That is my experience, too. I used ceiling tiles for the subroadbed, crushed walnut shells for the ballast, glued down using diluted matte medium. This layout was the first time I used that combo, and was very pleasantly surprised with the difference in sound. Even considering I was moving from N-scale to the larger S-scale engines, which one would presume to be louder. I believe this layout is quieter than my previous N-scale attempts where I used Arizona Rock & Minerals stuff. The overall volume has gone up a little now that I put a scenery base down that is glued to the sides of the ceiling tiles, but nothing that is noticeable now.
This talk of ballast is very timely as I am experimenting with using vermiculite as ballast on a test bed. So far it looks very promising (sharp, rocky ballast, different colors, overall medium gray). I did sift out the fine dust. - Peter. On 07/22/2011 12:40 pm, Roger Nulton wrote: > Forgot to mention another advantage of the clay cat litter/ground nut shell > ballast method. When these materials are attached with matte medium, it > muffles the unwanted track sounds so that one can hear the sounds of the > locomotive. Track noise is magnified when using white glue and “real rock” > ballast. > > Just my bias. > > Roger Nulton > Tacoma, WA > -- Peter Vanvliet ([email protected], or [email protected]) Houston, Texas "It is easy to give up; anyone can do that..." http://pmrr.org/ (my model railroad - RSS feed <http://pmrr.org/rss.xml>) http://fourthray.com/ (my company) http://houstonsgaugers.org/ (model railroad club) -- [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/S-Scale/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/S-Scale/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: [email protected] [email protected] <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [email protected] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
