When I was a kid back in the 50s and 60s and being from Minnesota, what I remember about the trains of my youth, the Northern Pacific, Great Northern, Soo Line and others were long strings of 40 foot Box Cars. I was exposed to what I believe where termed as the Granger Roads, hauling grain in gunny sacks from one end to the other, being hauled by F units, Jeeps and RS Alcos. I recall the weathering on the cars, cabeese and locos of yester year, to be pretty similar to that of today. Let’s face it, seeing a new and shinny car was a real rarity and keeping cars clean and pretty is; and was, very low on the list of things a railroad was going to spend money on!
What do you recall about the cars and weathering on the trains of your youth and how are you incorporating these aspects into your model railroad?
For me weathering is kept very light and sparingly applied - just enough to relieve the “toy” look.
This is another area were I believe viewing distance plays a big roll. I model the 50’s and lot of equipment in use at that time was relatively new and in good condition. So weathering is mostly about a little road grime - not the heavy deterioration and lack of maintenance you see today.
I have a few heavily weathered cars here and there, but most are just “a little dirty”. And I don’t model any “vandalism”.
I have color photos from the 50’s that show very well maintained railroad equipment, especially locos, passenger cars and cabooses.
And I model a time just before I was born, so what I saw in my youth has little influence on my modeling.
I remember the MoPac in the 60s/70s mostly while growing up. We had a siding for a team track& store as well as for cattle. The cattle shipments were going away at that time. There were also old zinc mines. Anyway, what I remember the most were mostly shiny locos(not all of course) and cabeese along with auto racks with new cars. At first the auto racks were totally open, but by late 60s’early 70s they had some corrugated protection. Most cars were pretty clean, lightly weathered if at all. Some were new and shiny and some were old and rusty. I think the trains of the 70s(at this time I wasn’t around trains as much) had a higher % of weathered/rusty cars from what I remember seeing.
I think the locos 4 to 5 in a consist were louder than they are today.
I’d have to agree. When I first started weathering, I overdid it. I have a few cars that I plan to “un-weather” a bit because the rust-bucket look just isn’t right.
The trains of my youth were the Long Island Rail Road’s M1 and M3 EMUs and their diesel push-pull sets with either a GP38 or MP15 AC on one end and an Alco FA “Power Pack” providing HEP and control cab on the other. Talk about weathering! Those trains were filthy! Inside and out! I think I’d need enough chalk dust to full a 2-bay covered hopper to duplicate that look. Okay, maybe exaggerating a little bit but the trains were pretty bad.
Then when I was in middle school, right around 1998 or so, the LIRR started replacing the push pull trains with Kawasaki Rail Car Bilevel coaches and EMD DE and DM 30 ACs. In 2004 the M7 EMUs replaced the M1s. They’ve done a much better job keeping these trains clean.
I am modeling the 1960s which, by no coincidence, is also when I started to really “watch trains” and even take a few (horrid Brownie camera) photos, which I am nonetheless very glad to have now.
What I recall from the 1960s is that there were a fair number of new and yes, shiny cars. At the risk of over simplifying, while the 1950s were the “transition era” for motive power I think a case can be made that the 1960s was the transition era for freight cars. Longer, higher, wider doors, elimination of roof walks, mechanical rather than iced reefers, higher capacity gons and hoppers, and so on. For a brief while even the huge auto parts Hi-Cubes still had roof walks! And the long high capacity tank car without the center sill was really starting to take over although there were older style tank cars too.
Yet there were still older cars, even wood sided boxcars and now and then a composite hopper car. Weathered to be sure, but mostly just very dulled paint; otherwise mechanically sound. No graffiti such as we see now, just chalk scribblings by carmen in the yards or a hobo now and then. But the cars from the 1920s/30s were being retired at a rapid pace. 40 foot gons were rare for example, not unheard of but rare.
Maybe what I recall best was that even a string of 40 and 50 foot boxcars would reveal incredible height differences in the cars, because you were still seeing pre 1937 AARs and other low cars.
A fair amount of grain was being hauled in boxcars then – indeed into the late 70s and early 80s – but it was poured into the cars themselves, not into gunny sacks. At grain unloading facilities there would be busted wood everywhere from the grain doors.
I grew up around PRR,C&O,B&O and NYC in Columbus,Ohio…The weathering was fairly straight forward mostly faded paint,some rust spots and normal road grime nothing to write home about.
However,some cars like NYC’s Jade Green boxcars seem to be spotless and fairly “model” like in appearance.Another car that stood out in that time frame was GN’s Jade(?) Green boxcars that had “Rocky” the goat standing by the slanted Great Northern.Sharp looking cars and still among my favorite 40’ boxcars…
My idea for posting the topic starter is that I see photos of peoples model railroads where all the cars are brand new and shinny looking and wonder if these modelers are afraid to weather their cars; or, they think shinny un-weathered looks more realistic? Accessing the Northern Pacific Railway Historical Association (NPRHA) you can see colored photos of close to a thousand cars,locos and cabeeses that represent this lines rolling stock pretty much the way I remember it, mostly fairly weathered. I doubt very much that other lines kept their equipment any better cleaned than the Northern Pacific!
What I’m getting at is this: The modelers of today seem to be demanding highly detailed everything, from the track, to the structures along the way and including their rolling stock! However, many also seem just fine with forgoing weathering. This seems to be incongruent, to my way of thinking.
Before anyone gets their “Knickers in a Bunch” let me say that this is a hobby, something we all do for fun and we have every right to do it, exactly the way we want.
NP, I agree there is what would seem to be a contradiction in goals there, but that’s view comes from yours and my views about actually building models, etc.
In the earlier days of the hobby, most modelers had similar goals and only those people with an interest and skill set for building models took the hobby much past the train set level.
