thanks steve, i tried the floor dry at work the other day, used the glue water soap treatment worked good but leaves a white dust on my ties when i spread it, tried a kwick rinse but dust comes right back, size looks great, let me know if you have a fix for the dust, based on your guess looks like about 25lb or so to do 200ft on my layout, about 100.00 for ballast, bit much but that will be one of the last things to do, island trains is where i bought the starter set & the atlas track best prices ive found nice people to deal with will use them for the zw thanks jeff