I finally found some dullcoat that had made it across the pond [:D]
… and I gained a whole string of Conrail Coalporters… all nice and shiny new in boxcar red / red oxide
… so now I’m thinking that they would have been new cars in my period (either side of '85)… So that raises the questions of whether they would have been mildly shiney when delivered new and how long that would have lasted? Also, once they started to fade did they fade evenly, from the top or in blotches?
I also have some military cars - army boxcars and navy gons - were these typically kept in good order / pretty “shiny” or did they get to be as scruffy as everybody elses cars?
The shine literally came off of coal cars the first time they were dragged to the mine or any other part of a coal operation. If you’ve ever seen a mining operation fist hand you would know that even the people who work there have a weathered look. I’ve been to several when I worked for a company that made gas detection devices and and man I’ve never seen a more depressing place.
If you want a good substitute for Dullcoat try using clear flat finish in Polyscale or Flowquil works great much better then dullcoat and if you mix in a little grimy black it gives a nice weathered effect. one other effect I use for lightly weathering my cars is either mix some of the cars original color in with the flat clear or mix up a diluted batch of it and lightly spray over the car heavier in some spots where I want to fade it more then others. It’s like taking what nature does but in reverse. You can fade out lettering by just dusting over it. I have also had some success with spraying 90% isopropyl alcohol or brushing it on lightly and lettingit run down the sides of the cars washing away some of the lettering.
As far as how they fades I think most of them go so dirty it was hard to tell the difference.
The would be in good order, but not “shiny”. They would also be rare. Very rare.
The only military boxcars I have every seen were either retired in a scrap line or in museums. I have never seen a military gon. The only military cars I have seen moving in trains were tank cars for aviation fuel and flats for loading vehicles. If boxes and gons were in use, they would pretty much be confined to use on base.
At the risk of being branded a heretic, or a traitor, or a nut, let me say I really hate to weather cars. I do it, and a large number of my car fleet have varying degrees of weathering. But, as I just sat down at the bench the other day, looking at a string of ten ExactRail grain cars in Santa Fe, I just couldn’t get up the enthusiasm to start weathering them. They have had new numbers added, they have lube plates added, but that is all. About 60 percent of my total grain car fleet of just over 300 Santa Fe are weathered, including a large number of IM and ExactRail, but somehow I just couldn’t get my hand to start weathering those new cars. So, they have been “dulled” but otherwise are pristine, and though they look a little funny in a grain train pullilng ouf of Enid, I think I will wait on them for a time. I don’t seem to mind weathering the mileage grain cars and other road grain cars, but I just can’t do those Santa Fe.
But, probably the next time I am on tour for a show day here in KC, I will either hid them or weather them. After all, can’t risk a ticket from the politically correct police, but for now, I will leave them alone.
I personally feel there is nothing wrong with having “clean” equipment like you said take the shine aka plastic look off them if they have not already come that way which much of the new equipment is and your good to go. A nicely detailed crisp looking good operating piece of equipment is a sign of a well organized railroad with an excellent maintenance program and crew.You should make up a little mock award plaque for your railroads maintenance department giving them kudos on having the cleanest/best looking equipment for the year…lol
One of the guys down the club is a stickler for not over weathering his cars. The most he’ll do is weather the wheels and under side of the car very lightly as he says one of his biggest pet peeves is when guys go bonkers with the weathering powders or the airbrush and it looks like a rolling piece of [junk] going down the tracks.
I , too, do not like to weather RR equipment. I like to think {in my fantasy world} that MY RR keeps it’s locos and RR cars clean and in good clean working order.
Funny thing is, I will gladly weather a building or something else, but not so fond of “doing in” my RR equipment!
ALso, while I admire many a piece of weathered equipment shared here, I just don’t think I could get up to some of those same standards.
It’s not hard to “mess up” a building, but I’d sure hate to “mess up” a RR car or loco and have it turn out bad. Of course some real ones i have seen…well I’m sure ICouldn’t mess them up as bad as nature and usage has!
No “Heresy 101” anywhere as far as I’m concerned. This side of the pond there’s far to many “officionados” that are all too ready to slag off a perfectly good model because “that rivet is 0.01 microns too far left” etc… in n scale… If you’re unfortunate (like me) you know the sort.
