BigRusty wrote: On my last layout I hand laid all my track using code 100 NS rail which I prepainted using a 3 foot plank of plywood. The trick is to paint it first. I laid the rail on its side butted tightly head to base as many as fit on the plank. Upside down masking tape was used at both ends and a couple in the middle to hold them in place. I then airbrushed the sides with Floquil Rail Brown. Next I made a thinned rust and waved randomly over the rails and followed it up with a dark grey. I did both sides, but stayed away from the ends.I used Clover house wood ties which I separated into six batches and started the first batch with a dark creosote brown black and gradually thinned and lightened it with each batch I died the last batch a greyish white to look like very old ties ready for replacement. I put all of the batches together in a brown paper bag ang and shook them up to randomize them and just laid them as they were picked out of the bag. I made stacks of both new and the old ties along the ROW.I have just purchased my first code 83 flex track. UGH! Black ties and silver rails. I plan to over spray the ties first a creosote black-brown and then going cross wise will spray various ties in random colors ranging to the light gray. I will then mask the ties and spray the rails the same techniquue as used on the individual rails. The secret is, to do it BEFORE you lay ANY track. If this is too much work, I plan to go with the ME weathered flex. Without weathered rail, it looks just like what it is. And you all KNOW what that is.
On my last layout I hand laid all my track using code 100 NS rail which I prepainted using a 3 foot plank of plywood. The trick is to paint it first. I laid the rail on its side butted tightly head to base as many as fit on the plank. Upside down masking tape was used at both ends and a couple in the middle to hold them in place. I then airbrushed the sides with Floquil Rail Brown. Next I made a thinned rust and waved randomly over the rails and followed it up with a dark grey. I did both sides, but stayed away from the ends.
I used Clover house wood ties which I separated into six batches and started the first batch with a dark creosote brown black and gradually thinned and lightened it with each batch I died the last batch a greyish white to look like very old ties ready for replacement. I put all of the batches together in a brown paper bag ang and shook them up to randomize them and just laid them as they were picked out of the bag. I made stacks of both new and the old ties along the ROW.
I have just purchased my first code 83 flex track. UGH! Black ties and silver rails. I plan to over spray the ties first a creosote black-brown and then going cross wise will spray various ties in random colors ranging to the light gray. I will then mask the ties and spray the rails the same techniquue as used on the individual rails.
The secret is, to do it BEFORE you lay ANY track. If this is too much work, I plan to go with the ME weathered flex. Without weathered rail, it looks just like what it is. And you all KNOW what that is.
Watch that pre painting when you get to your flex track. The ties will move when you lay the track and leave little unpainted spots where the spike heads moved. You'll have to go back and touch it all up then.
Yep!
Painting rails (and the rest of the track) is key in helping make Code 80 N scale track look a little less toy-like:
Modeling the Rio Grande Southern First District circa 1938-1946 in HOn3.
I hand-paint the sides of my HO code 83 rails a mix of Poly S rail brown and rust, just kind of mixed randomly. I put a couple different mixtures in some paint cups and alternate the cup I use so the sides of the rails are not uniform.
I have three airbrushes and have used them extensively but for track I prefer hand-painting.
I follow Dave Frary's suggestion for a paint mix as discussed in his 1001 scenery tips book.
I then go back and paint random ties with a lighter mixture. That one step makes a world of difference in breaking up the uniformity. This was Frary's suggestion, not my brilliance.
As a final step, I go back with Poly S rust and just touch the tops of the spikes and the spike bed.
It takes time to do this - I can usually do a 6-9 foot section in about 45 minutes. I don't paint the sides of any rail that cannot be seen normally. Once I've finished a section, a couple of passes with a Bright Boy removes the slop on top of the rail.
I have learned that is NOT a good idea to paint all of the rail on the points-end of switches. It is guaranteed to cause you all kinds of problems. It is a bear to get the paint out of there.
Have to concur with Big Rusty, ease of weathering is an advantage of handlaid track. Any prototype rail left outside will quickly turn a non-silver color on the sides in a matter of a few weeks.
In my case, I painted the rail beforehand with a small brush using cheap Testor's model paint. Ties (when I wasn't using natural redwood) were stained in small lots with various colors. Then the lots were mixed together.
