Ballasting at Chadwick Model Railway | 138. 

“That’ll be the phone then.” Almost every time. I look forward to that!

The BR employee who suggested that cables be put in Orange pipes to stop them getting damaged by tampers won the staff suggestion prize in the early 1980s.

It's really pleasing to see a modeller accept the fact that prototype ballast "Goes everywhere" and not try to eradicate that from his model. This ballasting looks so much more realistic to me compared to those who like to have a precisely bevelled shoulder because that's just not how we do it on the big railway. Top marks, sir. :) PS, I work in signal maintenance and not even *I* understand why they put location cabinets / relay boxes where they do!

Revisiting this one in late March 2024: Instead of PVA and water, I've started using a mix of 3:1 water to CopyDex, which does a lot to quiet down the noise. And don't forget the few drops of washing up liquid.

I read on a forum years ago that a 50/50 water PVA mix was wrong. The poster wrote that you only wanted to fix the ballast down, not turning it into concrete. He recommended a 1/5 glue to 4/5 water mix. The result being that it doesn't set rock hard and therefore reduces noise. The tip I found today that mentions it was from Graham Plowman. An easier way than this? Try a salt shaker.

Chef sauce bottles are great for mixing the glue and water then dispensing it directly from the bottle in a controlled way without having to refill it all the time!

The orange pipe is used to protect the cables which go inside it from damage by tampers and the like. Before that the cables were either just in the ballast or cleated to the tops of the sleepers. When the orange pipe was first introduced the idea was to put it in a bed with very little ballast so if it got hit by the tamping tines it had room to move or rotate. We then started to fill all the beds with lots of stone and particularly build shoulders on the outside. That left nowhere for the orange pipe to go and so tamper damage returned. The latest is to install hollow sleepers so that the cables can be fed through the sleeper. Your orange wire makes a good looking version.

My little Inglenook Sidings layout is built on a 6 x 1 foot shelf. I put the track down on some old 1/8 inch cork sheet cut to the track width, then covered the rest of the layout with 1/8 inch foam core board as a scenic base. Whilst watching this video I realized that the foam core board has played the same role as your blue foam sheet in reducing track noise. If I had it to do over, I'd probably just lay the track directly on thick insulation foam and be done with it, but thanks to you I can now justify what I did to inquisitive friends. Oh, and I might add that even on a tiny layout like mine with only two sets of points, ballesting is The Worst.

At the ripe old age of 66 (on 1st August) I've decided to build my first layout (8x4ft) over the Autumn / Winter months. In preparation, I've become a regular viewer and subscriber to your excellent channel. I've also had people think 'subscribe' means 'pay', on my own channel. Thanks for all the help so far - and the more you can do for the absolute beginner, the better! Stephen Power, a Brit...happily ensconced in County Kerry, Ireland.

Ballasting can be an absolute joy can't it! Another extremely well put together video and well presented so thanks. Next time you're going to tap the track with a spoon can you pre warn me, I got up and answered the door three times before I realised it was you tapping! Only joking, keep up the great content. Cheers.

When your wife first spoke on the phone, I thought you had speeded up her voice, like in a old comedy sketch.... that would of been so funny.

Hi Charlie, just a tip on how to save money ballasting use cat litter instead it is a lot cheaper per weight. Just make sure you do not have cats otherwise you will have a few unwanted barricades.

Points. A trick I have used in the past.. very common with electrical engineers.. remove the Oxygen.. thin film of silicon grease. Points, are at the end of the day, are switches. As the contacts come together, electrickery will jump, and they will arc. Even under nano-volts. Hence why MCB’s have spark quenchers. Lots of thin bits of metal film inside them..

As usual, your videos make me feel like I've dropped in on a friend's layout for some advice, since we get the whole thing - humor, facial expressions, side comments, and an unpolished result. Thanks, Charlie. Using the handheld vacuum sure seems a lot easier than all the commotion of custom heads, tubing, and cyclones added to a vacuum. Also, the one shown does not require placing anything over the inlet to catch the ballast. Well done. One point, though, the spreader referenced will not ship to the US, but Bachmann does have one listed on Amazon with a side lever for control, which, when shipping from US to US vs UK to US is considered, works out very close to even. (Being a GBR modeller, I am prepared to have a significant portion of my modelling budget spent for international shipping, so that is not the complaint.)

