NNG: Colorado Midland ballast...such as it was.

Folks,

I apologize for the standard gauge question, but as my signature block suggests, I model both the RGS in HOn3 and the Colorado Midland (very loosely) in N scale. The original version of the Midland is a bowl of spaghetti with multiple levels and a branchline jammed into 30" x 60". It's a tad cartoonish but more importantly the Atlas code 55 turnouts I used have begun to fail in numerous ways. It struck me that a slightly larger and operationally much simpler CMRy display layout (yep, the N scale CMRy is built for show, whenever those start up again!) could fit and that space while affording me the chance to begin again with Peco code 55 track.

My question is this. Does anyone know what the Midland would have been using for ballast in 1905? When I built the first version I used Arizona Rock & Mineral Cumbres and Toltec ballast which is really just a mix of buff and brown gravel. I used cinder in yard areas or places a locomotive might spend a lot of time. Now, I imagine the answer is "it depends" since my guess is that they followed suit with the local narrow gauge guys and used "local materials" at first. I know that many of the planned right-of-way upgrades never materialized, but for a 1905 (+/- ten years) era, would they have used some consistent type of ballast across most of the line? B&W photographs can really only tell me light colored material (which could be dirt) and dark colored materials (probably cinder).

Given that the Midland folded well before the advent of color photography I know this is a blind shot deep in the darkness, but any insight would be helpful.

Here's a look at the old Midland layout, cartoonish and all. That's a smelter behind the passenger train. The AR&M C&T ballast is apparent. It doesn't look bad but yet it looks a tad too uniform for what I would imagine the Midland was doing in those days. The overhead photo shows the ballast in other areas...cinder and dirt.




___________
Dave Vollmer
Rio Grande Southern in HOn3
Colorado Midland in N scale

Colorado Springs, CO



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/14/2020 06:37PM by Dave Vollmer.