Whether to weather.

Is your layout filthy and worn-out looking, or shiny and new like something from an old Lionel advertisement? It seems like the "in" thing in model railroading is, and has been since sometime in the 1960s, to make structures, equipment, and anything else man made appear as used-up as possible.

A used world is apparently a lot of fun to model, and does look quite realistic in the hands of the right craftsman. Furthermore, I suppose it serves as a good showcase of one's modeling skills, as compared with off-the-shelf buildings and equipment.

However, I'm both a fan of vintage advertising art and the idealized world it presents, and a frustrated urban planner. I think I can't be the only one who wants to build a clean, idealized version of the past.

So am I the only one who wants to build the scale equivalent of "Pleasantville", or are there others like me out there?

-Dave

 

David,

I feel the same way when I see a western movie. Even though the temporal setting for the movie is supposedly in the 1800s, the set designers make everything look like it was built in the 10th century.

Everything was new at one time or another, and I see nothing wrong with modelling such a period. For my part, I have many "new" well maintained structures, and I'm quite happy with that look. However, every "present" also has its history, and there's a lot to be said for modelling that, as well. My "modern" town of the '50s is, for example, juxtaposed against a partially dilapidated sawmill, built around the turn of the century. Even the sawmill has some less worn-out features, since its owners have upgradeded and remodeled it over the years.

Same goes for rolling stock. At one time in my career I worked adjacent to the old Pacific Car & Foundry plant, and would daily see brand-new shiny strings of boxcars and mechanical reefers rolling out of the shops and ready to go to work. Nothing wrong with a prosperous railroad with new equipment that gets good care.:tb-wink:
It's your world, so model it the way you like!

Paul

 

The late transition era, which many of us model for various reasons, was a period of decline for the railroads. They didn't spend as much on maintenance, and things tended to get dirty and rusty. Cleaning just wasn't a big priority with businesses that were having trouble just keeping their heads above water. So, a lot of our impressions of railroads have a dirty film over them.

I also like old advertising, and I've put a number of classic advertising icons on my layout. However, they are on buildings and fences, and I've made them up to look the way I remember them - not shiny and bright, but rather worn and weathered as they appear in my memory.

 

In every world you have rain and sun. This works with everything, cars and structures.
Therefore I want to weather my models.

Wolfgang

 

The problem is that unless you model a place where they built an entire town, railroad and all the stock in about 3 days, and set your time as day four, most of the buildings and equipment will have become at least slightly weathered. Even cars/locos that have been through a wash plant will not be clean in the crevices, especially below frame level, unless someone has spent many hours detailing them.

So for 'believability' a small amount of weathering is really essential - pristine plastic trucks look very much like what they are . But it does need a bit of nerve to take the weathering kit to a brand new and expensive model :gulp:

By the by, I am involved in a preserved steam loco (http://www.staniermogulfund.org.uk/). On special occasions she is polished up and pretty, but I don't think she looks right like that. In original service as a freight loco she was mostly covered in grime, and I thinks looks better when she's been run for a week or so without cleaning - she has that air of being in business rather than ornamental.

 

Whenever I see a jaw-dropping photo of a portion of a layout, the one detail that seems to account for about 50% of the head-shaking wonder is the fine weathering. That one time-consuming, and often daunting, task is what separates the excellent imagery from the merely mediocre...for me.

 

Well, as many of you know, I like to have my cake and eat it too

That is one reason I model the C & S in the year they took over the consolidated lines of the previous railroads (1899). That way I can have a real mixture of "out of the shop" new rolling stock and engines and those that had been operating on the line for years...and show it with dirt grime and a little rust. Similarly, my structures will be a bit of old and new because the gold towns of Colorado in 1899 had slowed down only a little and new buildings were still going up, right next to those that had been there from the beginning. Like I say...its my cake and I like to eat it too

 

Everything NEEDS to be weathered

As mentioned in the "normal or real world" (which I don't particularly care for myself ) weathering is something that just happens as much as we try to stop or slow it down. We power wash our house, we paint our house, we rehabilitate buildings, bridges and just about everything in our infrastructure so why should our models be any different? There are some like the great George Selios a pure genius when it comes to model railroading who in my opinion go way over the top when it comes to weathering. His cities look like they have been hit by a toxic waste storm. There isn't a clean anything on the Franklin & South Manchester. Even his little people look like they forgot what soap & water is. Now not being there myself but speaking to friends and relatives who survived the great depression have told me that things just weren't that dingy. That being said weathering is necessary on any scale layout it's just a question of how much is enough or how much is too much. If you model modern railroads such as present day. Railroads are very image conscious so they keep motive power and rolling stock relatively clean as opposed to back in the days of steam power where the only piece of equipment that saw an occasional was brush was a passenger car. Most freight equipment never saw another coat of paint the day after it left the shop when it was brand new.

