{"id":490,"date":"2015-05-13T21:00:06","date_gmt":"2015-05-13T21:00:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wis.co.uk\/blog\/?p=490"},"modified":"2019-03-05T21:10:03","modified_gmt":"2019-03-05T21:10:03","slug":"10-years-of-ballasting-experience","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wis.co.uk\/blog\/10-years-of-ballasting-experience","title":{"rendered":"10 years of ballasting experience"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

by Andy on behalf of SteamOil <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today, we have a Special Guest appearance by \u201cSteamOil\u201d, owner of the Tryfon Vale Light Railway<\/a>. He shares his experiences of how different ways of ballasting have fared over the life of his garden railway. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have use three different ballasting techniques over the years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I tried a small section of Rowland’s Mix<\/a> method, and this has stood the test of time (about 10 years so far)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The only problem was that over the years the peat content encouraged the growth if moss which I had to kill off as it rose over the rail head leading to derailments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The bulk of my line uses horticultural grit held in place with a 50\/50% mixture of Exterior PVA and water with a dash of washing up liquid added. This lasts several years before there is a need to be patched and re-glued.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

I have recently had to relay the station area due to fencing works but again I used the PVA method. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Experience seems to indicate that if the ballast is mainly in the shade it seems to break up rather sooner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The shadowed side of the garden has been completely re-ballasted \nthis spring using the Swift Sixteen greyish\/white ballast again fixed \nwith PVA\/ water.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the raw material was nearer white than grey, the mix was toned\n down with a small quantity of Black Exterior water based paint added to\n the PVA mix.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Time will tell how it weathers over the years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The effect at present is the nearest I have ever come to a scale appearance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Looking back at the Vale of Evermore video, [see blog entry below<\/a>] he looks to have secured his ballast in place by adding timber up-stands to his bases to prevent the ballast from being displaced.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are no up stands visible in the herbaceous sections.
The only problem I can see is that the soil might get washed into the ballast with heavy rain or the the other way round!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Andy on behalf of SteamOil Today, we have a Special Guest appearance by \u201cSteamOil\u201d, owner of the Tryfon Vale Light Railway. He shares his experiences of how different ways of ballasting have fared over the life of his garden … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4,12],"tags":[27,48,22],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wis.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/490"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wis.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wis.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wis.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wis.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=490"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.wis.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/490\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":495,"href":"https:\/\/www.wis.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/490\/revisions\/495"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wis.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=490"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wis.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=490"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wis.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=490"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}