Good afternoon all! Has anyone tried the rusty rail painter? Im refering to the one with the foam pads on a roller. Got one this week and tried it today it worked ok. Only problem was it kept wearing out the foam pads fairly quickly. Other than that it did a pretty good job. Any other comments? Dave
If the rail is already in place, or flex track, that is one way, but really very tedious method. I run masking tape over the ties and foreground and air brush them. First wipe the top of the rails with Wahls or WD-40 to make them easy to clean. If you hold the airbrush low and at an angle very little hits the rail tops.
I prefer to preweather rail for hand laying, also with an airbrush. I staple some masking tape sticky side up to a a plank or piece of plywood. I then place the rails butted against one another on their sides I then use the rust color for a base coat and then go over with rail brown and some black randomly sprayed. When dry turn over and do it again. I clean the rail tops after spiking.
[#ditto]
I plan to airbrush the rust on my rails after everything including the ballast is in place. Trains passing over the rails shake loose rust particles and after a while the ties and ballast immediately next to the rails take on a rusty hue. Look at any overhead shot of track and you will see what I mean. Or better yet go out and look at some heavily used track.
Yep. After years of riding the LIRR, I can tell you that - for a busy commuter railroad at least - rails, ties and ballast were all pretty much the same brown color, unless the track was recently laid. Only the shiny rail head and a darker,oily grey streak down the center of the track were any different. The newer concrete-tie sections between Jamaica and Penn Sta. are a bit different, but mostly well on their way to “unicolor” too.