Right now the ballasted area looks very pristine and even, which is hardly realistic, but once I scrape away some ballast and make some bare spots and paths, add some brush and weeds, and weather the ballast a little it will look less like someone's zen garden and more like a railway right-of-way.
I had carefully taped over the switch mechanisms to avoid getting any ballast stuck in them. Happily, all the mechanisms work perfectly. Note the gray color of the Styrofoam above. Although I still have a bunch of the black paint left, I felt a color that more closely matched the ballast would hide any gaps in coverage better. It worked very, very well, and was well worth the $12 investment. Also, in the photo above you can see a few sections where there is no ballast. On the upper right edge of the photo there will be a train station, so no ballast was needed there, and between the tracks in the upper left of the photo I will be installing a station platform, so again, no ballast needed (or desired).
In the photo above you can see the relative size of the ballast to a 1:32 scale figure. The scale of the ballast is too big- the rocks are roughly twice the size of what they should be. However, from a reasonable distance, it's not as obvious that the scale is off. Plus, the larger stones fill the gaps between the ties nicely, making them look more 'buried' in the ballast.
Finally, here is a picture of the Marklin semaphore signal with the mechanism sunk into the Styrofoam. The opening will be covered by card stock (I literally will use an index card), which will be painted and flocked / ballasted. When finished, it will be hard to see that it is there. Btw that little hint of red across the track from the signal is a feeder wire for the automatic slow-down module that will be bringing my digital locomotives to a realistic stop. This will be painted gray soon to hide it as well.
I plan ballast the branch line next, and will also hope to start some scenery construction. Stay tuned!
