"The skill of armour modellers have driven my painting and weathering along because they understand the effect that a real flat finish (not Dullcoat) has on the viewer of a model finish."

Hi IAM, could you elaborate a bit on the armour modeler's flat finish and how it could be obtained on railroad models?  Thanks......DaveB

ROB: Without having to delve to drastically into personal matters,..It was never and still is never for the lack of wanting to create and operate a layout...It just seems that situations always arose in my life when I figured the time was right. I had a dream and conjured up in my mind, a full sized wrap around with peninsula type layout with Southern Pacific freights dominating lumber drags and mixed freight in the Pacific Northwest atypical of that road during the mid to late 80's - early 90's (before the SP demise).

Needless to say, I had created many structures to fit that time frame that would be "layout ready" and other items such as figures, trees, other landscape items, power poles, vehicles etc that I could place strategically on the layout when the  bench work and landscape elements were completed and all was in place. However, all of the conceptual dream I had would never realize fruition . Nonetheless, I did keep the structures that I had scratch built and incorporated them into a 6' diorama that you might see featuring my weathered models from time to time.

As aforementioned, I'd rather not dive too deep into personal affairs as to why I chose and now choose to not build a layout, however I can offer a bit of info to perhaps enlighten as to why I just static model and create dioramas anymore.

The fact is,... I live in a town that is spiraling steadily downward economically. All but one lumber mill has folded here in my town along the heavily wooded Oregon coast. Georgia Pacific is still in business as is the CBR railroad who ships for GP. Jobs (good paying jobs) are unheard of here. My wife had a union job at a plumbing supply outlet and after nearly 14 years of employment, without any heads up, they pulled the plug on the place and shut the doors...flushed the union out and rehired many of the 25 + employees at mere minimum wage after the owners reopened the establishment 2 months after the closure. There were those who would accept such a drastic pay reduction, but my angered wife was one of of the many that refused.  Everything that we had built up to had spiraled out of control financially with the ultimate foreclosure of our brand new home less than 3 years ago. This and the fact that we have four growing children to clothe and feed on a rebounding income and reduced to paying a landlord once more has pretty much dashed away that dream layout that I had planned in the home that the bank took back. Fortunately for me,..I have held onto my Teamsters job for nearly 10 years now after transferring from a lower paying retail operation of 5 years...I've been steadily working throughout our ordeal and we have rebounded fairly nicely. My wife hath since earned her state license for cosmetology and after 3 years has built up substantial clientele and along with my steady employment,..we are doing fine. I have reestablished my art studio and commit myself now just to the weathering aspect of the hobby. Perhaps after our children are all grown and moved out on their own,..I can create time and resources to actually manifest my dream layout. Until then....

Shakespeare be damned!

Thank you for the compliments on my weathering efforts, imbedded therein your reply Rob!

Gary Christensen

Hard to put into words but it's what makes museum dioramas (and great works of art) so effective; Everything "hangs together" in unison and nothing shouts out at you.  That said, it's nice to have one thing, be it a piece of rolling stock or a structure or a small scene, be a focal point in and of itself to draw your eye.  But again, it should not overpower the entire effect of the layout as a whole.

Look at the work of people like Earl Smallshaw and Frary & Hayden.  From the colors, textures and forms of the scenery, structures, trains and details, all come together effectively as one.  And there are places where there's very little in the way of detailing; just scenery where the trains can run and be the center of attention (as they're supposed to be).  It's why, at the risk of being blasphemous, George Sellios' layout doesn't quite work for me. Don't misunderstand. He's a master craftsman and some of the things he has created are amazing in and of themselves. But he puts tons of details and people and bits and bobs everywhere to the point where for me it's just overpowering.

So the shorter version of my rambling, as in life, moderation in all things.

Cheers.

Mostly 1970-1976 color film. Freight cars from many roads, not just pre-Conrail roads, were in rough shape.Hoppers used for salt were rust buckets. Some shots were from a bridge with solid trains of rusted car tops. Flat cars with beat up wooden decks.

I think you really need to pay attention to your era. Not just look at photos (which is just a snapshot of one car) but watch movies and see the whole train.

Charles 

HO - Western New York - 1987 era
"When your memories are greater than your dreams, joy will begin to fade."

This is a really interesting thread, with some great thoughts and ideas and makes some very some thought provoking debate.

I'm pretty new to this forum so I hope you all don't mind me adding my input here!