After laying the ties, I always sanded the tops to get a flat surface to lay the rail. But because no rail had been layed yet, it was very easy to touch up the ties (and ballast) to get just the final appearance I wanted. Note that ballast was added after the ties but before any rail. Another nice aspect of this construction sequence is that at almost any given point, the scene on the layout looked like a prototype track construction site. The only part out of order was ballast after ties.
When I use flex/sectional track, it is always put in place with the thought I will later come back and handlay the visible scenes, so I don't bother with weathering commercial track.
just my thoughts
Fred W
I do....N scale code 55. Painted concrete ties with rust colored rails.
This is Polly Scale "Railroad Tie Brown". On sidings, I use Floquil "Rust"
modelalaska wrote:Excellent job on the weathering of your rails Karlb. That is one of the best jobs I have seen. Could you fill us in on your method?Peter
Its just a little Floquil Rail Brown applied with a 1/4 inch brush usually. Sometimes I get real ambitious and use my airbrush, but the result is close to the same. Nuttin fancy! Thanks for noticing One little hint to pass along. If you can, walk a mile of track in the area you are modeling. Notice the colors of the rails, tie plates,and ties. Sand on grades too. See what colors you can add here and there to make your track even better suited to your modeling!
R. T. POTEET wrote:I detail the right of way by taking a three foot length of rail, cutting it to a (scale) thirty-nine foot length, heavily rusting it, and then laying it randomly on the ballast as I frequently observe on railfan outings along the prototype's right-of- way.
I like this!
There are many variations of the same.
To some extent they depend on RR, location and era.
39'rail length is most comon for the USA but, if you model the modern stuff, you could solder lengths of rail together (end on) and lay them in pairs down the middle of the track or down one side. Then again you have a choice of one each side or one one side and one down the middle. Thgis gives you have ribbon rail that has been dropped ready for use - if you paint is a consistant dark grey (really new) or darkgrey/brown - OR you can have a load of ribbon rail that has been taken out and is waiting collection - this is all the rail and dirt colours. These days old ribbon rail seems to be more frequently sheared into manageable lengths and sent for melting. The way it is sheared leaves to ends angled from mid rail toward the end sloped from head to foot. A chunk about 6"-9" of rail head often gets left behind. You can twist your ankle on these lumps When the rail is new it is almost always dropped (gently) or placed upright. Old rail tends to be tipped on its side. I guess that you would glue these rails down. If there were any problem of movement with a long length I would put a pin into the roadbed and solder the rail to it before painting/weathering. New rail often has "chalk" marks on it - at least at the ends. Old rail tends to get sprayed with road-line marker - both to highlight/warn of the ends and to mark break points ... so that the machine operator can see the break intervals fast in the dark... each break also ends up with at least some paint on it as well.
Lengths of ribbon rail almost always end with an expansion joint on the real thing. This isn't a mere gap between rail ends but a thing ike two switch blade points face to face in each rail. The inside blades are fixed while the outside blades can slide. Anyone got a photo they can post?
Concerning color it depends on the location of the track and what era the layout is set in. ie:if it is the modern era out in the desert by a flange oiler there probably won't be alot of rust but the rail will be the color of the local dust plus the grease from the flange oiler. Backwoods engine shed 1920? I bet the rail was black, along with the ties. Also track from the steam era was a different color than from the modern era.
Out in the wonderful midwest, the track dont weather and there is always the smell of fresh spring flowers the air!!! ;) Thats my story and I am sticking to it.
Paul
Dayton and Mad River RR (Yes its in the Midwest...how did you guess?)
I do weather my rails. I weather both sided as you never know what will show up when you are using a camera. I do have a very short tripod and I do take pictures up against the wall sometimes, and the back side of the rails are visible then. It is just so much easier to do both sides at the same time rather than have to go back and finish the job. I use an old boxcar to spread a little fine oil on the tops of the rail. A small drop on each rail spread over about ten feet of track, mask between the rails and the outsides of the rails. I then use an airbrush. I have a bottle of paint that gets the last little bit of paint from a paint jar that is empty. The color comes out kind of brownish/black depending on what paint was dumped in there last. I strain the paint through used pantyhose, add thinner to get the consistancy correct, then soon after being done I pull up the tape, and scrape the still soft paint off the rails. It comes up pretty easy since a fine film of oil was put down before spraying. After the rail dries about 5 days it is once again my weekend and time to play with the train. I use a centerline track cleaner and/or a pink pearl eraser to clean up any remaining oil or tape residue before it gets spread on all my wheels and all over the train layout. That being said it does not detract from my enjoyment of someones layout if the rails are not painted. You are the President of your railroad, there is no right or wrong on your layout. If it is fun do it. If it is boring, tedious or beyond your abilities put it on the to do later list.