At present I have some where in the neighborhood of 1200 pieces of rolling stock and around 75 steam locomotives and an equal amount of diesel equipment. Is absolutely every single piece weathered, no of course not. So when I get a friend busting my chops about how hey that coal hopper is too clean and shiny or that reefer unit looks too shiny. I just say yup new equipment usually is that clean, every railroad buys brand new stuff so there. I have settled on using my airbrush and occasionally some real coal dust for weathering and thats it and I tend to go a little on the lighter side.

The bottom line is what you feel looks good or weathered enough for your railroad

 

I guess you would say on this topic I'm middle of the road. I weather some items and not others.
In reference to structures it would depend on where it is. a Building in a open field or area might get a heavier weathering than a building in the midst of the city.
Railroad equipment it depends on what it is and how much I treasure it, least treasured items might get a heavier weathering effect than other items.
I model modern era so as I read in an earlier post within this thread most modern Motive equipment is fairly clean, rollingstock not so clean but then again no heavy weathering effect either

And Brass items get no weathering whatsoever, due to cost of acquisition & or value of pieces

 

I've been through one too many towns here out west where the George Sellios version of reality is spot perfect The place I used to work, harshaw Arizona, have roughly five real buildings left and a couple out buildings - and they ALL look Spot picture perfect for George's world.

Places like that do exist - and we might be seeing more places like it int eh future, given this current financial thing.

 

I've visited the Franklin & South Manchester several times and have met George and had many great conversations about model railroading not to mention leaving more then a few dollars behind, and he will be the first to tell you that his style of weathering isn't for everyone. Now if you look at Howard Zane's Piermont Division he mimics Sellios's style some what but has his own more realistic aspect when it comes to weathering.

If George were modeling the great south west I would definitely agree with you but trust me Boston area is a far cry from Arizona. Now if you were talking about Malcolm Furlow his stuff fits your area to a T. How can you beat using real dirt and lots of it for weathering. Nice work but too much for my taste.

 

George just might not know that he was modeling the west this whole time. He thought he was building boston...and he wasn't!!

 

I like clean-looking rolling stock and locomotives. One way I've justified this on my fictitious bridging route is by saying that we offer the two major railroads that use our line (SP & AT&SF) a "free car wash" (time permitting) as an incentive to them.

2nd reason: pride. Our RR keeps its locomotives reasonably clean simply because it makes our little road look prosperous to potential customers.

I do use Dullcote to take the plastic shine off of new rolling stock, but that's about it, unless I buy a weathered car. If people ask, "why are all the cars new-looking except for that one?" I just answer, "The dirty one just hasn't been through the 'car wash' yet." :tb-wink:

 

A "used world" as you put it, is much more realistic than a shiny, new one. Take a look at a real railroad and its physical plant. While it isn't typically dilapidated, it certainly isn't 'clean."

One of the easiest ways to tell a model from reality in a photo is that most models are not weathered, or not realistically weathered, which screams, "Model!" Nothing that works for a living is spotless and new-looking.

Your line about off-the-shelf buildings suggests you also don't approve of kitbashing or scratchbuilding.

Why not?

 

A very profound statement

I hate to keep hogging this post but I had to share what has to be a simple but pretty accurate observation from a non-railroad person my wife or as she herself a model railroad widow. (She's actually better with weathering chalks then I am) She just said to me weathering your trains is like jewelry on a woman, just the right amount tastefully done makes a good thing look better or accents it where as a lot of it makes it look gaudy and cheap. I'd say she pretty much summed it up.

 

Oh, I certainly agree 100% that a completely clean and new-looking layout would not look nearly so realistic as a properly weathered one. I guess that doesn't bother me for my own purposes. Perhaps I'm coming at model railroading from a different angle than the typical modeler.

My inquiry was simply whether anyone was modeling that way (unweathered), as I was considering it myself. I guess the way I feel is that I live in the real world, and it is dirty, but sometimes I'd like to go create something perfect and nice. Something that looks like the way an advertising artist in the '30s or '40s tried to portray the world, rather than the way it actually looked. Call me a control freak, I guess.

No! No! I love kitbashed and scratchbuilt structures and equipment. I'm sorry if I gave that impression. I think that's one of the most fascinating and inspiring aspects of railroading. I will admit that I'm a bit intimidated by it myself, as I've ruined my fair share of scale models over the years (mostly 1/25-scale cars, but some armor and airplanes too) and deeply regret the nice models that went to waste because of me.

And you can see I'm still interested in it. If you look in the HO forum, you'll see I asked a scratchbuilding question a couple days ago regarding streamlined locomotives. I'm a big fan of the DIY ethos - if something you want isn't available, build it!

My point with the comment about off-the-shelf stuff was that I wondered if some people saw weathering as a way to differentiate the things on their layouts from off-the-shelf products: i.e. an unweathered building looks like a toy and modelers don't like that.

-Dave