Ballasting is done - almost

Yesterday I finished the ballasting. Fairly tedious but relaxing at the same time. Sort of like painting with miniature rocks. Good that the Rio Grande Southern Railroad was always broke. They used anything they could find to ballast tracks - dirt, rocks, and often ash and cinders from locomotives - which I am representing in model form. And were not particularly neat about it. Me too. Now I need to go around the track and inspect the result. There are usually several spots where the glue has washed away the ballast revealing blue styrofoam or white caulk. Not good. Not often you see bright blue in nature. So a few sprinkles of ballast, a drop of iso alcohol, and more dilute white glue and we will be good to go. Of course there are MANY little spots to cover.

Once that is done, I can paint the fascia below the inside of the layout a dark brown to match the shelf already painted. Then finally I can clean the track, vacuum up the dust, and bring out a train for a run. I am thinking a passenger train pulled by number 74 is appropriate to populate the layout. I mean the people have to come from some place - right? For the purists out there, I know that the RGS discontinued passenger service long before my 1950 era, but it is my world and in that world they kept going because I love the look of the passenger cars. And the business car "Edna" in her green livery with gold lettering. And - the cars have full interiors as well as twinkling interior lights just like the lamps they used. PBL went over the top when they made these cars. How could I resist?