I found a FACEBOOK page where a modeler took older mainline cars, like coal hoppers and re-lettered them for a smaller railroad. What really caught my attention about this, was the orginal owner was faded. So they were BN hoppers, that now belonged to a short line. The BN was very faded, you could see it but it looked old. The shortline lettering was fresh and bright. It was an awesome contrast. How do you do this? I have two older shortlines that I model and this would be an awesome way to update myfleets, and I have lots of old rail cars so it would be easy to do. If anyone has techniques on how to fade the orginal lettering on the cars it would be helpful.
Actually, it’s not really that hard: You get some paint of the same color as the original background color of the car, then give the car a very thin coat (a "wash) of that color with an airbrush. Make the paint thin enough that it will take several passes to get the faded look you want. Be sure you quit one pass early. Then paint your new road’s patch over it.
I’ve been experimenting with Mike Tylicks method of “Weather with washes”, an article in the July 2008 Model Railroader**.**
I’m using a cheap children’s watercolour paint set, the advantages, apart from being cheap, are I don’t need an air brush, and if I get over excited I can just tone it down or wash it off completely.
The process is the same as Gary has described; brush on a thin wash of the same base colour, adding more, if required to get the desired effect. While I’m not relettering mine, you may need to seal the car with a coat of rattle can matt clear or Dullcoat for a surface for the “new” letters to stick to.
The C&O LO is supposed to have seen a hard 10 years in cement service, while the NYC car only 3 years.
NILE,
You should find this of interest: With How-To’s.
http://modeltrains.about.com/od/Detailing-and-Weathering/ss/Modeling-Freight-Car-Data-Paint-Outs.htm
Take care!
Frank
Frank,
That is a very interesting link well worth saving for future reference.Thank you.
This is one I did some time ago. It a former Penn Central 50’ boxcar that was patch painted in the shop and renumbered for Conrail after the merger.
I first painted the car PC green, then cut masking tape to cover what would have been the PC noodle logo, the Conrail name, reporting mark, and the reweigh date decal locations. I sprayed a light coat of Floquil Roof Brown for some rust, then removed the masking tape and applied a gloss clearcoat followed by the decals. Removing the masking tape left areas of bright green paint where the shop painted over the logo, road name, new reporting marks and reweigh info. Older info like the dimensinal data would not have been changed by the shop, so thry remain a rusty surface. Last, some more Roof Brown and Grime to show the car had been in servive for a few years after the post-merger shop work. The decals are a Walthers set, long out of production.