I must agree with what a lot of other have said previously, that if you follow the prototype photos, studying books and videos from your specific era and place, then I feel that you are already getting pretty close.

I really feel though that DaveB's comment is particularly valid here. I feel that we should remember that whilst we all are trying our best to model a particular prototype in the most realistic manner we can, that at the end of the day it is still a model. It is not the real thing, and can never be no matter what scale we choose. We use some fantastic techniques and products to help us create our worlds in miniature, and through this process we have to accept certain compromises along the way to allow us to achieve our goals. We selectively compress our view of a particular place or we widen our time period to allow us to fit all the realism of the world at large into a small model in our basements or back bedrooms.

I am quite young and I live in Scotland, UK. I love and model US railroads of the late 60's, but I was just born too late! I've visited the places I model and I and try each time to get a feel for things, as well as read, study and research as much as I possibly can, but I know that I will never be able to photographically replicate this in exact scale miniature. With this in mind, I feel that if I can capture the "flavour" of a railroad, the era and the area then this is the most important thing to me. I often feel if everything is balanced then it will appear "right" in the eyes of the beholder. I am no expert but I think that weathering is no different. It is about capturing the overall feel of a particular era in a sensitive way, what car types we select are just as important to me as how heavily weathered they are, it is not one element over another but a real balance of all that helps create "realism" in our miniature worlds.

I model 1:29 outdoors, and try to capture the detail of our stock in a sensitive way, not too much and not too little. I know I will never get things "right," but for me that is the never ending challenge and real fun in our hobby! I have a photo here to share that show where I am currently at. I'm always interested in constructive thoughts and suggestions that help to make me a better modeller!

I agree with Jim, I have read many articles he and others have done, and in past they show heavy weathering for the most part.  While correct for really old cars or engines of a dying rail road, I don't see them on most mainline cars or engines on todays railroads.

I have read in some articles that you would never have a shinny new paint job on real cars, but would argue that point as I have seen many new cars almost directly from factory paint in unit trains of hoppers or tank cars and they were all clean and shinny except for down by trucks.

As stated earlier in this tread I think a 60/30/10 mix is about right, with 60% lightly weathered, 30% more heavily weathered and 10% almost new and shinny.

Just my opinion from watching trains in OK, TX and LA.

Kurt K.

Didn't mean to hit a nerve but glad you folks are on the rebound. Many folks would have given up completely when faced with challenges like that. I have had similar circumstances as well and commend you on your efforts at overcoming lifes' challenges. Still think your modeling is outstanding. Hope your wife kids are all doing well. It seems that many times folks don't get to indulge in their hobby as much as they like until the kids are raised I know it was that way for me as they were a higher priority than any other pursuits I might have.

"I model 1:29 outdoors, and try to capture the detail of our stock in a sensitive way, not too much and not too little."

Hi Gavin, I love that Cotton Belt GP40, looks very nice in the outdoor setting. Heres a shot I took sometime around the UP merger of a similar loco heading the local back home from the cement plant on a nice rainy day. This one has the speed lettering style so might have been re-painted a short time before the photo since it looks pretty clean...DaveB 

Its not about cars being overweathered IMO. Its about making sure there is a reasonable amount of mixed cars together for a more realistic appearance. Personally I have to agree with Gary and also the other posters mentioning the era is also a big key in the amount of weathering. If you heavily rust a 40 foot box car for a layout set in the 50's or earlier, then over weathering makes sense. If your modeling the 70's or later, then the only person to blame for overweathering is mother nature. Especially a lot of the modern equipment running on todays rails. 

I would agree that a lot of the weathering in the model railroad press seems to be over weathered. But maybe it's not over weathering. Let me explain...

While on hiatus between layouts, so as not to spend money on railroad "stuff" that I didn't need, I turned to scale model ship building. Learned a lot while doing it including how to use an airbrush well. One of the things that is stressed in ship building forums and articles when it comes to paint is "scale effect". What this means is as the subject your modeling is scaled down in size from the 1:1 subject the paint color needs to scale down as well. Most modelers start with the actual color match and then lighten it as they scale down for the subject being modeled, because they are compensating for the smaller size of the model.

When I see some models in the press and in posts/articles/forums etc. they seem over weathered. But perhaps they are not, maybe it's a case that even though they "matched" the colors to the 1:1 subject, scaled down the colors are just to intense for the model. If the colors used were lightened some to compensate for the smaller size of the model the weather would not seem so "intense" and the weathering would be right for the model.