Weathering modern era flat cars

Model Railroader General Discussion (Model Railroader)
1

I was wondering if anyone could give some pointers on weathering a modern era North American flat car.

I want to start adding some loads to several that I have but want to “age” them before I do.

Any tips would be appreciated.

I don’t get to see too many on the tracks as when I’m railfanning, there’s no flats in the consist usually.

Thanks

Gordon

2

I would imagine that you would weather the flatcar the same as you would any other piece of rolling stock or locomotive. I highly recommend picking up a copy of Pele Soeborg’s book Done in a Day by Model Railroader books (see the “shop” link above or Amazon.com). Pelle does quite a few step-by-step articles including various pieces of rolling stock. Easy to follow and understand.

Everyone has their own technique to weathering, and by-and-large there is no right or wrong way to do it (within reason of course). Practice practice practice makes perfect. I personally like chalk pastels because they are very forgiving (you can wipe them off if you don’t like the effect). I use various rust colored pastels as well as black and grey (but you can use whatever colors needed or combine colors to get the effect(s) desired). Take an old car and experiment. Do you have an airbrush? If so, thinned paints (experiment with various ratios of paint vs. thinning medium to get a nice even light “wash”) do a great job of slowly building up a dirty, used, and faded look (don’t forget the trucks). Also, a clear flat sprayed through an airbrush or paint compatable clear flat spray can will seal all of your work so that it stays put when the car is repeatedly touched.

Hope this was of some help.

Happy Modeling!

Don.

3

Thanks Don,

I’ve weathered boxcars, hoppers etc, but I want to get the flat car right since I plan on loading them up with Caterpiller equipment. I’ve never seen the decks of the flat car so i’m not sure on how to do it.

4

While he is very good at what he does and I own that book myself, I would cast a critical eye at duplicating his work. He’s very focused on sunbleached desert weathering. If that works for your part of the country, its good. But…say the Northeast or Mid-Atlantic…not so much.

5

I can’t say that I have seen the decks of train cars myself either. I know from working with construction vehicles and loading them on lowboys and such that new vehicles (CAT Dozer for example) have painted yellow tracks, and these can leave yellow tread marks on the deck as they get driven on. Used vehicles, like excavators, often leave behind clumps of ground material (dirt/mud/sod/crushed stone etc) and often grease or hydraulic fluid stains (as well as tread or tire marks). Tie down chains are always rusty and filthy and these leave like marks.

Sorry I can’t be of more help. Good luck with your project and post some pictures!

Btw…what HO vehicles are you using? Norscot makes some great CAT’s [Y]!

Happy modeling!

Don.

6

I referenced it merely as a guide…as most books in this hobby are.

7

I can’t seem to find much in the way of photos of flatcar decks, but here’s one:

The deck looks like it’s been recently painted, but not the boards on the end bulkhead. I’m wondering if the deck may not be wood, but rather a version of nailable steel floor? [?]

I do recall seeing a modern wood-decked flat on which probably one quarter of the boards were either missing or damaged severely. This was distributed over the length of the car, almost as if a load bolted to the deck had been removed by an overhead crane, without first removing the bolts. [#oops] Flatcar decks take a real beating.

Here are a couple more, but mostly of cars with steel decks:

…and a couple of loaded flats:

Wayne

8

Thanks a bunch Wayne.

I tried looking for pics like this & couldn’t find them,

Guess I didn’t try hard enough

Gordon

9

Wood flatcar decks weather out to driftwood gray after a season or two. On a plastic model, a coat of light gray auto primer from a rattle can looks good. Or you can lay a basswood deck and then stain it with Minwax Driftwood Gray.

Used to be, all flatcars had wood decks. Dunno if this is still true, it’s been some years since I saw a real flatcar.

Another good touch is to paint the trucks iron rust red. Paint the faces of the wheels oily black on friction bearing cars and light brown mud color for roller bearing cars.

10

Glad to be of (limited) assistance, but you’d not likely have found those pictures. In fact, except for the first one, I had forgotten I’d taken them, and hadn’t uploaded them into photobucket until I attempted to provide an answer. [banghead][(-D]

11

Here are a few decks:

http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=1364361

http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=3336820

http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=3292672

http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=1161141

http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=1450183

Many more flat pictures on this site…you just have to go through them

And this one for an interesting load idea: http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=1551542

12

As a side note.When weathering cars don’t over do it…

Reason?

A shipper has the right to reject a car he believes is unsafe to load and railroads can refuse interchange if the car is unsafe…