Todd Brody said:
Lay a line of Titebond III along each side of your roadbed and put ballast over it. Use lots of glue and build up either side so as to make a trough down the center. Release the track from the screws and fill in the trough around and over the ties with more ballast so that the track now free floats between the two ballast berms.
I use a similar method …I mix Portland cement ( instead of Titebond )in with the ballast material and use it to hold the loose ballast
Right Sean, but the ballast between ties and on the ends of the ties are part of the mixture and get hard? I like Todd’s method because your track can still float a little between the berms. Your way as I understand it would freeze the track in place. I think with the Berm method you would almost have to have concrete road bed (or blocks) But I think a great integration might be to try to make the berms with a Portland/ballast mix although It may be too small of a shape and not stick to the base as well as TB3. Glad I have time to mull this over, maybe do some experiments before doing my track. Great thread!
No No No .
I make dams , berms or humps on the outside ( doesn’t touch track) and fill in-between with loose ballast! I install the “berm” into a small trench to help hold it into place.
Oh Oh Oh, now I’m intrigued. So you use no “sub Road bed” concrete or otherwise, Just make a trench fill it with the mix, mold the top berms and add the loos ballast and track after things cure. Great, now I have a third experiment.
Randy
Kiss principle!!! 
Under one of my track is one foot of 3/4inch stone surrounded with filter fabric . On top of that is/was stone dust. Slowly I have been replacing with 1/8inch stone (rice stone) with berms as needed.
The other (most is raised - hump) with 4inches of ballast. Berms were needed (constant washout area’s or sloped)
Sean, I’m intrigued with the berm idea… Can you post a picture?
Richard Mynderup said:
Sean, I’m intrigued with the berm idea… Can you post a picture?
No
Sean…ok!
I don’t have any with that close up detail. He He He
I’ll try to draw one up for you
Richard
This should help.
When you make the berm up with the same ballast it blends right in!
Sean…thanks, that is quite helpful. I appreciate the drawing. May have to give that a try
Richard
That does look interesting Sean. I need to pull most of my floating track; level the roadbed and re-lay next year. I might give this a try. If the berms are contoured like 1:1 ballast is it should look really good and keep my ballast from migrating as it does now.
But job #1 is to get the leaves out of my utility trailer that have been in there since Fall 2012 so I can go get ballast stone.
Daktah John said: But job #1 is to get the leaves out of my utility trailer that have been in there since Fall 2012 so I can go get ballast stone.
Good idea, but the trailer is wood deck and sides 
Daktah John said:
Good idea, but the trailer is wood deck and sides
Hun I need a new trailer!!!
Take that berm idea one additional step: shape the berm to the the same contour as the typical embankment and add some sand to the surface.
BTW I don’t know about you guys but around here we have - at the moment - enough snow not to worry about any dirt projects.
Handlaying some track close to a wall is enough “entertainment”, but that will pass, too.
Update!! I’ve finally been able to get some time to work on the railroad today. I removed all of the screws holding track down to the concrete. I’ve track testing it with my Consolidation and so far everything is running well.
So now my question is do I try to raise the track 1/4" to 1/2" off the existing concrete or do I lower the surrounding terrain?? I have a few areas where the ties get completely covered in mud when it rains, etc…
Also shored up a section where I had to soften a curve on my newer ladder section…the track was actually not supported on one side at all causing everything to shift severely…was a little hard to see in the dark the other night. We actually had some rain a few weeks ago and I think some of the shim washed away.
I plan on trying Sean’s berm idea once I get some more ballast material…its a bit snowy where I got the last batch…may have to wait for the spring.
Richard
Richard Mynderup said:
Update!! I’ve finally been able to get some time to work on the railroad today. I removed all of the screws holding track down to the concrete. I’ve track testing it with my Consolidation and so far everything is running well.
So now my question is do I try to raise the track 1/4" to 1/2" off the existing concrete or do I lower the surrounding terrain?? I have a few areas where the ties get completely covered in mud when it rains, etc…
Also shored up a section where I had to soften a curve on my newer ladder section…the track was actually not supported on one side at all causing everything to shift severely…was a little hard to see in the dark the other night. We actually had some rain a few weeks ago and I think some of the shim washed away.
I plan on trying Sean’s berm idea once I get some more ballast material…its a bit snowy where I got the last batch…may have to wait for the spring.
Richard
How about a bit of both?
Hans - not a bad idea!!
Richard
My Consolidation handled the track extremely well yesterday and ran without issue until the battery was almost depleted. Pulling my AMS Combine was another issue where I found that car less forgiving in certain areas…so I’m attempting some “tuning” as suggested here in this post…I’m replacing the orig AMS couplers with Kadees just to see if there is any difference…I’m modifying the Kadee so it fits in original AMS box…this is all out of my comfort zone because I’m not very mechanical…but I’m learning.
Richard