Today, many people in the HO side of the hobby are actually very similar to the highrail modeling crowd. Not necessarily interested in realism even if they are interested in high detail, accurate models.
The hobby has become increasingly diverse in this respect, and this diversity is actually the cause of many of the “flame wars” on t
For me,I’m gun shy when it comes to weathering a $30-40.00 car…I even keep the original box since that ups the resale value in today’s limited production runs.
My Summerset Ry is set in late 70/early 80s so the majority of the cars in that era was in good shape and a rust bucket was unusual.Weathering would be mostly weather fading and road grime.
My Slate Creek Rail is set in 94/95 and cars was still in fairly good shape with the usual fading and road grime.
Weathering certainly would run the gamut from brand new to very dirty and rusty. As I look at photos of the Northern Pacific’s rolling stock at the NPRHA website, that is what I see. I try to get my cars to reflect what I see in those photos. The process of weathering can be as easy and fool proof as using chalks, where if you don’t like how it turned out, the use a little soap and running water and you are back to “new, clean and shinny” again. Still if your new, clean and shinny is what looks right to you, I ain’t going to waste my time trying to tell you otherwise. However everything I own, from old Athearn Blue Box kits to my brand new BLI NYC Hudson will get some weathering, if I decide to keep it. I also don’t keep very many boxes, as I don’t buy my rolling stock with an eye towards its’ eventual resale and 150 boxes would take up way to much space.
I have no way to confirm my beliefs but I reckon many of modelers are acquiring rolling stock “for now” and plan on 1) learning to weather, or 2) will weather down the road when the time comes.
I agree with Sheldon, in cases where the modeler its not replicating a prototype car from a photo, light varied weathering, in my opinion, looks better in a train, with some heavily weathered “old soldiers”
My first real weathering attempt was some MDC ore cars, I beat them up (per John Olsen) painted them oxide red, them applied a way too strong mixture of alcohol/ink mixture, which at first looked good to me (based off of Nevads Northern pictures of their beat up ore cars) Then I realized I wasn’t modeling those beat up cars in 2009, but in 1939, where they would have been in much better condition. [D)]
I ended up selling them on Ebay, (for a slight profit thankfully)
I know there are many modelers that forgo any weathering, which I can respect, especially when it comes to $40.00 cars and $200-500 engines, can’t say as I blame them, You have to respect wanting to keep it original out of the box pristine.
I’ve seen a lot of photos posted here with some really nice weathering. Some people don’t like weathering their cars/locomotives at all.
I think weathering makes it look more realistic. Along with weathering track, structures, roads, etc.
I’ve been weathering my freight cars and diesel locomotives. I would say half of my fleet is weathered. I don’t weather my steam passenger trains, because they are excursion trains, which are kept very clean and shiny.
Here’s a Dash 8 I recently weathered, and a gondola (which are always beat up).
My memories are of the Southern, SCL, and Clinchfield in the 60s/70s. SR, and to a lesser extent, SCL were weathered only about like my truck in the driveway is weathered. Basically some dust and dirt, maybe a bit of rust occasionally, but overall pretty clean. And of course there were always some that we shiny out of the box clean.
Clinchfield, being a coal hauler, was much dirtier, but it was honest dirt, not worn out equipment. My view is most people way over do weathering and clutter. We tend to weather our cars to look like they’re on the way to the scrap yard whereas important revenue equipment was kept in good shape.
I remember long CP freight trains with their new multimark logo’s on the prairies. Through the late sixties and early seventies. Branding was the new catch phrase through that period, and for that reason those colourful cars were kept clean and shiny (for a few years at least) Same with the Governments Grain Car program.
Now however age and budget cuts have caught up with everything. Branding through shiny new equipment seems to have fallen by the wayside. There is always room for new and shiny along side old and worn out as this Google image shows.
Weathering cars is on my to do list, but I will always keep a few new and shiny.[:)]
I suppose location would have something to do with the amount of weathering one would find. However, my personal opinion is rail cars, even when new, roll along in an environment (a mechanical whirlwind) that kicks up dust and mud over the thousands of miles traveled. To think that any new cars will stay in a pristine and new appearing condition, is at least somewhat naive. Still, we are talking about your own personal make believe world where “life is beautiful all the time”!
Unfortunately I missed the SP&S by 50+ years, was born in the last two years of the BN, and am currently growing up in the 6 road era. my weathering is a bit sporadic, and 95% of my freight car fleet is unweathered. On my railroad the companies care for their locos, passenger, and executive equipment, but from what I’ve seen SP&S units were “used” their alco FA’s weren’t all that filthy(atleast until they got sold off as powerpack units).
As for modern BNSF units, they seem to accumulate a fine tan layer on their silver trucks, there’s an Ex-BN unit in town that looks like it came fresh painted out of the shop(BN #2907), the SD70ACe’s don’t seem to acquire dirt at all., but the GE’s in orange and warbonnet tend to get very dirty. I’m a bit ashamed of Amtrak units and cars you’d figure they’d take a little pride in their equipment seeing as how they’re the dominant intercity passenger service. The BN did in it’s brief months of passenger rail service.
Yep, it would be hard to model the Milwaukee Road in the 1970’s without some heavy weathered and beaten locos, but that was a result of economics more that anything else, no or little money for wash racks or maintenance of any kind, all spare cash had to go to the books in hopes the BN or UP would absorb them.
Gidday, I totally agree with you on this point, however like Brakie I’m gun shy regarding weathering, and though I didn’t specify on this thread, http://cs.trains.com/mrr/f/88/t/217226.aspx, its actually high on my list of priorities to learn and then apply.
Though irrelevant to the US, my recollections of New Zealand Rail in the last days of steam in the late 60s is faded red oxide paint, road film, matt (grimy) black steamers, and bright (blue and yellow) shiny new diesels.
