Looks like you're "on track" with this OnTrack, but the suggestions are valid. Woodland Scenics makes a grey blend ballast that looks good or you could mix your own. Shaygetz' suggestion for removing stray ballast is a good one that works well: simply lay the brush handle across the rails, grasping it lightly between your fingers, then tap it lightly and rapidly, using your free hand, as you move down the track. Definitely paint the rails, preferably before ballasting. If you had used a ballast colour other than cinders, I would guess your railroad to be a prosperous Class 1: deep rock ballast, with wide shoulders. There's nothing wrong with that, but many roads, even those with lots of money, use a sub-ballast. It could be crushed stone in larger sizes, cinders, or even just dirt. And on many lines, weeds creep into the ballast edges, and can spread right across the right-of-way.
In the first picture below, it's easy to tell the two mainline tracks from the siding in the foreground, even though none of the tracks have roadbed under them. I used a narrow strip of cinders alongside of the mainline ballast to represent the sub-ballast. On the siding, what little ballast there is, is cinders, while there's also a lot of dirt and weeds mixed in.
In this view, there
is cork roadbed under the twin mains, but the ballast is still edged with cinders, and the weeds are trying to muscle in. The industrial tracks to the left are cinders, dirt and weeds, with the dirt and weeds getting more prominent towards the ends of the sidings. The track visible at the extreme right is the coal delivery track for the coaling tower. The ballast is all cinders, with some spilled coal, and a few tenacious weeds.
Here, the ground is sloping down towards the river bank, so the line's builders dumped rip rap (broken rock) to help stabilize the sub-roadbed, then covered that with cinders, followed by the ballast.
Another example, showing both rip rap and cinders beneath the ballast.
Careful selection of materials can help set the stage for the type of railroad that you're modelling, which will enhance the overall appearance of your layout, and it will help to make things just "look right".
Wayne
