Samples Look Good

James,

I think your experiments look good. These weathering patterns could be anywhere, depending on location. You commented "sort of prototype"......why not use prototype pics? Track is going to look different depending where it's used......mainline, siding, industrial, etc. Maintenance areas are probably going to have more oil, grease and other fluids/spills than mainline. Some industrial settings are going to have track that is more distressed than others.

The type, size and color of your ballast could also make or break your efforts on your track. Wood ties are going to look different than plastic. What scale, type is your track?

Terry

My vote

Is for #4

Very, very nice

It depends

I've looked at a lot of track for reference and the colouring can be very different in different areas, branchline/mainline, new ties/old ties and anywhere in between.  Look at photos from your era/locale to see what is the closest. They all could work.

@Rick my wife's choice

What do people do for making

@James, please let us know

@James, please let us know your formula when you settle on your "best" choice! They all look to me to be better than I expect to be able to do...

Definitely #4. Well done and

Definitely #4. Well done and convincing.

What code rail is it?

Will this be for a branch line track or mainline?

Thanks ...it's Ho Track

I'll will do that soon, I tend to like things simple and quick and then it gets weirdly detailed and complicated but then I can pick the best elements and make it good simple again.

I notice in some of the samples I got the grain showing in the plastic ties which isnt to scale you should have about 25 lines of grain per tie. This Tillig Elite track I do like the nail plate thingys detail though. 

It could be for both and for branchline i could rust it up a bit and for mainline dirty it up oil abit soot ...need to do that after ballast is laid. 

But in this pic below I've tried to shorten the ties so they aren't all the same I used a electric stone grinder.

What would you use to do this better? Cutting clippers or snips is too much.   

James B

How

well does your technique scale to hundreds of pieces of flex track?  If it took an hour to do 3' of track, then it doesn't scale well for a large layout, but is well suited to shelf layouts and dioramas.  Not detracting from what I see as a superlative effort, just wondering how practical the technique would be for me.

Blair

@smithbr Good point

Good point   ..I have the advantage of only having a small room 14'x12' but still a fair bit of track but I think I can stream line a system once I'm organised ...and I'll still will be within the deadline to have it done. And I could make it part of the hobby and enjoy painting it.

James B

Hundred feet of track Blair,

I first spray paint or airbrush my N scale flextrack when in place with a basic Brown color.( Golden Acrylics)

Second I brush some ties in some derivative brown from the basic color, this kill uniformity

Third I brush some ties with gray colors,  now with the derivative Brown and the gray uniformity is really gone.

Four, I airbrush the track with a very highly diluted gray mist 

Five I hand brush the file of track in a light rust color.

Six, when dry I ballast the track as usual.

Seven , when dry I dry brush in the inside of the track dust charcoal on the track and ballast.

Eight, I dry brush slighly Brown pastel on the side (outside) of the track to represent rust along the track.

Nine, I airbrush a dull coat of varnish to seal the dust power.

Ten, I clean the top of the track.

Seems a lot  of work, but when organized the paint and coloring of the track goes fast, between ten to fifteen feet of track can be done in one hour, before ballasting and finishing the area by ballasting.

Some pictures of the results (N scale), the first one shine because the glue was just disposed before I take the picture. ( Ballast is crushed lava I found in IKEA in the garden store, most of the paint I use are from Golden Acrilycs artist colors).

The curved turnouts #8 seems sharp in the picture but the inner radius is 18 inch ( custom Fastrack jig), track is code 55 from ME

Looks good    that's a

Looks good    ...that's a seriously busy junction. The washes chalks and pigments really help.

snip, snip

I forgot to mention that it is helpful to grind the nipper down so you can go in between the ties and get a clean, straight cut.

@James B, If you make a

@James B,

If you make a branch line track, I found it easy to space the ties a little wider by simply snipping them underneath were they are joined and spread them with fingers. I do this with ME track and make them a bit crooked on the sidings.

Before:

After:

Did you know ME is making code 55 HO scale flex track again?

Yes too busy

This is the entrance of my main layout yard, Alexander yard (named from my son name) and this yard is serviced by a branch see on the left of the picture on one side of the double slip.

The two track on the edge of the table are the double main which run along the yard ( 13 tracks, runaround track , caboose track on each side and two lead track to move train of 20 cars; the yard itself is not straight but turn around a corner of the room with an outside radius of 35" and Inside of a minimalist 19", but hopefuly this is N scale and the width of everything don't excess 23" for all the track without scenery, so all the track are at a reasonable reach.

Thanks for your comment

thanks, Marc,

For your excellent outline of your technique.  We'll post that for future review (still a few weeks of fall weather here, so I'm tasked with outdoor chores daily).  I'm almost hoping for an early winter.

Blair

Main tracks will probably

Main tracks will probably have more brown ties (newer). Higher speed and more traffic requires better maintainence whereas secondary and deferred maintainence lines only require a solid tie about every 5 tie. The ties in between could look like any of those you weathered. Yard tracks and industrial trackage are often buried and they would be the most weathered. 

additional variable

The Algoma Central also used a high percentage of green ties - treated in their own little plant, using the "Osmose" process, at the division point, Hawk Junction.  This plant appears to have operated from sometime in the 50s(?) to sometime in the 80s, though details are hard to come by.  When I first visited Hawk in the mid 90's, the area where the plant was had been completely cleared and cleaned up, though there remain to this day signs of environmental sampling holes and a drainage retaining pond, which lead me to believe the soil remained contaminated.  Ted Ellis has posted pictures of piles of ties taller than the rolling stock beside them, and I recall the clearly different appearance of these ties along the line when I walked the tracks in the early 90s.  While they weathered to a gray similar to old creosoted ties, the newer ones looked like oversize versions of the green garden ties used for landscaping.

So we'll see what we do to emulate that.  The weathering techniques for creosoted ties apply to any secondary trackage laid before the 50s, anyway, but mainline ties would, in 1980, have had a high percentage of these green ties on the ACR.

Blair

Separate Painted parts for Track

I've notice if one is going to paint a engine or rolling stock it is better if you take things apart to make it look good.

In painting my track I want to have the plate holding the rail as a separate colour to the tie and the rail as in real life although I could get away with the plate being the same colour and sometimes I might do that but it does look good having the 3 contrasting colours. But to do that is very difficult and I've gone through a bit of track to find that out. But if I slide the rail out from the tie I can easily paint the rail any colour I like and ties a separate colour and its not to hard to paint the top of the plates and slide back into the ties. It doesn't scratch if painted on rail thinly (sprayed). So when one looks at the track the plates are distinct from the rail.

Its not painted well below but enough to get the idea I'm aiming for. The other benefit as well is I can do most of it before laying the track. I can then sit in front of the telly with a coffee watching videos on how to paint track.   

James B

@Rick Sutton

I've taken up your suggestion about putting ballast with the track as a test sample before locking in colours.

James B

what flex track

Are you using a kind of flex track that lets you slide both rails out of the ties? What brand/code? 

" a kind of flex track that

  There are some with both rails loose.  I pulled code 148 out of the old Atlas O scale flextrack  and used code 125 in it.....DaveB 

" a kind of flex track that

Track Weathering

Just working on my staging and storage tracks. I realise normally one doesn't do this but I am using them for testing and practice. I'm trying to match a photo for weathering.  

yet to add the rails and then I will do a fine rust mist to blend the rail and the ties.

below is me testing.

photo below I'm trying to match