# Solidify the road bed



## CapeCodSteam (Jan 2, 2008)

Doug has been busy doing the annual regrading and track work to get ready for the steaming season.

He is thinking about sprinkling mortar mix over the bluestone to help solidify it. He has never done this before and was wondering about mixing some sand in with it before speading out over the ballast. I figure we'll get some pointers here.

What have others done to try and make the roadbed a little more solid?


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## Richard Smith (Jan 2, 2008)

Hehe! I had an interesting experience with mortar mix. Don't get me wrong, I like it but..... 

I made a roughly 50/50 mix of local dirt and mortar mix to make a small "dirt" access road behind one of my depots. With a bit of sprayed water allowed to gently soak in it looked pretty neat with a thin crust on it to keep everything in place. The next season however it was discovered by one of the local mosses (the kind that grows between the cracks in your driveway, etc.) and the road had a sea of scale weeds along its entire length while the open "fields" alongside were bare. 

It seems this stuff loves the lime or whatever in the mix and when combined with dirt is an ideal growth medium for it. Not a loss though as now I have a way to introduce the moss most anywhere I want on the layout. My road mix has become my potting soil for the moss; it makes excellent looking weeds. I assume initially that the moss spores were spread either by wind or birds but of course I can now plant it where I want. My layout is on raised benchwork in case you don't already know. 

Mortar mix by itself seems to hold up fine although the "weeds" are encouraged by it to grow along the edges of the mortar pavement. Looks pretty good though so no harm done.


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## John J (Dec 29, 2007)

If you use stucco/ mortar mix I don't think you need to add sand but I guess it can't hurt.

Here is a link that I made on how I ballast my track. It is basically the same idea. 

How ever it is more extreme than what you are suggesting. 

So what you are suggesting has been done in one way or another 

JJ 

http://www.mylargescale.com/Communi...fault.aspx


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