I'm befuddled about weathering

[FJ and G]

Hope you don't mind me posting some "scale" stuff in this toy train venue:

You know what they say about the weather (except in San Diego): it's always changing.

Same with weathering toy trains. I've been trying to find a pattern for weathering by watching the prototype at NS & CSX tracks. There seems to be some cars clean, others with grafitti, and others with dust or rust, and the dust or rust isn't consistent. Often it is streaked or for some reason is in patches or is assymetrical; or is peppered all over.

When I view modeler's weathering work, it looks a bit too consistent. For instance, every car is weathered with no clean ones, or the dust is placed just by the wheels, or the rust comes down in streaks but not splotched.

Also, there are dents in some of the real cars but few in the models I see.

Dave Vergun

[Big_Boy_4005]

It is an interesting subject, and what I saw recently in OGR, leads me to believe that the practice is gaining acceptance among 3 railers.

I have always felt that weathering was not a good idea for some cars, but acceptable and even desirable for others. I would not consider it for Lionel pieces unless they were non collectable, but anything from Atlas or Weaver was fair game.

I am a big fan of graffiti, and have posted topics about it over on the MR forum in the past.

If you are looking for ideas or techinques the MR fourm may be the better place to look, as there have been many topics over there. I did a search of all the forums but there is no way to link the results. Use advanced to search all of the forums, and the word weathering, and you will get pages.

[pbjwilson]

I've weathered some of my MTH cars just because some are just to shiney.
Especially if the car is made of "wood". Also brings out alot of details.

[Anonymous]

Hi David,

Well, I don't weather anything. That's why I like toy trains. I just open the box and play with it.