General Discussion (Model Railroader)

I just canceled my order with Internettrains yesterday and my order showed up today. Oh well!  I just got home from work so I'm going to wait till this weekend to finishing layout the track, but I do have a question.

I bought a couple of bridges that came in black.  I'm trying to remember when I last saw a black bridge in the southwest. I have seen a lot of red or gray primer bridges. Should I paint the black bridges another color or should I leave them black?

I have two Warren Truss Bridges and two Plate Girder Bridges. They don't look very real to me.

Sleeper--

Bridge color pretty much seems to depend on the owning railroad.  I know that Rio Grande painted their bridges silver, SP pretty much left them black, other railroads used a reddish primer.  I'd say go with what you've seen and are familiar with.  

A color that has worked for me with black bridges is to lightly overspray them with Floquil Boxcar Red, which gives them a nice 'used' color.  But as I said, go with what you see in the area you're modeling. 

Tom

Bridges I have seen have been black (PRR/RDG/B&O), silver (MP), green (UP)or have weathered to show red primer underneath.

Dave H.

BRIDGE PAINTING (and maintenance) is generally left to each particular RR.

RED is gennerally an Orange-Red lead or red oxide, and is geneally an 'as-delivered' primer for RR's to paint over. The 'Golden Gate' bridge (S.F.) was painted in Red Lead for years.

Popular RR colors are BLACK, &  ALUMINUM, with reverse color Lettering.  I remember Santa Fe Girder Bridgese leading out of town over Cermak Rd. as Black with 'billboard' Silver lettering "'Ship & Travel Santa Fe" . Further out-of-town (Harlem Ave - Stickney) they still were still using Wood,.painted with creosote.

If Black bothers you too much, Buy some Floquil  flat  paint you prefer. If you want to decal, use a Gloss paint, and  'dull spray' over it.

http://www.flickr.com/groups/26692467@N00/pool/

Here's some ideas. I used to even see washed out green ones up north in Ohio.

Down here in south east Texas most of the bridges are silver - or rather should I say they were once upon a time... Now they're mostly rust colored with a bit of silver peeking through here and there. And then there are those that you can't tell what color they are because of all the grafitti on them.

Tracklayer

This bridge was originally either gray or black.  I sprayed it Moss Green first, with the "fresh paint" section in silver.  Then it got some rust paint brushed on, and finally a lot of "Instant Rust" because it crosses water.

You don't need fancy equipment to do painting and weathering of bridges.  I use rattle-can spray paint from the hardware store.  Get yourself a can of Dul-Cote from a hobby shop.  It does wonders for taking off that new plastic look.

The MP standard was One coat of Rust O Leum Aluminum paint (with 1 quart of dark blue for every 5 gallons of aluminum) for the first coat and straight aluminum paint for the 2nd coat.

Dave H.

Hi!

While New Mexico and some other SW states love to pretty up their bridges in pastels and "earth tones" - which I think is nice - most of those out of the public eye are still in either black or silver or perhaps a dark green.

May I recommend a color that came out very nice when I used it the other day on a girder supported overhead crane........   Testor's puts out a color called "rubber", obviously intended for use on model car tires and the like.  It is (to my eye) a combination of black with a bit of bronze in it.  The result is a flat blackish finish that IMHO looks great for bridges or any other girder type construction. 

Hey, trust me on this one - & ENJOY !!!!

Mobilman44