I would really like to know why people gave this video a "thumbs down". This is an honest modeler giving his thoughts and efforts and doing an excellent job so say myself and the 1800+ others who thought so as well. Please keep doing what you are doing, you truly are a joy to watch and learn from! Cheers from your friend in Arizona USA!

Hi, Charlie. I agree with you. Ballasting is one of my least favorite parts of building a layout. That said, I appreciate the before and after audio comparison. Very helpful.

The wife's makeup brush is a very light touch ballast spreader and works quite well until she catches you with it. Great stuff, love your videos and the humour. Graham 👍

Another great video and some great tips. So great to watch your new video to relax after a hard day at work. Thanks Charlie

Another interesting and well put together video, with plenty of tips. Thanks Charlie look forward to the next video.

Excellent work yet again Charlie , well done

Brilliantly explained and shown as always another great video Charlie

Another excellent video Charlie.

Thank you for the video, always enjoy the useful tips on the different processes in modeling a railway.

Great video, nice you didn't rush the subject, as you said people well notice bad ballasting.

Love the video hope there more to come.

Nice vid. I always enjoy your informative and entertaining presentations.

Thank you Charlie another helpful video 👍

Thanks Charlie, another great video from the Master! Look forward to two weeks from now.

Stumbled across you, I enjoyed your passion and appreciate your work. Thanks

good tip keep up the good work on you layout an stay safe lee

Great video. Learned quite a lot and saw some very nice features.

Thanks Charlie, really excellent informative video as always, can't wait to get ballasting

Great video Charlie - presented well and with really useful product quotes.

Always enjoy your videos and I look forward to getting to this stage one day, your tips will be very useful thanks for sharing

Hi Charlie, Very enjoyable, thank you mate! Regards Mark

Great video as always Charlie! Personally, I find ballasting to be very relaxing...

Well done Charlie, another well present video. You certainly give us alternatives for ballasting our railways, cheers Paul

Just about ready to start blasting my layout will definitely be following your tips. Another great stream. 👍

Great how to Charlie!! Thanks for sharing! Cheers Onno.

What you need, IMO, is a connector between the ballast spreader and the ballast container itself OR a larger hopper to get a bigger run.

Thanks Charlie, I really enjoyed this one, as always really informative and entertaining. Having a bit of a lazy day, too hot to go outside so keeping myself occupied building some Metcalfe kits with your back catalogue of video's being streamed to the TV and running in the background...

Very useful and helpful video as always, huge thanks Jo

Great how to....Hi Hate ballasting and all the problems it can create, that's why I went for pre ballasted track..

great stuff charlie. i've seen other ballasting videos by you. it looks really tedious, but i find it fascinating. thank you. I'm in bouzigues on holiday now. but it's friday and the weekend starts here. yes i do have a life as well. tata

Excellent video Charlie as usual. I've not approached any ballasting yet - still doing my low-level non-scenic boards at the moment; but this has shown the process warts-n-all, which is a refreshing change from all the "look how easy it is" videos out there. Thanks.

The joys of ballasting peco code 75 concrete track

The phone bit reminded me of Faulty Towers, Cool Vid! Cheers! 😃👍👍

Less fearful of “battling” ballasting after watching this helpful video. Thanks for sharing.

Very good video again Charlie. I tried my own way of ballasting on my old layout which turned out to be a right pain in the backside. So having watched this video, and coming to a point in my new layout where I’m going to need to ballast, I’ve ordered myself one of these new ballast contraptions as it looks like it makes it a doddle. Thank you 👍🏻

Slow painstaking work Charlie...I was thinking how dark it all looked until you changed it completely - well done...

We used the flexyglue by Model Train Projects. It is AWESOME! Keeps the sound down, the ballast is flexible and no prep - just use a syringe! I'm doing this for the first time, so this is very helpful! Maybe I am odd, but I am finding it strangely relaxing. Just turn on some music and get into the zone! Hardest part was finding the best looking and colored ballast, but finally found it.

Some useful tips in this to help out the ones who fear this part. Me myself, I quite enjoy ballasting, earphones in and a pint or 12, job done 😆 The orange wire you use, if you were to strip some of the outer sleave either end revealing the strands, they look great painted black and replicate the black cable that runs through them! Tim.

Thanks as ever Charlie. I have some ballasting to do!

Looks like at long last i need to take up the sundeala and start again. Thanks as always for the information and inspiration

Very interesting indeed. I have to agree, not a task that I enjoy in any way shape or form! These really are brilliant videos.

