Ever since I was a kid I have modeled the 50’s or earlier, but I have decided to give the modern era a try. The steam-to-diesel era has many charms, but they exist now only in photographs and in memory. Contemporary railroading is out there right now, waiting to be experienced. My eight-year-old daughter and I have had lots of fun taking photos of rolling stock and locomotives around town and then locating models of them.
The first model of a contemporary car that we brought home from the hobby shop was an Atlas model of a Lincoln Grain hopper. We compared it with the photo we had taken, and we were delighted to see how well Atlas had captured the proportions and the detail of the prototype.
Here’s the prototye photo:
I was explaining to my daughter how we could go about weathering the model to match the condition of the real car when she asked, “What about the graffiti?” I was a bit surprised, because she had remarked often about how ugly graffiti is. I told her I had not really planned on adding graffiti to our models. “But Dad,” she replied, “they just won’t look realistic without it”.
After reflecting on it, I have concluded that my daughter is right. However one might feel about it, graffiti is part of the contemporary railroad scene. Nearly every car has at least one tag, and many are covered with it. A contemporary model railroad without graffiti would be a kind of fantasy.
Before I turn the HO scale vandals loose on our models, though, I’d like to hear from any of you who have decided to represent graffiti on your model railroad at something close to the scale it is present on the prototype - which is to say, on most every piece of rolling stock. Do you like the effect? Would you do it again, or would you opt for a graffiti-free HO world.
I enjoy painting graffiti on my HO models. I have some customers that like it, and then you have some people that don’t. You have to have a steady hand. Also the right size of paint brushes. Here are a few photos of my graffiti.
Well Charlie, since you asked in your closing sentence…[;)]
Yes, I definetly opt for a graffitti free world. That’s how I remember freight trains from my childhood to teen, to young adult years. That was from the 1960s thru the 1980s. If you have high speed internet service, check this out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SRXcCwvn4ZM&mode=related&search=
For me it seems like yesterday when freight trains looked like what they did in that video.
Modern graffitti only reminds me of how much our society has decayed. When I’m running or weathering trains, I like to forget that for a while.[;)]
I was interested to see the photo of your weathered Railbox car, Robby. Here is the project that’s on my workbench right now:
It looks to me like CN retrofitted an ex-railbox car with a plug door. I don’t know what the boxy things are that have been added at the top and bottom of the car sides, but I’m guessing they might be covers over some sort of load restaint device in the interior. CN (or whoever did the retrofit) never got around to painting the car after the work was done - all the new parts are still in red primer, which is starting to rust through.
In all, a very interesting car. I have a photo of the other side, and it’s tagged as well.
I have purchased the Intermountain model of this car (although the paint scheme is not quite right for this particular car number) and I have salvaged plug doors from a Walthers Thrall Door car. The doors are quite close, and there are enough of them in one car to kitbash four CN retrofitted railbox cars.
I’ll post some pictures when I get a little farther along.
I really enjoy doing Railboxs. I just put one on eBay tonight. Some I put graffiti, and some I don’t. The one on eBay doesn’y have any. Checkout http://www.modeltrainsweathered.com/. I was posting some pictures of my Railbox on there and a guy (Jerry) posted several photos of a Railbox. You can learn some tips on there as well. Its easy to become a member. You will learn alot about weathering and graffiti. Heres all the pictures I have of that Railbox. I would get more photos, but it sold on eBay and its in Texas.
The era I model, and the place I model, had never heard of the concept. If someone defaced private property the miscreant would shortly find himself in front of a less-than-sympathetic magistrate. [:O]
If someone defaced public property, the penalties went up - and the Japan National Railway System was a government-owned monopoly. [|(]
The only markings on my all-black freight cars are the white reporting marks and informational stencilings. [8D]
Thanks for your thoughts and the link to the YouTube video. I had forgotten how clean freight cars were even as late as '82.
I agree with your sentiments about what graffiti says about our society, and believe me, the temptation is great to leave all that at the train room door, but if I’m going to model 2007, I don’t think I’d be satisfied with the effect.
Maybe I should consider turning back the clock 25 years. You’ve gotta love those Southern high-hood diesels!
Thanks for the suggestions on technique and the links. If I decide to venture into the graffiti-covered world, I’m sure I’ll need every trick in the book. I have had some experience in processing prototype images with Photoshop and printing them on decal paper, so I hope to start there, but I can see that decals will only go so far.
I checked out mellowmike.com briefly. Wow! Beautiful work. I’ll definitely be spending some time studying his images.
From the responses up to now, it’s obvious that graffiti-or-not is simply a personal choice. It gives more realism for sure on a modern layout. If realism is the goal, the answer is clear. It’s also obvious from your comments that you’re really leaning toward doing it. So do it. You can always repaint if you don’t like it. That’s half the fun anyway.
For me, I agree totally with AntonioFP45. I don’t want to look at it on MY layout. All the little plastic people in my train room respect all the other little plastic people. I’m not trying to recreate the real world. I’m just having fun.
Model it if you must, but please don’t call it “art”. If you are modeling it to be “honest” or to be “real” be real honest and call it what it is - vandalism.
Since Kluke mentioned me, I’ll show some of my past & ongoing work (Don’t let him kid ya-he’s doggone good at model tagging too-not to mention a doggone good weatherer-he was one of my initial inspirations to get back into my trains.)
I also don’t do the graffiti debate either, I just replicate what I see on the prototypes I find. Here’s a Railbox I did last year for a modeltrainsweathered.com forum challenge. Pics are terrible due to it being 15 degrees at the time plus wind chill.
This one I did for one of my railfanning buds as kind of a tribute to the bunch I railfan with, & a fellow railfan who passed away last year.
Thanks for posting some of your photos. It’s beatiful work - something for me to aspire to. Do you work from photos of a particular prototype and try to replicate the weathering and graffiti as closely as possible, or do you “freelance”? Either way, your effects are very convincing.
You might be interested in the photos below of a St. Mary’s car similar to the one you are working on. I spotted this one in the BNSF Interbay/Balmer yard about a month ago. I just noticed the number patch on the car end: it looks like Atlantic & Western might have retained the last four digits of the St. Mary’s number and added or changed the first two to “11”.
Where did you find you model of this car?
Incidentally, I wasn’t really trying to rekindle a debate about modeling graffiti - I just wanted to find out how people who had gone down that path felt about it now that they have had some experience with it. I think all the comments I have received have been very constructive and will be helpful to me in making up my mind how to approach this.
Charlie,The best way to approach graffiti is to follow the prototype remembering not all cars are rust bucket and covered up with graffiti.
What kills believability quicker then anything is overkill.
My thoughts would be around 10% rust buckets and 10% graffiti cars.Remember a graffiti car does not need to be a rust bucket.The other 80% of the cars should be a mixture of light and medium weather cars to include some freshly painted cars.
