OK... So the Heavy Weathering Guys might be right

[Roadtrp]

I wasn't just a 'tourist' on my recent train trip from Mpls to Chicago and back. I was a GOOD model railroader, and spent a great deal of time observing things along the way that I could apply to my modeling. I probably saw more locomotives and rolling stock up close and personal than I've ever seen in my life.

The Amtrak locomotives and rolling stock were very lightly weathered. One Superliner car had an area where it looked like the silver paint had peeled off to reveal a red primer coat, but other than that they were all pretty clean. Same for the Genesis locomotives. Except for the expected dirt and grime around the trucks, they were pretty clean.

Most of the freight locomotives ranged somewhere between moderately and extremely weathered. There were a few Canadian Pacific locos that seemed to be new or freshly painted, but most of them were moderately to very weathered.

The other road I saw most was the Soo Line. I don't think the Soo Line knows what paint is. Their locomotives were uniformly grungy. They ought to get rid of the White/Red paint scheme and make it gray/brown/black. At least that way you wouldn't notice it so bad.

Freight cars for the most part were extremely weathered. I don't think there is any way you could make a model look worse than some of the rolling stock I saw. Another thing I noticed is that although there was a fair amount of scrawled initials type graffiti, there was very little of the "artistic" graffiti that has been discussed so much here.

Industrial buildings along the tracks were for the most part heavily weathered. Although there were some very well maintained suburban industrial and warehouse buildings, most of the downtown stuff was pretty grim.

Houses tended to fall at the extremes. It seems people either maintain their homes or they don't. There was very little middle ground. The great majority of homes showed virtually no weathering except for some showing streaks on the roofing -- especially on light colored roofs. The relatively few homes that showed weathering typically looked tear-em-down bad.

So that's my take on the weathering I observed on my trip. Since I'm not a big fan of heavy weathering, it makes me happy that I chose to model the suburbs. I can have my buildings look quite realistic with just light weathering. I think I'll have to throw my freight cars in the fire pit in my backyard to get a realistic effect though. I just don't think pastels could make them look crappy enough. [;)][;)]

[Anonymous]

Considering Soo Line no longer exists anymore, the bad paint makes sense. As for peeling paint you might want to look at Southern Pacific's take on it:
http://espee.railfan.net/nonindex/sd40r_photos/7319c_sp-sd40r-dave_henry.jpg

[Roadtrp]

Mario,

Excuse my ignorance, but was the Soo Line purchased by the CP? I was very surprised that the majority of locos I saw on my trip to Chicago were Canadian Pacific. Virtually anything that wasn't CP was very deteriorated Soo Line.

Thanks

-Jerry

[Allen Jenkins]

'SCUSEse ME, I Don't see anything about SP#7319, I would want to demonstrait to anyone! The first thing I thought about was, what would the crew think, of the ride in that junkyard lookin' excuse of a waste of graphics? Headed to the scrap heep? No job security in this potential rust bucket! And by the way, coming from a locomotive modeler, no railroad applies weathering. Belive it or not, no builder spray's dulcoat on the new production engines. All new production locomotive power takes either new emamel, or acrylic paint, and just gets older, by a process called "weathering," which eventiually takes the unit from us in a slow process called "scrap." To model a particular point in time takes a expensive investment into a locked point in time. My first experience in this, was when after a few months running a SCL U33B, I took a tooth brush, and some Dawn dishwashing liquid to the carbody, and was suprised to find the unit actually looked like it was taken through the carwash! Later, I learned, take the gloss side every time, to start, and run the unit into the ground on the merits of the experience, however don't limit the engine to a short life because it was ruined by neglect, (unless of course, You hate it)! Even the Kato's, in CSX, should have been glossed, and then weathered. How many masterpiece paintings do you have in your home that you should spend hundreds of hours observing? How much do you think that the folks who really know to love the Rembrant's, Piccaso's, VanGough's would love to spend to restore these to the month after they were created? Think About Your Hobby.

[Anonymous]

I couldn't really read that, but okay. As for the post about CP purchasing the Soo, that is correct.

[Anonymous]

Nice to see you've been enlightened. That's the one thing about weathering engines, it's never " too" heavy because you will eventually see an engine you just can't believe the RR didn't take care of or pride in.

[philnrunt]

Gentlemen, gentlemen, that SP unit was one of their special "Salute to the Armed Forces" camo paint jobs.
It's just too bad they picked the armed forces of Neptune to salute!

[METRO]

I took the Hiawatha from Chicago to Milwaukee a few months ago and I did notice the massive backlog that CP has in repainting the SOO units. The fact that I still saw an old Bandit out there shows the fact that SOO really didn't know what paint was! The bandits haven't been repainted since the Milwaukee Road went down!

I did notice though that Amtrak has its act together when it comes to paint and cleaning, when I got to the station for my return trip there was a guy out there with a bucket and sponge wiping a mud splatter off of the P40.