Sorry to say I glanced at another train magazine, and the photos depicted some absolutely magnificent model constructed buildings and scenery, then in some photos of older, weathered buildings beside the tracks is a bright, shiny, polished, newly painted, glistening, locomotive that looks so out of place it completely destroys the whole scene, is this commomplace?? am I missing something here?? Would not the locomotive have a little bit of weathering? c’mon some of the steamers I saw as a kid were absolutely grimy, dirty and white with water spills dried all over the locomotive. If anyone has an answer, other than the locomotive just came from the manufacturers builders photo session, I would be glad to listen(or read) I have also seen this in MR. (I know, I know, you can do anything you want and that makes it right(there is no wrong, is there?)
That’s called an anacronism and usually arises when the modeler doesn’t stop to think or doesn’t want to destroy that beautiful, unrealisticly shiny paint job. The first thing I do is remove the shell from the loco, take out all the window glass and lenses then spray the shell with matte-finish. After that has dried I spray on a coat of black leather dye (10%) and alcohol (90%).
Every loco was brand new and shiny at least one day in their lives. I don’t like to weather my locos. I just do a shot of dull coat and weather the trucks and wheels.
Here’s a shot I took last year in Colorado. That loco sure looks weathered and grimy…[:-^]
Don Z.
Even the dirtiest 4x4 trucks are shiny…if you look at the ‘dirty’ locomotives, they ARE shiny, but dirty. I dont like the dull finish for this very reason. Even steam locomotives at their worst were not all FLAT…but rather shiny with dirt on top.
David
It’s a special PR run, and the railroad wants to put its best foot forward. The locomotive was, literally, just scrubbed down.[:D]
Before you laugh TOO hard, 611 was scrubbed every time it stood still long enough while in excursion service. That’s why it usually looked immaculate - a good trick for a coal-burner.
Chuck (modeling Central Japan in September, 1964 - with grungy locomotives)
On my 1950’s PRR everything gets some weathering. There’s just too much coal dust everytwhere to keep clean. Even my passenger diesels, often washed at Harrisburg, still have weathered roofs and trucks. Remember, most washracks wash the sides, not the top. But,the top is often the part we 1:1 scale people see on our 1:160 (or bigger, for you N-scale impaired types [:-^]) models. Passenger cars on my layout get some degree of grime on the underbody and truck sideframes, even if their sides are clean.
It’s important to vary the weathering too. Some of my original-configuration X29 boxcars, for example, were built in the 20s and had not ben repainted since the late 30s/early 40s. So in 1956, they’re pretty filthy. On the other had, a few of the X29 rebuilds on my layout have been painted in the post-1956 shadow keystone scheme, and so have only a hint of grime.
Locomotives are weathered on my layout based on age. I have a GP9 that’s almost perfectly clean (bought new ny PRR in 1955), but I have an L1s 2-8-2 in its prewar configuration that’s pretty beat-up.
Now, my freight sharks (RF15s) are from the early 50s, but I weathered them in an unusual way:
Since they came from E-R Models looking way to green, I weathered them with several washes of diluted PolyScale PRR Brunswick Green. This had the effect of muting the bright yellow lettering and darkening the body to a shade closer to the almost-black Pennsy Brusnwick Green color.