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Gary S Wrote:Reinhard, Koos, you're welcome, and thank you. As for brown paint on the ballast, haven't really had that problem. Oh, every now and then, a bit of brown paint might get on the ballast when I am not paying attention to the brush, but a clean brush dipped in water and run over the spot dilutes the paint and makes it dissappear.
Take it from a guy that walked track for 14 years. The rust runs on to the ballast too.
Only where the ballast is new is there no sign of rust. Mainlines get re-ballasted and have the ballast cleaned more often so you won't see as much, but lightly used lines with low maintenance generally shows lots of transparent rust on the ballast right where the water would drip, and if there is any type of speed on the trains, the metal removed from the rail during a train passing will also rust, leaving a rusty cast to the ballast. This is exaggerated on the high side of curves where the rails wear more, the sharper the curve, the more wear, and the more rust. If there hasn't been rain or high humidity for a while you will even see flakes of metal inside the gauge on the high side of the curve.
You don't want to over-empathise this if you try to model it.
If you look at the track under the cart you can see the rust on the ballast
Charlie
Edit 13:09 add pictures
