The Search For Arizona Southern Ballast

When one tends to overthink everything, each choice can take a very long time. Take AZSO and what sort of ballast they'd use for instance. I thought maybe they'd use local stuff, but then there would need to be a way to process local stone into a useable substance. 

I did see a post from Arizona Rock and Mineral about a lot of Arizona railroads using a black ballast which resembles cinders. Well since I was leaving to photograph suitable scenery ideas for the new layout build, I decided to investigate this claim. What I found made my mind up for me; very cool.

Noting the black ballast, I placed an order with ARM Ballast when I got back home. On my travels I noted a lot of black ballast laid over other colors of stone, and this I intend to emulate with multiple ballast colors. Rather than obtain SP or ATSF ballast, I found a mixed stone called Kinzua that looked perfect for what I had envisioned. I have a few other colors too so things can be changed up by areas modeled.

Some of the scenery I went to Arizona to photograph is shown below. I obtained some cactus from ZYX Creative, both saguaro and western prickly pear; thus a desire to get ideas as to realistic placement. Modeling is an education to be sure, one need to be both a geologist, botanist, and an arborist if they wish to have believable results.

I figure the vegetation should describe the layouts location so the layout owner does not need to do it. I saw this demonstrated on the Tehachapi Loop layout in San Diego, I walked from location to location and knew where I was without reading the signs. That was amazing.

Cactus says desert better than almost anything else, saguaro says Sonoran Desert and Arizona perfectly as well. The big challenge will be modeling mesquite, palo verde, ocotillo, and cholla. The "castable" cacti are handled.

I was told that the young saguaro's have their best chance of reaching maturity by being under a mesquite or palo verde tree during its tiny vulnerable years. The trade off is, when the cactus matures it usually kills the tree due to taking any water more efficiently. Why does this remind me of something seen recently?

Thanks for reading, stay happy and be safe!

John Huey