Many articles onbpainting track use Railroad Tie Brown, straight out of the bottle, or doctered up. It looks dark to me, considering I am working on a model fo the New Haven, a road that ( in my time) was strapped for money and thus, all the ties on their tracks that I remember, were a lighter shade of brown, as they advanced in age toward being wore out. I am thinking of something like Cocoa Brown; just curious if anyone has gone that route, deviating from the 'norm'.
LION typically uses grey, black and brown. Him puts a little puddle of each on a styrofoam cup lid and then uses the brush of him to dabble it on so that there is no discenrable uniform color.
Mostly him uses black, since him models subway tunnels, and every thing that is not on the platform is mostly 100 years of black.
ROAR
The Route of the Broadway Lion The Largest Subway Layout in North Dakota.
Here there be cats. LIONS with CAMERAS
I painted all my track with Roof Brown then went back with rust and gray and faded these colors into places. The guard rails at turnouts are painted rust. and I useda lighter gray wash to paint on some ties to make them look older.
NP 2626 "Northern Pacific, really terrific"
Northern Pacific Railway Historical Association: http://www.nprha.org/
I usually paint the track color in relation to where it is at. Main line, yard, industry, how often used and so forth. In this shot the double track main line is a dirty grey in the forground, then a gravel road, two storage tracks, with a rusty buff ballast and rail. The track you can't see, that goes into the building on right and infront of dock area, is across the brick street and is close to the storage track color. This is just a small section, of a 15ft long industrial area.
Take Care!
Frank
Here's another shot of area close to the first:
You can use just about any color that's sort of close for a base coat, then add weathering with washes and/or dry-brushing on top of that.
This track was first sprayed with Rustoleum dark brown camouflage, then weathered with acrylics. Additional weathering was added with both acrylics and pastel chalk after ballasting was complete.
This track was handled the same way.
Rob Spangler
Rob, and others...after a base color do you paint the ties additionally before or after ballsting?
Paul
Modeling HO with a transition era UP bent
Go to "Google Street Level" stop on a level crossing of your favourite railway and look right and left and see how many colours there actually are on the ties, rails and ballast. You can even print off a photo and take it to the train room.
Just don't stay there too long, you might get hit by a train.
Brent
"All of the world's problems are the result of the difference between how we think and how the world works."
I got pictures of the rails in the exact area I'm modeling, grabbed a ton of "that's sort of the right shade" paint cards from the house paint section at Lowe's, and opened the pictures on a color calibrated monitor and did the compare and contrast thing until I found the color I liked. Also found out the rails and ties were the same color, sort of. Then I went back to Lowe's to get my Chocolate Brown paint (in the sample size, which was more than enough).
peahrensRob, and others...after a base color do you paint the ties additionally before or after ballsting?
I do both.
All this track was initially painted the same color. I left the main and siding as-is, but the secondary tracks on either side received washes and dry-brushed acrylic tan craft paint. With any given brush load, there's more paint to apply at first and progressively less as I go. I use this to vary intensity of paint application between ties.
Once the ballast is glued, I go back with more acrylic and/or chalks to finish up. Again the amount and color of additional weathering depends on the track.
Things like rust staining and fuel spills that would affect the ballast are entirely done after ballasting. Note how the weathering here differs between the main, industry tracks, and the engine service track. This scene isn't complete, but the basic appearance of the track is more or less established.