I have a Kadee M&StL outside braced wood box car, and I like it, but I don't like its bright green color. If you're an old wooden box car, it's bad enough being green, but almost shiny green? I think weathering cars is great, but I always start out with worry and trepidation that it won't look right and I'll just ruin the car. When it comes out good, on the other hand, it is one of the great pleasures of modeling. Well, I'd like to make this green car look somewhat like it has spent a few decades on the railroad, but a green wood car seems a little tricky to me. I'm tempted to just dull it (and dark it) down with a little black paint mixed with thinner. Anybody have alternate ways to weather this car? Any comments or suggestions?
Is this possibly one of the MT M&St.L cars? I'm trying to picture in mind a time worn green car. My memory is the color would wash out, becoming a bit lighter. At least very flattened paint, maybe a bit of peeling, aided by a somewhat dusty appearance.
I would lightly sand the car to take down the paint some and dull the finish. Then I would dry brush on a bit of wood tan or close and then dry brush some gray on it. At that point I would dry brush on some thinned grimy black you want the dull green now after the light sanding to show through a bit and the other color bands to show in random streaks. I don't know what the base color of the car is and maybe there is some gray plastic under that paint. Is so all the better if some manages to show through after the light sanding. Aged gray wood showing. I would go a little heavier with the thinned grimy black on the roof and then imitate streaking down the sides as if the rain has washed some of the grime off the roof. Light dust and rust colors on the trucks. If this car has been behind steam for years and later some smoke belching Alcos that will account for the built up roof grime.
I would start with a light wash of a bit lighter green color. This lightens and dulls down the lettering. Then go with pastels, earth on the lower and grimy soot on the roof. Lots of direction to go from there.
The car is an early MT (i.e., Kadee) car. Its green color is not quite dark enough to be a forest green, but it is a strong green. I hadn't thought of the green becoming faded, but that's pretty much what would happen to the green over time, yet at the same time, it would acquire some black grime. Both faded and dirty at once! Also I hadn't thought of using a thinned grimy black instead of just thinned black. Sounds a lot better. Lots of possibilities! Every two years or so I get interested in a new railroad--a while back it was the KCM&O (very interesting--started out with a Roundhouse KCM&O set and I wound up eventually with a Bachmann 2-8-0 #52 that says "ORIENT" on the tender); then I got obsessed with the Lackawanna; and lately the M&StL. I shouldn't worry too awful much about my green car---it only cost $6.50 (no box) on a well known auction site. But of course I would like it to turn out nice.
As an M&St.L fan, I know the car. So it immediately sounded very familiar. You are so correct about that green. It is distinctive.
I've been casually curious about whether the paint scheme on the car is reasonably prototypical. BE50, is that the case? I haven't seen any photos of the real one, at least so far. The "Louie" was known for colorful equipment, that's for sure.
In regard to M&StL paint schemes, my interest in this road is only a few months old. Going by the models available it was colorful, all right. In reverse prototype chronology, there's a bright red box car with a very large M&StL in white (microTrains); a bright red four bay hopper with a big M&StL (several mfgs); a green steel 40' box car(MT); a brown 40' wood sheathed box car (Atlas); a green o.b. 40' box car (MT); and a 36' green old fashioned box car (Athearn). I have spent some hours on the internet researching their rolling stock---all those old photos are black and white, and that's frustrating, of course. How trustworthy is the research of Atlas and Microtrains in producing these models is another question. But anyway, I'm still trying to find out whatever I can.
Trust me, the research at MTL is very good. I know for a fact that they have a lot of detail pictures of an upcoming heavyweight head end car release. Joe let the cat out of the bag about their upcoming Southern Pacific horse car.
Well, I must say, though, being a fan of the Erie, Kadee (MT) screwed box car 20870 up. I'd been eagerly waiting to see them make an Erie boxcar with that Erie diamond, and when they finally did, they put a black border around the diamond! I was very disappointed. But this is NOT meant to say that MTL's research isn't usually excellent. I don't doubt that one bit. But that Erie car--I was relatively young then, and the Erie was the railroad of my childhood--that was a blow at the time.
@Bremner: All true about the heavyweight head end car release. However, Joe was not around when Kadee Micro-Trains last released the M&StL green single sheathed boxcar in March 1982, with the first release having been in May 1974. At the time the extent of the R&D available now simply wasn't widely available back then. One of the good things about the Internet to be sure. Reprints of early Kadee cars tended to be simply renumbers of earlier cars with no real updates, so I would reach back to what Kadee knew in 1974 about the car. I suspect that at some point the M&StL car will be redone (note: I have no specific inside information on this, I'm just speculating!) at which point my real work to uncover prototype information would begin for my Unofficial Micro-Trains Release Report. I just figured I'd get a head start by seeing if someone here knows of any prototype information. A more general side note: As I work my way through the Model Railroader DVD of their back issues, I'm finding that some models of prototype cars go back much farther than I believed. Models of the popular "billboard refrigerator" cars were already being offered in the late 1930s, for example-- although obviously not yet in N Scale!
There's weathering.... and then there's WEATHERING. I think the only couple of tips I can add here is that there are several railroad museums out there that have taken particular interest in WWI-era outside-braced 'war emergency' cars (single-sheathed) and have some in their collections. As such, the research and photography on these cars is pretty good. 1) Wood Car Heaven is the Mid-Continent Railway Museum: http://www.midcontinent.org/ probably more rare wood cars there than I've ever seen anywhere. Here's a sample, maybe would help: http://www.midcontinent.org/collectn/woodfrt/mstl4570.html 2) Strasburg Railroad has a beautiful, if small, fleet of 1915-era freight cars for photo freights: http://steamerafreightcars.blogspot.com/2014/08/central-vermont-40000-series-howe-truss.html but they like their cars in 'as delivered' paint and condition. 3) The Savannah, GA Roundhouse Museum has a couple extraordinary 1914-era cars, one of which I found in a shed in Belfast, ME - an unmodified ex Maine Central boxcar, converted to work train use, and sold as a shed back in the 1930's. It's now in the museum. What was extraordinary about it was that virtually every speck of Maine Central green paint was GONE from it, except the shadow of the lettering against the gray weathered wood. It's fully restored now - see http://www.wtoc.com/story/8459974/roundhouse-railroad-museum-receives-historic-boxcar and http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=2011226 Bottom line is to consider what year you're modeling and what year the car was built. MOST of those cars were considered so expendable that they never got much of anything. Ever. And the wood weathered differently from the steel. Oh, and one more local favorite, the last great roster of wood, exterior braced boxcars in this region: Wellsville, Addison & Galeton in the 1970's. Great exercise in watching the paint STAY on the steel and disappear off of the wood; a boxcar red frame over weathered gray body, a lot of photos out there.
