The Golden Spike and Ballasting

Mainline, interchange, and ladder tracks with ballasting underway

As part of the leadership of my local NMRA division, I have been trying to inform the membership about the NMRA Golden Spike Award. In addition to exploring the Golden Spike to help others work towards the award, I am using its requirements as a guideline to improve my skills, explore the NMRA Achievement Program, and motivate myself with some set goals for my railroad, the 4^th Subdivision, even though, having received the award for my HO modules back in Seattle, I don’t qualify for a second Golden Spike.  In creating presentations and articles for members of Division 12, I have used the term “supercharging the Golden Spike” which involves combining its requirements with my own standards and allows me to explore AP standards to find out what “floats my boat.” In addition to improving my standards of layout quality, I am finding out what I might enjoy enough to push towards contest quality. The Golden Spike Award does not have involved paperwork, judging, or merit award point requirements, but it does have some qualification or requirements.

The NMRA’s one-page explanation and link to the application are found on their website. Looking back over many of the more recent posts here, one sees conscious or subconscious ties to the Qualifications Checklist for the Golden Spike Award in the work on my railroad. This checklist contains six areas to be checked off. The first has to do with Rolling Stock, the topic of my most recent post. A post from February relates to the two Model Railroad Setting topics. A final checkbox, an additional electrical feature, is clearly referenced in this post discussing the recent addition of an interlocking home signal.

In going through the Qualifications Checklist, one needs to demonstrate some skill to “qualify.” Honestly though, without scoring, rubrics, or judging, the qualifying can be fairly subjective. For example, are weathering, adding Kadee couplers, proper weight, and metal wheelsets enough to qualify a ready-to-run piece of rolling stock? Adding to the built-in subjectivity is a certain amount of confusion in terminology between the NMRA website and the checklist. This is perhaps most obvious in the Engineering section with the term “trackage.”   

NP interchange and yard ladder

One box to be checked from the Qualifications Checklist includes the phrase “three types of trackage required (e.g. turnout, crossing, crossover, etc.).” Trackage, on one hand, can refer to specific kinds of commercial track such as a turnout or a crossing. It also can refer to kinds of track or track features found on the prototype beyond mainline track such as passing track, spur, yard ladder, etc. A fairly extensive list of these track work features is found in the Model Railroad Engineer - Civil AP requirements. This second use of trackage, combined with the caveat that the three types do not have to be different, leads to a clearer understanding of what would qualify. For example, a passing track and a spur track with three commercial turnouts would qualify. A simple ladder with three tracks requiring three turnouts would qualify.

On the checklist, in addition to the types required, the trackage “must be properly ballasted and on proper roadbed.” From the beginning, cork roadbed and painted rails and track have been part of my standards.  Whether painted track is a part of trackage or the scenery component in the Golden Spike qualifications is unclear, but probably should be included. Painting the track is significantly easier than doing a really good job ballasting. 

High expectations for myself with ballasting have been a bit of a gumption trap, and trying to push through to work towards Golden Spike “equivalency” has been strong motivation. Cody Grivno of Model Railroader and MRVP provides virtual mentorship with ballasting. His advice includes going slow, being patient, and breaking it down into steps. The first step is to ballast between the rails. After brushing the ballast off the ties, applying the 70% rubbing alcohol and scenic cement from outside the rails keeps the granules in place and undisturbed. 

Second step finished, ready for the third.

The second step includes “painting” the sloped edge of the roadbed with full strength white glue and sprinkling on a first layer of ballast over the glue. After that dries and the loose ballast is vacuumed up, the third step is to apply ballast to the outside of the rails. Our mentor, Cody, referring to a one-inch foam brush as the ballaster’s best friend, suggests using it to tap down and smooth this final layer of ballast before carefully applying wetting agent and scenic cement. 

Restricting myself to working on what I have already started and following the guidelines of the Golden Spike's Qualifications Checklist have helped me stay focused and working on the 4th Subdivision during this somewhat disorienting time. Seeing that this side of the railroad is large enough and has qualifying trackage fosters staying focused and working towards the goal of attaining the Golden Spike even though it is a virtual "equivalency award" rather than the actual award. 

Rolling Stock Standards and Weathering

Recently upgraded white elephant find

As I recently added to my weathering "tool kit" following several clinics, video and live, I have found myself weathering some rolling stock. Since I see weathering as a part of my set of standards for rolling stock on the 4th Subdivision, I tried combining upgrading to my standards with weathering on this older refrigerator car that I picked up at a train show last fall.

While making sure that any cars added to the roster of my model railroad are set up with metal wheelsets, checked with an NMRA standards gauge, continues to be a part of my standards, I haven't always paid attention to weathering the wheels. Having purchased a box of shiny metal wheelsets, I made sure to include the wheels in my weathering procedure by mixing some brown and rust acrylic modeling paints to paint the fronts of the wheels with a micro-brush before installing them. By cutting slots in the edge of a scrap of cardboard, I had a quick and dirty jig to hold the wheelsets. Another addition to my weathering procedure seen in this shot is to commit to at least attempting to find a prototype photo to use as a reference.


This older, Walthers Trainline ready-to-run reefer, lettered for the Swift Refrigerator Line, was slightly underweight according to the NMRA RP-20.1 and came with horn hook couplers. So, I removed the body of the car to attach the weights that had come loose and add an additional quarter ounce weight. I also removed the trucks and opened the coupler boxes. While the reefer was apart, I went ahead and brush painted the underframe, which had been a shiny, light brown plastic. I used a Vallejo Dark Grey, Oily Steel, and Dark Rust Wash. The Oily Steel Model Color is one of my favorite colors right now!

After the paint dried overnight, I installed Kadee #158 Scale Whisker Couplers in the coupler boxes. I had dry brushed the trucks with the same Dark Grey Vallejo paint and Dark Rust Wash as I used on the underframe. After fitting in the metal wheelsets, I reinstalled the trucks. In tightening the screws, I try to have one truck just loose enough that it turns freely side to side without rocking or swiveling. In what I call my "cinderella" technique, I loosen the other truck just a bit more, so that it can swivel as well as turn side-to-side. Having the trucks either too loose or too tight can lead to train car derailments, wobble, or lean. After press-fitting the car body and undercarriage back together, it was time to tackle weathering this Swift Reefer.


Having seen some some really nice results from using Vallejo Washes, both in a recent Division 12 clinic by Rob Bennett and in a MRVP episode, "Cody's Workshop: Episode 27," I had ordered several and wanted to try them. I used a Dark Grey on the sides of the reefer and a layered combination of Oiled Earth, Dark Rust, and European Dust on the roof. This photo shows the roof after just one or two layers of wash. I ended up using three or four as well as some Bragdon powders. The sides did not go as smoothly as I had hoped. Initially, I felt that the Dark Grey was too dark on the original Aluminum. I applied a light tint PanPastel color over the wash after the wash had dried, but wasn't happy with that either. At that point, I moistened a makeup sponge with water and removed some of the PanPastel and some of the wash under it as well. Basically, I was then in a very painterly mode, working with different materials in a wet-on-wet environment and hopefully knowing when to stop! While my color choice was not ideal for the sides of this car, I will continue to use the Vallejo Wash colors, and I know not to fear tuning up and weathering rolling stock simultaneously.