Ballasting the Cohoes passing siding (by Mohawk Paper)

South end of passing siding and facing north in 1986

I still needed to ballast about five feet of track to finish the requirements for my M.M.R. Civil Certification. I decided to work on the passing siding. Unfortunately, that involved replacing two M.E. switches with Peco switches (and the associated wiring) but at least there was a lot less cutting and fitting. Like before, the track was spray painted with Rustoleum camouflage paint and then the ties were individually painted. It goes fast, and I still can't get over what a simple transformation tie color makes. I am leaving the actual spur down to Mohawk Paper alone for right now as this scene will require building up the sloping ground, pouring roads, etc. That is more than I went to get involved with at this time.

During the process, I also removed the Tortoise switch machines. When I saw the drop in elevation between the track and the top of the benchwork was less than 1" or so, I decided that using ground throws would work. I might need something more flexible like styrene tubes or perhaps some radio control airline tubing to shield the steel piano wire, but I am sure I can get it all worked out. So I pressed on.

Note the different appearance of all three tracks

My pictures from 1984 don't show this far north so I am not sure if the passing siding was covered in weeds or not, but I am modeling it in a better condition then some of the other track on my layout. Pictures from 1986 do show weeds on the spur itself but the mainline was still in pretty good shape and that is how I am modeling it. There was a lot of litter and debris along this section which will be interesting to model once I get to the scenery stage. Note in the picture that the brush from the sides of the right of way is encroaching and nearly cascading over the edges of the mainline rail. Likely the passing of the trains with their steel wheels is all that is keeping it in check.

Ballasting went pretty well though I hadn't built up the edges of the scenery around the roadbed and thus the ballast didn't have much room to spill or fall to when creating the slopes before it just completely fell. The mainline was my typical gray blend, but for the passing siding I combined some Woodland Scenics' dark gray ballast with some leftover Arizona Rock and Mineral gray blend stuff and had just enough for the passing siding. It looked okay, but it didn't capture the look completely. Again, the "dark gray" just wasn't dark enough. So, I lightly sprinkled on some W.S. fine cinders (which are black) and that worked better. I also used some dark green ground foam to represent some of the grass, without using any of the super fine green ground foam. The result are bushes and weeds popping up without making everything look like I need a lawn mower. As the passing siding progressed north (right), I used more weeds. When I apply scenery and static grass it will really pull it all together.

The northern-most switch is nearly invisible!

I also started going around the layout and cleaning up the ballast areas that might have a loose piece of ballast on the side of the rail or on top of the tie. I am not going to go crazy about it, but if I spot it I will fix it. I also purchased a bottle of brown paint that matched the rail color and am touching up areas on the switches that I had masked off from the spray can. Slowly but surely, the ballasting evolved. It isn't finished, but I am done with it for now. And with that, I am now able to submit my M.M.R. certificate paperwork (finally) and move on to something else, like my scratchbuilt cars that are sitting on my workbench.