Base color for a freight yard. I know that MR videos and articles use flat brown latex paint base for hills, meadows, areas near tracks, etc. What base color is recommended when doing a freight yard area - freaight yard, engine servicing terminals, etc. Thanks
A very dark gray or grimy black is good for around the engine terminal, then lighter in the yard itself. Model Master FS 36076 Panzer Gray 1950 is a good reference color. It works well for the yard color, then you can overspray it with dashes of flat black in the engine terminal to darken it more.
Mike Lehman
Urbana, IL
I usually use Gypsolite for "natural" surfaces, because the gritty texture gives me an irregular finish that I like. It's normally gray, but I mix in some brown craft paint to get a tan color. Then I add various colors of turf and ground foam scenic material.
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
I'm not sure the color matters much. Ground cover material will probably make the scenery base invisible. If you have any raw plaster or foam, at least paint it with something to disguise it, but it's not really critical what color you choose.
The only areas in this yard that were painted before applying ground cover were right around the tracks where they got overspray from the track. The base here is Homasote over plywood, and whatever wasn't painted was already a neutral gray. None of the base material variation is visible in the final scene.
Rob Spangler
I have used sifted garden soil, beach sand, and just paint. I have also used patching plaster and ground goop. I have painted some of it black, and some of it grey, and some a tanned colour, particularly the goop or plaster. I have found it all to be realistic, particularly viewed near eye level, and especially when scenicked with at least two flavours of ground foam. I have used cinders as well. They need to be dulled with craft paint or held in place with matte medium. They are too shiny as purchased from W/S.
Experiment. Mix it up and try just 'bout anything you can think of. You'd be amazed at how realistic some hairbrained ideas for scenery turn out to be. If it's an abject flop, knock it out and try something else.
Assuming you live where you can reach a prototype railroad in an urban area without too much of a drive, just tour around and photograph some yards (from overbridges or public roads, please.) Then make prints and take them with you when you go shopping for paint and ground foam. Can't get much more accurate than that.
Lacking that, check the color photos in Trains and/or rail industry mags. You want to copy the prototype, not some other modeler's interpretation of the prototype.
Google images are another valid source of data on the real thing.
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964 - from my own photos)
I used a dark latex earth color as a base and then used dry black tempora paint to give it a grimy look.
Grampys TrainsI used a dark latex earth color as a base and then used dry black tempora paint to give it a grimy look.
Nice backdrop sky by the way !!!