Nelson,
Just about any photo taken on any of the mainlines on the Aurora div. from the 50s on will show slag ballast. All of the Spoors books have many. Theres even one of some of the slag piles at Eola. Color- can run anywhere from white to grey to a red tint. It all depends on what mill it came from and when and how long it's been in service. Most folks use white.
Some modelers,on the list can advise what they've used to approximate slag
Leo
Leo, Thanks for the clarification re slag. I asked this question some years ago, but I didn’t get a satisfying answer, so here it is again. What does slag look like, i.e. color, size, etc. so I can model slag ballast? I’ve never seen it that I know of, and if you or anyone else can point me to color photos in any of the Q picture books, that would be immensely helpful. Nelson
B & B stood for bridge and building. These crews maintained things. There were paint gangs,bridge gangs,etc. By other crafts B&B was often credited with making jobs last a long time. On the other hand RR facilities did hold up under some pretty tough use(Abuse). Slag is one of the waste products from making steel. It's nonmetallic and comes from the molten lime coke,etc. it's poured in pits at the mills and when cooled sold off. It was widely used on lines east for mainline ballast. It was cheap to purchase and provided good water run off,even if it was harder than heXX to walk on. A large accumulation would be gathered at Eola in the slag hole and then used in the various projects.
Leo Phillipp Bridges and Buildings........ I believe
"'Nelson Moyer' ku0a@mchsi.com [CBQ]" <CBQ@yahoogroups.com> wrote:
I just finished reading the subject book, and there are two references to B&B that seem to be related to maintenance of way. What does B&B stand for in Q terminology? The alignment charts are a welcome addition, and I hope they will continue for Vol. 3, etc. Of particular interest to modelers is the rail weight and ballast used on various parts of the railroad at specified dates. Apparently, the Q used whatever was available for ballast. I found CR Rock (presumable crushed rock, but it would be nice to know what rock was used), slag, gravel, cinders, and slag-mannix listed. What is mannix? As I understand it, slag was the waste material from coal mining that was stacked up in gob piles in Southern Illinois and subsequently used as ballast. Photos in the volume 1 and 2 show a v ariety of ballast types, some overlaying cinder subroadbed. Yard ties apparently had sunk in mud, since they were flush with the dirt level and showed some cinder residual and very little ballast. All this is very helpful to modelers wishing to reproduce the authentic appearance of yards and other trackage. The one structure that has not yet been shown in either book is an ash pit. I’m at the stage on my layout where I need to build and install an ash pit, and I have very little Q specific information on ash pits in general and no information about an ash pit in the Burlington, IA service facility. Drawings and photographs would be very helpful. Nelson Moyer !
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Posted by: qutlx1@aol.com
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