I've just finished assembling an Accurail outside braced wood sheathed boxcar and I'm trying to figure out how to weather it. My time frame is 1956 and my research tells me these cars could still be seen on freights at that time but they would have been in service for quite a while by then. The car has a uniform boxcar red paint on both the metal and wood parts. I'm wondering if the braces should show signs of rust or were these braces well maintained with fresh coats of paint? Should the wood sheathing show signs of paint flaking off or would that too be well maintained? Naturally, I intend to have some level of road grime and other typical types of weathering.
I found an older thread about a similar topic:
https://cs.trains.com/mrr/f/88/t/135439.aspx
See pgs 1-15 from this online magazine about how someone built and weathered a boxcar close to your era: https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5be23b9196d455a4b380589c/t/5e9a2288aef03710d3221fc8/1587159718749/April2020mn.pdf
I weather a lot of my rolling stock, as my layout is set in the late '30s, just a little before WWII.
What I've found is that the weathering results can vary, depending on what material or procedure we use, and also on the lighting that's available at any given time. My layout room has no windows (a deliberate omission when I was building my house), but it does have a variety of lighting, and I often use different locations on the layout when I'm taking photos.
The pictures shown below highlight some of the variety that turns-up when the camera takes more than one picture of the same boxcar.
Don't be alarmed that there are some duplicates, as my intention is to show the differences seen by the camera when the views are even slightly different...
Here's two pictures of the same CPR boxcar...
...and two pictures of the same CASO boxcar...
...and two photos of two different Pennsy boxcars...(the first one is based on it's exact prototype, as I was allowed to photograph many of the car's details, including some inside of the car)
...while this one was also based on a photo of its' prototype, which included similar weathering...
This D&H boxar, from Accurail, was weathered to somewhat match a prototype that I saw when railfanning with a longtime friend, who seems to know all sorts of railroaders who allow us entry into places that would normally be off-limits...it does help that he also knows a former railcop, who often comes along on our outings...
This Erie boxcar is (I think) another Accurail offering, that I converted into a doubledoor car...
Here's a Michigan Central boxcar, also from Accurail, that I re-worked from photos of the real car in a book about boxcars...it was pictured shortly before being sent to be rebuilt into an all-steel boxcar...(note the "star" beside the re-weigh data, indicating a limit on the car's capacity before being re-built)...
...Here's the same car, not at all modified, but simply taken in another photo only a few minutes after the one shown above...
Here's another Michigan Central car, but this one is modified Train Miniature car...
(many of these cars were lettered using C-D-S dry transfers)
Here's an Accurail New York Central boxcar...
...I didn't see any reason to over-do the weathering, so it's simply a boxcar that's still in service and in a not-too-bad-condition.
I've always enjoyed Train Miniatures offerings, as they offered a nice contrast to some of the other taller cars, which did make a nice example of the trains I saw on the TH&B when I was a child. Here's one with some weathering which accentuates the way that the riveted panels seemed to be "cupped"....
This Wabash boxcar, parked at the Coffield Washer Machine factory in downtown Dunnville is probably being loaded with washing machines....
For some reason unbeknowst to me, these 50' single-sheathed boxcars, from Walthers, didn't seem to sell all that well when I was at the hobbyshop in St. Catharines, Ontario.However, I did managed to show-up one day when they had just put them on-sale, and was able to pick-up a dozen-or-so at a very affordable price.
This last weathered car is one of three that I scratchbuilt by increasing the height of Train Miniature boxcars, which also included re-scribing portions of the "wooden" sides and also adding "new" sidesills...the TH&B had bought 300 similar cars from the New York Central...
I'll add the last photo when photobucket gets off it's wide white behind and ponies-up with the last of the 15 photos that I attempted to add to my photobucket account.
Wayne
This is my reference picture.
-Photograph by Kevin Parson
I took this picture at a museum in Gillette, Wyoming, and I think it looks a lot like these cars would have appeared in the 1950s, maybe.
-Kevin
Living the dream.
SeeYou190 This is my reference picture. -Photograph by Kevin Parson I took this picture at a museum in Gillette, Wyoming, and I think it looks a lot like these cars would have appeared in the 1950s, maybe. -Kevin
Kevin, having seen how railroad museum pieces are often in a serious state of decline due to limited budgets and staff, I'm not sure that photo is representative of how an outside braced, wood sheathed boxcar would look by the mid-1950s. I've looked online and found lots of colored pictures of outside braced wood sheathed boxcars but its hard to tell if they are museum pieces or contemporary photos of such cars. Many of the ones I've found are Canadian National so I'm wondering if these cars had a longer service life north of the border.
I've yet to find an example of rusted metal bracing. That tells me either the paint stood up well or the bracing was periodically repainted. The wood sheathing on the other hand has a wide range of weathering with some showing the kind of wear in your photo but other photos the wood seems to be in better shape. I think I'm going to go with a middle of the road approach to weathering the wood.
John-NYBW I think I'm going to go with a middle of the road approach to weathering the wood.
I tend to weather things lightly, sometimes too lightly.
Some of my freight cars need to revisit the weathering chamber.
-Keivn
A few observations. My youthful train watching and railfanning was in more or less the last years of single sheathed (called "outside braced" my some model railroaders) boxcars and those were in green hide service, and mind you that was the last step before scrapping.
The steel bracing showed a few dings and dents and a bit of rust but was basically in decent shape. The wood was painted but faded. Sometimes chipped and you'd see hints of bare wood. But the key thing is the car was not too far gone because it still needed to be structurally sound and protect the load.
A few wood reefers were to be seen and now and then even a CB&Q war emergency two bay hopper that still had wood sides. Again this is as of up to 1970 when I went away to college and kind of abandoned real railfanning for a while.
The other thing that should be pointed out is that railroads that had wood cars -- boxcars, war emergency hoppers or gons, or relics from the past in work trains -- also had shops with carpenters. Replacing old wood with new wood did take place, as did repainting. So a 1919 built car still running in 1968 -- something I actually saw at the local tannery -- well that was not necessarily 1919 era wood. Wood running boards in particular needed to be replaced regularly due to safety regulations, but so did wood sides and roofs for very practical reasons. I think that is why wood cars in museums tends to look so worn -- they may not have the skills and they may want to preserve the original materials as long as they can for obvious reasons: they are museums!
When you look at color photos from the 1940s (Jack Delano's in particular) and also color shots from the 1950s as in some of the Morning Sun books, you see plenty of obviously older wood cars, single and double sheathed, that seem very brightly painted and lettered. They higher maintenance a wood car required was one reason railroads were happy to retire them but they DID get that maintenance.
My message is, by all means weather, but don't make it look like a shed on an abandoned farm .
Dave Nelson