That was a really great, interesting and informative vid. Love the Plasser and Theurer spoon. Bit cheaper than the real machine..

Hilarious phone call with your wife. Reminded me of the days when Benny Hill was popular here in the states. Also great video as usual!

This just shows how much work and effortb goes in to acheiving the desired effects of ballasting.

Hi Charlie more great tips from your good self funny enough I'm just coming up to that stage on my layout I will most certainly invest in that ballast dispenser. and pipet. thank you.

Hi Charlie, another enjoyable video which always goes well with a nice cuppa and a few digestives .

Excellent. Yes, double layer of foam (ie layer of 3mm foam on entire baseboard) prevents a bridge between the PVA and the baseboard. We use 3mm closed cell dense foam for entire board, and again cut to size for the track bed. That way the PVA never comes into contact with the ply baseboard top (ie never creates a sound bridge).

My husband has the same issue at his club here in Brisbane Australia at his train club , they are undertaking a huge rebuild and the talking point is the noisy cork underlay that has been ballasted , they are going to use the foam and see how it goes

When I started building my model railway at the beginning of the first lockdown, I watched loads of RU-vid videos to discover the different ways of ballasting track. The method I adopted was the Chadwick way although I have not got a spreader but instead use a teaspoon to carefully ladle the ballast onto the track, spread it with a finger or soft brush and then, most definitely, use the back of that teaspoon to vibrate it down and off the sleepers. The first bit I did was before learning of the tapping and it was not as neat as after discovering that trick. You are an inspiration Charlie so thank you for taking the time to share your knowledge (O, and of course some of the mistakes!)

Afternoon Charlie, I had ,a similar problem and used double sided (25mm) tape on the board according to track plan and a 'Yoga' mat cut to plan layed on it and another run of double sided tape on top of that then press track down (no glues, nails or screws) no noise and easy to relay if need be.

Ballasting is one of those pet hates for some but for me it is an absolute joy. I find it to be quite a relaxing job. It is one of those jobs where i can just take my time and not worry on other things. Very nicely put together video charlie.- Nicholas.

Wonderful presentation From Charlie “that’ll be the phone then” Bishop 🧏‍♂️ Seriously a very enjoyable video of ballasting with plenty to take away and emulate Well done chap 👏

Hi Charlie. You are right of course but it is an essential part of the realism within the hobby for me. With my latest rebuild going on, you have reminded me I have lots to do also..again!! Can be therapeutic as well of course but a great tutorial to watch back for all who need a heads up. Thanks for another great watch and stay safe…regards, Chris

Thank you Charlie for another very enjoyable and instructive Video, ballasting, having the Patience of Job comes to mind, that said taking all the care that you do certainly creates very good Trackwork, I should know as being an ex P.Way Subganger I certainly shovelled enough Meldon Quarry Ballast in my Time. I am intrigued as to know how your DustBuster didn’t suck up all the Ballast that you spend so much Time teasing into position. Looking forward to the weathering. Best Wishes.

im sorry but that is just your line lol *phone rings* = "that'll be the phone then" cracks me up every time! 😂😂 Great video as always!

When your ‘phone rang, I hit ‘pause’ and was about to go out to the kitchen to answer it - until I realised that pausing your video had made it stop ringing! 🤭🙀😆 A nicely done ‘warts-and-all’ video of a tedious job. I saw a prototype ballasting gadget and the London Railway Modelling Exhibition some years ago. At that time, I thought it was quite expensive for something I would use once to ballast my layout, then never use again. I very quickly constructed one of my own from some scrap pieces of plastikard, and it worked perfectly! It wasn’t pretty, but it saved me time and money.

Love the English yoo use: "In tig gral" Too neat. Good video....

Its amazing what we can get at Hobbycraft for our hobby. 46 minutes passed like 20..very enjoyable Charlie. Its really coming along nicely now. Take care..all the best.

Hi Charlie. Not wanting you to freat and use lots of time on it. On my last shifts I looked closer along a few routes and the ballast as a whole is the same throughout the cess, 4ft, 6ft and 10ft. Some areas will vary of course as you've seen but in general it tends to all be same type of ballast as the way the track bed ballast is layed and tampered is what creates the ballast within the cess along with all sorts of other stuff like vegetation, quite often an awful place to walk if required. Differing amounts are used depending on how much weight or support the track bed requires. Often around bends you'll see a higher mound, direction dependent, on the outer side running rail for extra weight and support, higher than the running rail itself. This and discolouration I feel would give you greater realism. Great video as always

Excellent video Charlie ! I watch your "lessons" very carefully from France and I learn a lot since I am a beginer. Beyond the strict content, your humour, your light comments and your delicious accent are a real pleasure for me and to be honest, if I lived closer to you, I would really appreciate that we drink a beer (or anythink else) together, talking of course about model railroading. Once again, thank you !

