Ballast

[John]

The fellow at the hobby shop expressed a personal preference for Scenic Express over WS, but advised that I pass all of the material over a magnet before using.

Being crushed rock, there’s always a chance that there could be trace amounts of iron minerals which, in time, could  foul electric motors.  Seems like a sensible precaution to me, it’s easy enough to do, and one would certainly know in pretty short order if the magnet is extracting any detrimental stuff.  Just out of curiosity, I’ll give it a try.

I sometimes wonder how much of this is true anymore ..  if it's properly applied with diluted glue or matte medium, I doubt that there is much of an impact .. but then again, it doesn't hurt to take precautions. I have a MOW car with a set of magnets just above the track that I run with my slider cars

[signalmaintainer]

I was going to order a large bucket .. but the shipping was as much as the product .. I think I'm going to the stone store and get some granite dust to sift myself ..

We have stone stores in my state. They sell cannabis.

[MK]

Shouldn't that be stonED stores?   

[John]

We have stone stores in my state. They sell cannabis.

https://thestonestore.com/

[Scottl]

I sometimes wonder how much of this is true anymore ..  if it's properly applied with diluted glue or matte medium, I doubt that there is much of an impact .. but then again, it doesn't hurt to take precautions. I have a MOW car with a set of magnets just above the track that I run with my slider cars

My sense is it is a hangover from when modelers often collected sand from urban areas for layouts.  Metal and metal fragments are common contaminants in these settings.

[Ed Kapuscinski]

My sense is it is a hangover from when modelers often collected sand from urban areas for layouts.  Metal and metal fragments are common contaminants in these settings.

Also probably from when locomotive motors were the size of softballs.

[peteski]

Also probably from when locomotive motors were the size of softballs.

Actually today the coreless motors used in contemporary models have rare-earth magnets much stronger than the weaker ceramic or iron magnets in those large crappy old motors.  Same with the sugar-cube  type cell phone  speakers we frequently use in out sound-equipped models. Those speakers also use those super-strong magnets, and often they are mounted in a fuel tank, close to the roadbed.  I rather not have bunch of metal debris stuck to the speaker's diaphragm.

[Dwight in Toronto]

FWIW, when I use a magnet to remove gritty stuff from something, I always put some cover like cling wrap around the magnet, first.  This allows me to peal off the grit when I am done.  Because, it isn't going to wash off, blow off, or even come off in a media tumbler - and scraping it off is not thorough at all.

Such a simple, effective and (in retrospect), obvious innovation … thanks for sharing!

[Maletrain]

https://thestonestore.com/

John,

Thanks for the link to the Stone Store.  I am still close enough to warrant a visit when in the vicinity.

Any particular product(s) I should look into.  I model B&O in the 1950s, just west of Sand Patch.  So, pretty light ballast (limestone that gets dirty) on very black grades roadbeds of coal bottom ash / slag.

[John]

I haven't purchased anything there in a while . but they have samples in the showroom .. i guess you can order

[mark.hinds]

SFAIK, Scenic Express doesn't have ocher-colored ballast, which I would need to mix with light gray for my prototype.  This observation based on here:  https://www.sceneryexpress.com/N-HO-O-Natural-Stone/products/1107/2/0

Am I missing something?

[nkalanaga]

Mark.hinds:  I didn't see anything either.  Here in northeast Kentucky the natural sand is yellowish.  I have close to a hundred pounds of "mortar sand" from the local concrete block company.  It's perfectly sized for N scale ballast, so, if you can find some, it should work.  I'd imagine that most areas would only have one or two colors at the masonry suppliers, although building supply stores might have a variety.  One advantage is that it's cheap, at least compared with model ballast.  When I bought mine, 25 years ago, it was $20 a ton!


signalmaintainer:  Pasco sand is slightly radioactive, but so is everything else in the world.  It comes from natural uranium, thorium, and other such elements in the rocks.

