My Opinions.


I certainly don't think a coat of Dull Coat will hurt anything; however, I don't find freight car kits to be needing a coat as they are painted in appropriate colors with flat finishes. If Dull Coat would help when applying weathering powders, this would seem to make some sense. I use Dull Coat to seal weathering powders to my freight/passenger cars. However, I mostly use washes of Acrylic paints to weather, now.

Looking at photos of freight and passenger equipment appropriate for your era should show real weathering jobs from very limited to extreme and depending on condition where the cars are used, new cars can look like they are decades old. Passenger equipment will not be as weathered as freight equipment, because passenger stuff is washed regularly. Freight equipment may never be washed in it's lifetime! To make declarative statements like: "This is how it was!" is O.K. if that's how you feel about it. Many people will probably disagree with you, however!
 
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Since this looks like its the end of this Thread, everybody's opinions count.

F&SM Photo 2.jpeg
F&SM Photo Source Unknown-

An example of weathering that makes the scene look real and prototypical.

- I agree with everyone.
-Unknown

Greg
 
I'm a well weathered 56 year old and nearby here is an old wooden house that I really need to get a picture of because it really shoots down the notion one can "over weather" anything.

My neighborhood, while a kid, (50s and 60s), was a collection of two distinct styles of twin homes. Most were impeccably maintained, save one that had not seen a fresh coat of paint since the home was built in 1915. The trees and hedges were over grown, and the fences, were rotten or falling apart. The appearance made this particular house stand apart from the rest, and to replicate it, one would have to "over weather". There would be no alternative.

Over all, rail cars back then were mostly oxidized and had a dusting of road dust. Ore cars, due to the nature of their service, were generally grungy, or coated with an insulation that became a dirt magnet. No way to lightly weather them.

it's pretty much situational, and the test is the eye of the beholder.

Boris
 
Over Weathered.....?

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Greg
No it isn't over weathered.

But.... Ore cars show up at mines, and then ore processing plants, Both of those "customers" have no expectation of clean cars. These cars usually are essentially "captive" to one railroad.

When a boxcar shows up at a kitchen appliance factory I would think that the factory would react badly to nasty looking cars. Especially when the town has more than one railroad to chose from.
 
Correct on all accounts....

I cut off at 1956 and I 98-percent keep to it with the trains. Same with autos and trucks. One exception I can think of is a little white model of the Jeep Gladiator pickup truck that didn't really come out until 1963. But hardly anyone would know that date or even what the truck was.


Off topic...
I had one of those trucks when they called them the J10 and with the AMC 401 it was good for over 200,000 miles and left its tracks all over the west shooting trains.
 

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I have a video made about the former Wisconsin Central and I believe that the WC management's theory was to keep their cars clean especially for their paper and paper product customers. The paper industry is a major player in parts of Wisconsin with the amount of forest products that are available.



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A lot of their cars were former SOO box cars.

Greg
 
Paper rolls are high-value and easily damage-able, so shipping paper requires clean cars with interiors in top shape. Plug doors that make for a nice smooth interior wall when closed are also common on paper cars. (The particular WC car shown in the post above is actually a newer car built in the 1990s, but they did certainly begin operations with a large fleet of equipment acquired from SOO Line).

These cars pretty much have to keep in good condition (although the exterior can still weather and rust).

You get some really interesting modern-day cars assigned to wood pulp service (an intermediate semi-processed paper product) with sliding doors and covered vents cut into the sides and/or roof to let out moisture from the pulp load. Usually these are older cars that have been rebuilt, often also raising the roof to increase interior height on older cars.

General service cars just need a good water tight body. I've seen some pretty rusty looking cars still in their original 30-40 year old paint job with multiple updates to the car's reporting marks/number as it changes hands in second-hand ownership.

It does actually make for an interesting variety.

Modeling any of the above is entirely a personal choice though.
 
Chris: Is that a photograph of the Algoma Scenic Rail in your blog?

I enjoyed the ride and the stay in Canada. Beautiful county and the train ride was perfect. We met by total accident our company's marketing director and her husband at the destination stop of the train. Unknown to me that she was going to take the trip and be in Canada the same days we planned on visiting.

I have a Proto I believe SW1200 painted for the Algoma Central that I purchased new at a hobby shop and then installed front/rear ditch lights and DCC. It's the only model I've seen of this type for the Algoma Central.

Greg
 



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