Charlie thank goodness for your advice to check all track work before ballasting! Just found that my surface point motors foul my railcar’s valance. Doh! Thanks to your copydex advice shouldn’t be too bad lifting and swapping sides. Thanks again! Martin 👍🇬🇧

Hi Charlie Once again well done In the past never got as far as ballasting but now retired so here we go. You have given me confidence to have a go. Thanks

"You'll spend more on your heating bill....." Words from the wise :) LOL Always great videos

Since Woodland Scenics ballast is made from walnut shells it can be made even finer by grinding it into a powder with a coffee grinder. It can be a slow process if you need a lot of it, but, it’s a great way to make dirt, sand, and all other manner of fine material. Additionally, you can alter the color by mixing in some weathering powders just prior to grinding it.

The nuts and bolts of railway modeling! Nobody really enjoys ballasting; however, using available tools and new techniques make it survivable. You've certainly shown the most efficient way to complete the task. Great video, Charlie! I always enjoy your lessons! ps - I agree on the different color edging; just pull out the airbrush and solve the problem! Cheers!

Cheers Shipmate - purchased one of Johns ballast hoppers.

Great video Charlie. That’s a Midland signal box by the way! I would have thought a better place for it would be the fork between the tracks

Lovely video as always Charlie. Here in the Netherlands bookbinding glue is a popular glue for ballasting, since it stays flexible after drying, and as such lessens the vibrations transferred to the baseboard. I havent been able to test it myself but others have recommended it to me. It does seem to be relatively similair to Copydex however, so it might not make to much of a difference on your layout.

Hi Charlie watch all your vids brilliant and useful. Had a thought before putting down the fine or lighter ballast outside might be worth gluing and leave to dry the first layer. Then you can sprinkle the white or fines over the top and use a brush to get it right as much as you like and then re glue.

Hi Charlie! That came out quite nicely! I thought you'd like to know... the orange pipe under the track for signal and point motor wires... that was introduced in the late 80's due to the weight of trains passing overhead crushing the wire and leading to loss of signal, or shorts. If I recall, I believe it was one of the causes of the Clapham Junction crash of 1988, and the resulting solution being the orange pipe. Obviously, with Chadwick being a 1960's/70's layout, the orange tube wouldn't exist for your layouts timeframe. Initially, a narrower version os concrete trunking was laid 'under' the track, as well as next to it... but this method soon was abandoned due to the weight of trains passing overhead would push the track down and crush the conrete trunking underneath... so they abandoned that idea and went to plain wire instead. Here's a couple of pictures of the trunking under points. www.flickr.com/photos/davidwf2009/5662520468/ and www.flickr.com/photos/blue-diesels/2432099142/ And here's the plain wire (and on the left side, you can see it's not at all neat, and the wire just goes everywhere it needs to!). www.flickr.com/photos/d1015/5537043713/ and www.flickr.com/photos/davidwf2009/5607011590/ Hope that's useful! Here's a little tip for you. Once the ballast is all good and dry, most people weather it in with an airbrush... but the problem with an airbrush is that the weathering paint will only sit on the surface of where it was sprayed. My method is to brew up a pot of REALLY strong tea.... just save all the old tea bags you used in the last week. Like when you do with the PVA/water mix... but in smaller amounts... using your pipette, drip it over all your ballast and it will seep into all the cracks and darken it up. Cheers Laura

That particular Hornby Signal Box is the one that I have, it's a Midland Railway based Box commonly seen today on the S&C, but were used on various Midland Railway routes of course.

Charlie, Thanks for the ballasting tips, I need to do a lot of work before I get to that stage, but if things go according to the unwritten plan, then tomorrow for the first time I may actually see a DCC locomotive pass around my loop for the first time (Everything is crossed) including the eyes and toes. I have to first connect the operating software to the controller, Hopefully not too many hours in that, but as you often say in your video's "who knows". If it works guess who will be a happy bunny.

