I was asked a couple of times at our club show what balast I used. The answer was simple, a bit of everything. I wanted to get the balast to look the right size and colour. So, starting with the colour, that must be straight forward right? You just look in a book with colour pictures from the steam age. Which is ok up to the point you actually open your first book. It's a browny colour, no it's light grey, no medium grey with black speckles. Excerpt where the trains break on their way into the station, where the loco's stand dripping oil, or where fresh balast has been added and tamped down.
Well the size must be straight forward. I don't like oversized balast and a lot of people advise you to use 'N' gauge balast on OO track. So I bought the Peco fine balast, then did a test piece, err... No. I had some dark grey Woodland Scenic grey balast. Nice and fine but very... grey. It was just too flat and uniform. So I bought some N gauge grey balast from Gaugemaster, a better, lighter grey with black speckles in, this would be great.... Still no. The speckles were shinny and the balast was very, very, fine, rather like grey silver sand. Woodland Scenics brown? No, far to red.
The answer was a last ditch attempt at coming up with something I was happy with and involved a mixing bowl and a wooden spoon. Yes, I mixed my own. What ratios did I use? I have no idea. All I can say is I started off with what I had the most of, which was the Peco balast and added quantities of everything else to it. I was rather worried I would get halfway around the layout and run out, so I mixed a lot of it. So much that after balasting both main lines I still have a 1 litre icecream tub full of the stuff. Never mind though there may always be another layout and all in all I am very pleased with the results. The final look will get some break dust on the way into the station an some greasey patches where loco's would stand, all gently airbrushed in.
