Timesavers"
"Friends don't let friends build Timesavers"