As far as I’m concerned each man’s model and standard is entirely his own and he’s just as entitled to it as I am to mine. I think it was Billy Joel had a line something about “you can say what you like but not on my time”.
So… anyway…
First I like pristine models - for me they appear in a display cabinet… but there’s no reason anyone should not run them that way… after all RR bulled up their locos and stock for presidential and similar trains. (My own outfit bulled up two Class 73s for Mountbatten’s funeral train - they were immaculate… well, it was the Southe Western bit that did it… [:O] soon as one of them came over to us on Central we bent it… then the Muppets sent over the other one, again on an Engineer’s train… guess what we managed to do to that? OOPS! [:I])
There was a time, when labour was cheap/ground down that trains were spit polished. You wanted to eat you polished the train like you were told to… both sides of the pond.
So then we had a big war (the 2nd one) and things began to change. A railroad still runs even if the executive in a plush office can’t demand the shine on his trains that he could before. … but I don’t suppose that there’s any railroader or railwayman that wants to work with mucky equipment. There is a limit to what standards can be kept up when the bean counters cut everything to the bone… and equally what can be done when unions price the work off the rail onto trucks regardless of the obvious facts that they will end up with no members with
I am don’t weather my rolling stock or buildings. A flat finish is the look I like. I also am not interested in litter or debris. It may be unrealistic, but my memories don’t include dirt, trash, etc. so why should my model railroad?
That said, I have seen some really artistic weathering jobs, they make the piece look too derelict to be in use but really are very well done. Just not my cup o’ tea.
To Paul and the others who are not really into weathering - I agree and have a similar view.
I do weather a lot of stuff - BUT, almost all my weathering is VERY, VERY light and subtle.
Locos and passenger cars get only the slightest hint of a little road grime and most have a satin finish.
Freight cars get the serious flat finish and varying degrees of more dirt, some get a little “rust” here and there - some are left very new - fresh from the shop.
My reasons are two fold - one, like Paul, that’s the look I like and I have no interest in portraying beat up, run down, neglected anything - buildings, trains or otherwise.
My second reason is more “scientific” - I model in HO - it is 1/87 scale and I am usually 3 feet away, which is 261 feet. When I look at most buildings, cars, railroad equipment, etc, in real life from 261 feet away such details of its condition are usually not obvious and it looks generally OK, unless it is the truely derilect, about to fall down, totally rust out, a wreck, etc.
So I would rather it give the right impression at 3 feet or 5 feet rather than some supposed right appearance at 10" away.
And, I model the 50’s, a time of rebuilding and redirection in this country, lots of stuff was new, shiny, well cared for and colorfull - and I have the color railroad pictures to prove it.
So for me, less is more when it comes to weathering.
My Ho layout/collection/interests all lie in the '40s and '50s. As I was born in Chicago in 1944, and a train nut since I was 3 (according to my family), I recall almost all freight cars as heavily weathered, passenger cars a mix, and locos mostly very weathered - with the exception of the name streamliners of the IC, ATSF, and other lines.
However, I prefer that my model rolling stock be only lightly weathered, typically only the couplers, trucks, and the rest of the car with a Dull-Cote finish. Of course this just isn’t the way it was - at least in my neck of the woods - but I prefer it this way. I guess I want my RR to look prosperous, and like “they care” about their rolling stock.
As far as my structures are concerned, they tend to be more weathered, as is my trackage and other areas of the layout.
Oh, please know that I truly appreciate the realism of those heavily weathered pieces that others have. Some are so real that usually only the curve of the KD “air hose” gives it away as a model.
Thanks [^] I have the Roundhouse 50’ single (wide) door Hi cube boxcars in serious yellow with red doors. They also did an earlier 50’ car with high ladders, brakes etc but that would be too early for me. Reporting mark IIRC is USAX on both cars. I assume that such cars, if they existed, would be for munitions.
I also have Roundhaouse “generic” modern 50’ tankcars in silver which I think are marked for aviation fuel(???) and IIRC these are DODX reporting marks.
I have one Walthers Centre Depressed Flat which is green and marked DODX.
Last item is a pair of USNX black gons by Athearn…
My thinking is to use the gons as spacer cars fo the big flat car with a mysterious carefully sheeted large load on it… Does this sound like a passable excuse for the gons to have escaped for a day out?