Dayton and Mad River RR
Looks like I'm the minority... Hopefully I won't give in to peer pressure
From the far, far reaches of the wild, wild west I am: rtpoteet
I did just a few feet of track one day "just for kicks" to see what it would look like. The improvement was so HUGE, I've done much more and will ultimately do the whole layout. I think it may be the single most impressive thing you can do for the overall appearance of the layout. And I find it to be really enjoyable too! I'm not much of an artist, so I find it to be much more fun than stuff that requires me to be a little more meticulous.
Obviously, I did mine after the track was laid. And I think that adds to the quality of the appearance since the rust and discoloration spots spill onto the earth as they would in real world. I just use watered down acrylics. Works fine. Looks fine.
Micro Engineering do bottles of whatever stuff it is they use to weather their pre-weathered track. I haven't used it yet but I imagine that you can just wash it on with a cotton bud on a stick. As it actually chemically colours the rail rather than puts a coat of paint on it, it should be a lot less effort than painting.
(I don't know how this stuff gets on with other makers tie material).
If you have a big fixed layout you only need to do the sides of the rails that will show in photos. This should save you a whole heap of time and effort.
It is amazing how little judicious detailing will make a model look more real in a photo. Very often we tend to think that if we start to detail we must do every single millimetre. What we need to do is get most of it right up to the level that the eye/brain takes for granted and then add little things that stand out.
In this way a replaced tie with disturbed ballast brings a whole length of track to life. Whether the old tie is left at the trackside is a question of era and taste.
I model the Southern Pacific and if I didn't at least give it a bit of weathering the trains would look like they were on a foriegn RR. On the other hand since the UP has taken over the maintainance in my area the track along with ballast looks well groomed.
So, yes I do paint my track. It helps to tie the scene together if you ask me.
Although most of the track looks dingy black I have seen a few locations where it was brown leaning towards rust. Its all in your personal experiences and desires if you ask me.
John
On my last layout I painted my ties and weathered my rail and as others have said, it makes a world of difference.
On this layout, I've bought my HOn3 flex track pre-weathered. However, I feel that it is a little too dark and will probably end up re-weathering the rail after I paint the plastic ties.
-George
"And the sons of Pullman porters and the sons of engineers ride their father's magic carpet made of steel..."
I haven't yet, mainly because what I've seen in the model press looks to be weathered way more than would be allowed to happen on a running train line. To my eye, if the prototype was a rusty as what shows in model magazines, I'd wonder how the rail is strong enough to support a train. It may be the way pictures print, it may be lighting, I don't know. I don't doubt that there are rails somewheres in the US that look and are really rusty, I just don't see that much here in the East (NJ,PA,NY). Gray, yes. Splashed with dirt, yes.
But back to the spirit of the question. For those that do weather rail, do you do both sides (front and back) if all you can see is the front? Do you do all the rails in turnouts (guard, frog, points, etc.)? And do you weather the rail before you install it on the layout? Seems that it would be easier to do before hand (I'm using Atlas code 83 with the brown ties, so I don't have to necessarily do ties).
de N2MPU Jack
Proud NRA Life Member and supporter of the 2nd. Amendment
God, guns, and rock and roll!
Modeling the NYC/NYNH&H in HO and CPRail/D&H in N
I do In HO and OO
Modelling the UK in 00, and New England - MEC, B&M, D&H and Guilford - in H0
I do. Normally, I use a brush and paint the rails and ties the same color. I also use different colors for the mains, branchlines and industrial tracks.
Nick
Take a Ride on the Reading with the: Reading Company Technical & Historical Society http://www.readingrailroad.org/
I'll be the first to chime in and say I don't. I'm building my first layout, so it doesn't bother me.
An application with a cue tip & alcohol (to remove oil) then Some dirty roof brown with a small brush applied to the sides, makes a big difference.
Oversized rails look smaller - more prototypical - and it's so simple! Any 'slop' spots on tops come off easily with a brite boy.
Step Two is to pint paint ties different shades of dulling gray / brown. Ties age differently. Seldom are they all same shade of brown. Do a section of track, and see.