I weathered my Bachmann steam

I weathered my Bachmann steam loco with pan pastels, not heavy weathering, just enough to take away the "new loco" shine, then gave it a light coat of clear afterwards. Everyone at the club likes how it looks. Remember that the seal coat of clear will tone down the powders. And you can always give it more than one coat of powders if your first coat disappears too much under the clear.

And if you haven't already, pick a prototype photo and use that as a reference,preferably from the time frame you are modeling. And having a photo of both sides of the locomotive is even more helpful. Unless you want a really specific dirty look, it's best just to use mild weathering so the locos don't stand out from the crowd.

If you aren't comfortable with wet mediums, the best thing to do is keep practicing with old junk cars until you are comfortable. And remember, do a little at a time, you can always add more weathering over time. Weather it some, run your loco for a while, then if you want more weathering add to it later. This way you can see how it looks with the rest of your fleet.

Let us know how they turn out.

railbaronmike

Something to try...

I would suggest trying this on a sheet of styrene or otherwise crappy car (a batch of junk test cars isn't at all a bad idea...) but you may find this method for applying powders to be helpful. I doesn't suffer the fade effect and appears to be quite durable. The whole video is great but you are particularly interested in the 4:30 mark. Let me know what you think!