Steam weathering questions


ICG/SOU

ICG/SOU

HO & O (3-rail) trainman
I've only really seen current working steam and preserved static displays, so my experience is limited.

I have two steam locos (Bachmann 2-10-2 and P2K Heritage 0-6-0) that I want to lightly weather, and to me, lightly weathering is some dullcote, painting the wheelsets, couplers and trucks. I know that steam locos were generally more cared for than the modern diesels, but what I don't know is/were railroads painting their loco tender wheelsets and couplers, or were they mandated to keep them paint free to find cracks?

I figure that trucks will still be maintained.

What about wooden bits (like wooden footboards on the pilot)? Would they be kept fresh with paint?

Thanks again for your help.
 
Lightly weathered steam is kind of an oxymoron ;) You have to consider what a filthy thing a steam engine was. John Pryke did some pretty good articles on steam in MR, one of which was how to weather a steamer. They tend to acccumulate different kinds of crud in different places than diesels.

I would suggest a flat coat first. Light dust on the tender trucks, the lead & trailing trucks & drivers. Light soot on the smokebox, and over the top of the boiler. Water stains on the tender deck by the water filler hatch(es). Some hard water stains around the steam dome, as well as the whistle & pop valves. Some engines have these on a dome, others on a turret just in front of the cab. Dust or dirt on the footboards. Some rust streaking around washout plugs & blowdowns or near pipe unions. Some or all of these to taste will do you a nice job. Just remember to apply the paint slowly & build it up to where you want it. Good luck.
 
Thank you very much.

I say lightly because since I have so much rolling stock and locomotives, I end up giving everything the basic treatment first (couplers, wheels, trucks, and a shot of dullcote to get rid of the high shine of plastic), and will later go back and weather specific things, like rust and spills, etc.
 
I've yet got the courage to extensively weather my steam locos. They look like the ones you see all polished up for an excursion nowadays

I did lightly weather my 0-8-0, but it should be a lot dirtier as you can see.

The cleanest steam locos I have seen from old photos are ones that were specifically used for passenger service, but they still were dirty.
 
Look around for some pictures of UP's 844 and 3985 or chase them down some time and get some pictures of them after they've been on the rail for a few weeks. UP steam crew really does a good job of keeping them clean.

I got some pictures of 844 in Oklahoma a few years ago after it had been out for a while. The front 2/3s of the locomotive was still pretty clean and shiny. The last 1/3 was soot grey from all the smoke/ash falling back on it. The tender wasn't nearly as shiny but not as sooty either.

Of course, the UP crew probably washes it at every opportunity.

Back when steam was king, they didn't wash them much but they always got lubricated and maintained. The locomotives that pulled express passenger trains were probably washed more often.
 
Light to medium weathering will make a model steam locomotive look more realistic....If done correctly.
The trick is to look at lots of pictures of the prototype before beginning, and once started go with verrry light applications until you get the effect you want.
The Great Northern 2-10-2 below is very lightly weathered as opposed to the articulated below it which is rather heavily weathered.
the important thing i learned was to stop before it's to late,easy to get carried away and wind up ruining the effect....:D

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GN.2-6-8-0 said:
Light to medium weathering will make a model steam locomotive look more realistic....If done correctly.
The trick is to look at lots of pictures of the prototype before beginning, and once started go with verrry light applications until you get the effect you want.
The Great Northern 2-10-2 below is very lightly weathered as opposed to the articulated below it which is rather heavily weathered.
the important thing i learned was to stop before it's to late,easy to get carried away and wind up ruining the effect....:D

100_0782.jpg


003-4.png
Click to expand...


Very nice!
 
Espeefan said:
Lightly weathered steam is kind of an oxymoron ;) You have to consider what a filthy thing a steam engine was. John Pryke did some pretty good articles on steam in MR, one of which was how to weather a steamer. They tend to acccumulate different kinds of crud in different places than diesels.
Click to expand...

Something of considerable importance too often overlooked by hobbyists is just what era their locomotives represent. This is particularly true when basing one's weathering on photos and can make an enormous difference in just how weathered they should appear.

John Pryke, for example, models the late transition era, a time when most railroads were in the late stages of converting from steam to diesel. Since the steamer longevity was no longer an important factor, cosmetic maintenance was no longer much of a consideration and the locomotives often looked very dirty, rusting and run down. Photos from this era, while accurately portarying how locomotives looked just before removal from service, do not depict the typical appearance from just a few years earlier.

Go back into the 1930's, or before, and one gets a totally different impression of what locomotive weathering looked like. In general engines were much cleaner and appeared far better maintained, simply because they were. Since steamer lifetimes were measured in decades, shops and crews did everything they could to prevent deterioration. In the Golden Age of Steam locomotives, particularly passenger engines, were kept quite clean and one often saw crew members lubing and wiping down various parts even at long station stops. Many older engineers and their regularly assigned crews took great pride in their locomotives and I even have images of engines where the paint has been removed from the domes and the metal polished to a shine! Paint did dull rather quickly in the old days, but leaving dirt and grime on the surface was a no-no.

There is a further influence to also consider if one is modeling a specific prototype. Some roads hit particularly hard times right after WWII and simply ceased virtually all cosmetic maintenance. The New Haven (John Pryke's favorite road) was a good example and the situation carrier right over into its diesels as well. The filthiest trains I ever saw were on the New Haven...so dirty that neither their color, or even the roadname, was evident. They were just a uniform dirt brown!

So...use caution in weathering, else your equipment ends up looking like it is cartoonish for the era.

NYW&B
 
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