Hi Charlie. A very good presentation. The layout is coming on really well. The ballasting looks good, and I think the noise level is quite exceptable to be honest. Thoroughly enjoyed as usual. Cheers Chris.

Another excellent tutorial Charlie, I much prefer when it is a scenic landscaping video. I know that I made light of the last video being very hard going but you are good enough to take the time to produce these videos for our benefit from your own personal experience on your layout. I still prefer scenic landscaping 😁, take care Barra.

Hi Charlie. Another great video. I have to admit thinking “What’s he doing?” when you got the mini vacuum cleaner out. If that had been mine all that carefully spread ballast would have ended up in the dust bag. See you in a couple of weeks.

Hi Charlie, another entertaining video. I have an O gauge layout in the garden, its much easier to ballast, but I do use a similar method and tap the rails to settle the ballast, also find IPA better than water. I notice a lot of garden railways are just laid on roofing felt - not very realistic. Well done again.

Another excellent informative and amusing video Charlie. One little appeal with my eco warrior hat on please try to clean and re-use pipettes if poss to reduce single use plastic? I use them too and find them great. Look forward to all of your videos 👍

Dear Charlie I am really glad that you added the blue foam on the sides and in the middle, as you are absolutely right, it will be a wretched sound of just wheels rolling, instead of you being able to enjoy the rolling of trains and soundlocos. I will be doing the same thing myself with a 3mm base and then a 5mm top-layer. With regards to your wife offering tea; very important not to forget about that. As you are probably well aware: a happy wife is a happy life (or a happy modeller) :D . I also love seeing you experiment 'live on the telly' with this, an example is the cess. You showed us how and what, then decided that you did not like it. Perhaps if I may give a suggestion: use a light brown sand-like ballast to create the illusion of a gangway. This then also contrasts much better with the grey-blend ballast that you used for the track. Thank you so much for the expansive video, I notice that I am glued (no pun intended, or?) to my seat for the full 47 minutes to see what you do, how you do it, as well as keep in mind what tips and tricks you give your viewer. Great job on the ballasting, because it looks marvellous and immediately gives the layout such a boost, it really pops out. Warm regards from the Netherlands Richard

TBH Charlie, when I started out laying my SMP track for my British outline, some 10 years ago, I thought ballasting was de rigeur. I had the same Proses dispenser and used the fine ballast and it worked well. However, adding my Continental sections, I went straight to Fleischmann profi and what a pleasure that was. Not only does it look OK, but the running and sound quality is superb. I do add some ballast in the cess areas but thats all and at the end of the day, the scenery and running of trains is far more enjoyable and you hardly notice what the trackwork is.

nice one charlie like your videos derek.

Charlie instead of using the paintbrush to clean up the last bits of ballast I switched to using a foam “brush” which are really cheap from an art supply store. Loads of guys use them for applying paint washes to rock work so I hope you know what I mean. They are brilliant at getting rid of the last remnants of ballast, you lat it down between the rails and gently run it back and forth. It’s also effective on the outside part of the rail and as the end is pointed in shape also great to tidy the edges of the ballast into a clean and neat shoulder.

Hey Charlie, why not put that blue insulation material on the board first, wide enough so it will not be covered completely with ballast. And on top of that blue material, you could put your trackbed on it, which will be completely covered in ballast. This way you get a double sound insulation between the track and the board. A friend of mine did it like this, and the result is really good when it comes to sound reduction. You might give it a try ...

Hi Charlie, great video as always, not sure if it's of any help but I found two parts fine to one part medium to be great for OO, it creates a life like difference in the texture and size but still looks more accurate to me as it is primarily the fine. It also means you can use pure fine in the cess which does create a slight difference which you can emphasis through colour as you have done here. Keep up the great work, love seeing the layout coming together! :)

Charlie, You should try N gauge ballasting, less forgiving. I use the same fine blend and find a folded business card is great for going back over areas that need fine amounts. Great video as always and always look forward to my Saturday morning viewing here in Perth Australia . Cheers

Great video Charlie. The revised approach with battling the noise technics was missing in the collection. A massive applause, as nobody else shows this technics on YT. Some tips from me: to avoid painting the foam, it is enough to buy different colours of foam sheet, i.e. dark brown (also from the same supplier). Secondly, WS Foam Tack Glue is very similar in terms of price (almost the same) as Copydex (when comparing £/ml). I have got both glue products and using interchangeably.