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Reply to "Recommendation for ballast for the steam era"

Ballast was essentially the same color then as now, but the use of cinders was far more prevalent, it's true. Cinders made second-rate ballast, but were fine in some situations. Also, it's easier to clean ballast now, and maintenance is generally better. 

Around here, the CSX ballast is a gray limestone color, but the ballast on the CN (weird; it's the former ICG/GM&N/MJ&KC main into Mobile) tends toward a warmer, granite/marble color. 

Ballast was actually dirtier in some ways after the diesel took over. Steamers used grease and oil for lubrication, but had no crankcase "oil pan" (or crankcase in general) to leak engine oil. Coal-burning steamers carried no oil at all, except in small oil-around cans used by the crew. So, the diesels began leaving a streak of oil down the middle of the track, sort of like autos on the highway. (Sort of like a middle rail....) Steamers did not.

Like modern autos, I think that modern diesels drip far less oil than their ancestors.

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