In the 60s, in grade school, the schools had regular visits form a "whole-body radiation counter", a big thing in a truck trailer that someone could lay in.  It measured just what it sounds like, how much radiation a body gave off.  Pasco students were no more radioactive than Spokane or Seattle

[signalmaintainer]

 

signalmaintainer:  Pasco sand is slightly radioactive, but so is everything else in the world.  It comes from natural uranium, thorium, and other such elements in the rocks.

In the 60s, in grade school, the schools had regular visits form a "whole-body radiation counter", a big thing in a truck trailer that someone could lay in.  It measured just what it sounds like, how much radiation a body gave off.  Pasco students were no more radioactive than Spokane or Seattle

I just missed that, then. Started elementary school in Richland in 1967.

Plenty of desert sand when the wind blew hard!

[nkalanaga]

Oh yes, I remember those.  When I was in kindergarten, 1962/63, we had a late 50s Ford station wagon.  After one storm, while Mom was up there for a conference, it needed new paint and new windows on one side.  The kindergarten then was in an old Navy building at the Pasco airport, across what's now Glade Road/4th Avenue from the yard, and there was nothing to block the sand. 

The wind used to pack so many tumbleweeds under the cars in the yard that the cuts would derail when pulled.

Here's a song you might enjoy, about the Tri-Cities.  I couldn't find the version I have, by Linda Allen, the writer, but the words seem to be the same.  I never heard the term "Termination Winds" until the 1990s, long after moving to Kentucky, but apparently it was common in the 40s and 50s.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27iyEoCZVk4

Judging by online news reports, the Tri-Cities don't have sandstorms today.  No-till farming, irrigated subdivisions, and pavement have tamed them.  Today the have thunderstorms and flash floods, due to the higher humidity, from the irrigation!

[robert3985]

Oh yes, I remember those.  When I was in kindergarten, 1962/63, we had a late 50s Ford station wagon.  After one storm, while Mom was up there for a conference, it needed new paint and new windows on one side.  The kindergarten then was in an old Navy building at the Pasco airport, across what's now Glade Road/4th Avenue from the yard, and there was nothing to block the sand. 

The wind used to pack so many tumbleweeds under the cars in the yard that the cuts would derail when pulled.

Here's a song you might enjoy, about the Tri-Cities.  I couldn't find the version I have, by Linda Allen, the writer, but the words seem to be the same.  I never heard the term "Termination Winds" until the 1990s, long after moving to Kentucky, but apparently it was common in the 40s and 50s.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27iyEoCZVk4

Judging by online news reports, the Tri-Cities don't have sandstorms today.  No-till farming, irrigated subdivisions, and pavement have tamed them.  Today the have thunderstorms and flash floods, due to the higher humidity, from the irrigation!

I was born & raised in the Tri-Cities from 1949 until I left a year after my 4 year hitch in the USN.  I lived in Kennewick, and the fine dust and sand would get into everything, and winds were so strong that when I walked to school, it was difficult to stand up, especially when the winds were coming from the rear!

I've never heard of "Termination Winds" until this post.

Although I modeled in HO scale in my youth and early teens, my main remembrance of prototype railroads was that I walked an abandoned branchline of SP&S with my M1 Carbine out into the desert to the foothills of the Horse Heaven Hills to hunt Jackrabbits since the line was about 50 yards from my home's back yard.

When I was working for Battelle Memorial Institute in Richland before and after my Navy hitch, scientist there were looking for places in the USA that had the most consistent winds to power wind generators, and the peak of Rattlesnake Mountain (or Peak) that is prominently visible to the west had over 300 days per year with winds of over 100mph.   So, maybe at the Hanford Reservation, which is directly east of Rattlesnake, the winds were stronger, although they were plenty strong in Kennewick, just across the Columbia from Pasco when I was growing up.

My dad would take me when I was young to the Pasco Hump Yard and we would watch the cars run down it into the yard, and the one Navy building that I visited regularly at the old airport was the "Passport Plunge", an extra-large indoor swimming pool built for training by the USN during the war.  I assume it has long been torn down by now, but it was a great place to swim in the Winter when the Columbia had big chunks of ice flowing down it.

Thanks for the memories!

Cheerio!
Bob Gilmore