NEB&W Guide to Railroad Track - BallastThis file is open to website members only
Last Update: 2009-01-07
Scenery Table of Contents
Scenery, Structures & Details Table of Contents
The term "ballast" literally means "bare load", from the use of stones carried by ships to maintain their stability when otherwise not carrying a revenue load. I'm not exactly sure how that got transferred to the railroad use, except that it might have been similar-sized stones.
On our layout, we've modeled a well groomed right-of-way typical of the