"Guilty as charged Your Honor. The yards on my layout has been running for years with unpainted track and it doesn't look right." If this has happened to you, never fear. You too can paint your track and make your yard look more prototypical. As I am changing the layout back to the late 1970s era, I noticed that my yards are empty! Excellent opportunity to paint track, except I hate painting track. AND I am one of those guys who leave those unsightly gaps where pieces of track meet and no ties are present. Putting those ties in is work as is the painting. BUT the yards are empty . . . . So I got off of my butt (can we say that here?) and started putting ties in Rosedale and the MKT Glen Park yard recently. THEN I started painting track! Simply amazing. Once I started painting I noticed a couple of things. First the track looked infinitely better without those shiney rails. Second, I got a little crazy with the paint and painted in between the tracks where scenery (or bare plywood) would normally be. Third (bonus), the way the track looks now, I am not in a big hurry to ballast it yet. Good thing. I haven't decided on a ballast color yet. For now it looks great and buys me some time before installing all that ballast. And if all this wasn't enough, the cars look more realistic sitting in a painted yard. The gift that keeps on giving. A few notes on painting. I am using Floquil Rail Brown with my Paashe airbrush to paint with. I am also doing it in small sections and using a respirator. I am cleaning the rail head with (1) old T-shirt strips wrapped around a wood block and soaked in odorless mineral spirits then (2) lightly buffing with an electrical contact cleaner I got from WW Grainger. I have moved on to the MKT Glen Park Yard and will have that yard all painted by tonight then it's on to the 19th St Yard. Funny how emptying the yards motivated me to paint them. I wonder what it will take to get me to ballast them?
At the risk of reducing your motivation, Rick...I'd not noticed that either 19th St., Rosedale or Glen Park had unpainted rails when I visited last year! The motive power, rolling stock and supporting buildings simply drew my eyes away from the sparkling rails. I think I do recall that the Tower 4 interlocking was unpainted, but I figured it was to highlight the exquisite trackwork job. That said...I do think that a good track paint job can really enhance the overall feel of the layout. I appreciate your sharing your technique (copying-pasting instructions so that we can do the same). Best Regards,
When Paul Dolkes gave his clinic on his new RR in Tulsa last September he covered the exact same subject that Rick just did. He too suggested spray painting the track a solid color (I believe tht he chose Railroad Tie Brown) and had a before and after slide of the difference that it made. His new layout probably along with this very suggestion is the cover story of the new Model Railroad Planning 2010 which is due out later this month. Rick, you referenced using rail brown. Is that the same thing as Railroad Tie Brown and did you use regular Floquil paint or Polly Scale?
To Paint or Not To Paint? That is the question. Whether it is better to be prototypical and paint your track, or for the sake of operation, leave it shiny and untouched? Personally, I like the Code 83 track, but I don't paint my rails because of the hassle in doing it without causing operational problems, especially at switch contacts. Also, I am always wiping my track off with rail cleaner before and after running trains, and over time the stuff eats off the paint anyway. Just my opinion. Stay Warm! George|-|
I never painted my track, but I think the folks who do paint track, don't paint the tops of the rails. They mask them with cardboard or some such... Tom
I have used both colors and found that Rail Brown is lighter and a little more orange. Tie Brown is a dark brown slightly lighter than Grimey Black. I like the lighter color in yards (less maintenance) and the darker tie color for the mainline. I paint the ties, track ground, my left hand, heck just about everything. I make sure the rail is covered well but less concerned about complete coverage on ties and scenery where uneven colors are expected. When I get close to the backdrop or something I don't want to paint I use a large piece of cardboard as a backing to catch my overspray. Cleaning the rail heads with a cloth stretched over a wood block and soaked in odorless mineral spirits works well for me. After I wipe off the biggest part of the paint, I buff the railheads with an electrical contact cleaner and that works pretty fast for me.
I offer an additional thought with regard to rail, and that is the variation of rail color based on the era that one models. During the time when friction bearing journals were the norm, a lot of oil found its way to the rail, and tracks that were more heavily traveled had a coat of oil on them. Hence they tended to be on the black side of things, while the the color of rail, post friction-bearing, is on the brown(rusty) side of things. (This is also true of freight car wheels) In Don's photo of the Cuba, MO depot (see link below), note the color of the mainline rail and compare it to the color of the rail on the side track; the the field side of the rail is more oily than the gauge side. Also note the turnout in the foreground, and one can see that the switch points are oily. They are oiled on a regular basis by the trackmen. http://www.frisco.org/shipit/index.php?attachments/cuba-mo-jpg.3736/
Not sure how inspiring this will be but here goes. . . . The first photo shows the painted track in Rosedale (looking NE) with 1970s rolling stock. This yard is painted with Floquil Rail Brown. The second photo shows another view of Rosedale looking SE. I airbrushed in both directions (L and R) to get this coverage. Otherwise the ties will block some of the spray. The third photo show a close up of the track so you can see the color a little better. I also paint from the back side as well because a lot of my track can be view from both sides. Notice how it even works for ground cover in between the tracks. The fourth photo is in the MKT Glen Park Yard and shows both painted and unpainted track. This track is painted with more Floquil Rail Brown. If this doesn't motivate, nothing will. The fifth photo is the Bunge Elevator the switch lead at Glen Park. This photo shows how nice the Rail Brown blends in with my latex green paint (initial ground cover until I get to real scenery).
Sherrel, I selected a green with quite a bit of yellow in it to simulate midsummer grass. I checked the paint can and it did not have a formula on it but I can compare a sample of it to the paint chips at Home Depot. Stay tuned and I can get this for you. I really don't like the looks of bare plywood so base coats of earth, grass, etc are great stand-ins until you can get to the textured scenery phase of your layout. Don't let it go too long though or it will accumulate and show dust. Scenery doesn't show dust unless it has a LOT of dust on it.
OK my base color of green is Behr S-H-390 Italian Olive. Home Depot carries Behr and I simply used their interior latex paint. Hope this helps.
tell me if this theory is wrong, but I think it would be better to use like a raw or burnt umber to simulate dirt.
Back to the 70s. I actually started out in the 70s because that was the time period that I started noticing and modeling the Frisco, especially the late seventies while I was in college in my hometown Springfield.|-| One of my modeling/operating philosophies is to run multiple eras. I really don't want to build another layout but with careful track and structure planning, all one has to do is switch equipment, autos and billboards to change eras. And besides the equipment from the 1970s was great with GP15-1s, SD40-2s, GP38s, O/W cabooses, etc. But then four unit lashups of F units, steam, passenger service, oil trains and 40 ft cars from the late 1940s is pretty cool too. Quite simply, I like both periods. The most interesting thing, I think, about doing multiple eras is that it can be done even easier on smaller layouts. That way the layout never gets old !
Then you can place some cattle, some farm hands, a mower, a bailer, and a hay truck on it! I once had a layout that looked like Mount St Helen's exploded over it!
