You guys all laughed at me way back when I warned you that soon locomotive engineers would be as scarce as buggy harness? Now we got young girls standing out in the rain running real locomotives by remote control, just like I said! You will also live to see passengers zipping along with no railroad personnel on board at all. Because computers never make a mistake, nor have a glitch, the passengers will be super safe, always arriving on time. Yeah, right. You think we have problems with model railroads, think about what the real railroads go through, but at least they do have better weathering and graffiti than we do!
I'm intrigued to see these cars for a very simple reason, I'm underwhelmed with 99% of people's weathering on their models. There, I said it. In particular with engines, but cars as well. Most models lack the proper level of glossy in the underlying paint which makes the whole thing look fake. about the only ones I'm impressed by regularly are SP diesels, because those things have no luster in real life either. Part of it's lighting as well, but I find the dullcoat of most models is the thing that most screams model in pictures. Why did I say that? I don't know, we were talking about always learning new things and I think there's a lot of work that needs to be done in realistic paint jobs. It's something one would have to spend a lot of time on and frankly some people would rather run their trains or build their scenery. If you happen to desire to be a Model Railroad rennesance man, then I support you and I hope the manufacturers do too, but that's your choice. Also, from now on, I've decided that if it didn't at least come from a shake the box kit, or better yet is a kit bash or scratch build, then you're not really a model railroader. There I said it. It's my way or the highway. I define what this hobby is or isn't!
YoHo is correct - most models are way to dull. I love to watch videos from the 1950 to 1960 era of the B&O, and the gloss on the engines is very noticable - even steam engines. Most "experts" always say that the first thing you need to do is spray everything with dull coat - but it is not prototypical in most cases. Railroads in the 50's and 60's frequently ran their equipment through wash racks, and in particular most passenger equipment had glossy paint. I think we need to "gloss over" in our modeling more than we do in a lot of cases!
If we out shopped an engine without running it through the Hot Oakite Wash, we caught HE(double Golf Clubs) from the House Boss! The House rule was to 'make her shine like new'! If we couldn't remove all the 'weathering grime', we had to re-paint it! The paint was glossy black. That's for real, so see, there is a 'prototype' for all of us, not all railroads accepted dull dirty equipment. Any of us who actually worked for a railroad, ARE REAL railroaders and proud of it!
