Eureka! Realistic Rail Rust

It looks great!!...so is it a secret formula or are you going to share how you did it???

 

Alan

it looks terrible which is really great. i second leaving tracks question are you going to share how you did it? 

OK. I see it. I like it. I know it's a treatment because Nickel-Silver doesn't rust like that. How'd you do it??

OK but, why do you want your rails to look "rusty"?  Real railroad track, that is in service on main lines, is not really rusty.

It looks very good, but I think I will agree with your twin sons in preferring the shiny rails. I'm not to the point where I want to weather anything just yet (still like the new look), but if I ever do get there your 'realistic ugly rust' actually looks quite good.

It looks very realistic and would be just the thing for a lightly used branch line.  I too would be interested in your technique.

Looks pretty good to me.

I use Dupli-color Hot Rod primer on mine.....a flat dark gray. After installed I brush a small amount of rust colored powder.

That's my way....

Kinda interesting...so ditto what everyone else has said...what's the secret?

AMC Dave. Would you please post a photo of your rail work?  I like the sound of it since most well used rail would retain some of the gray look.

Conductor Earl

It sure does look great but how about a little info on how you did it

C'mon, Hot Water;  Sure, the top surface of busy RR track is nice and bright and shiny, but, like any exposed steel surface, the sides of the rail do take on a weathered look.  Even brand new rails, just placed by a track building crew, has a certain amount of aging on it.

 

Now, on our model track, it makes sense to keep the top surface of the rails bright, clean and shiny.  Otherwise we'd experience current interruptions, so it is correct to literally keep the rails clean both for appearance and for best operation.  But, the rails sides, I think, look better dressed down a bit.

 

Paul Fischer

You are closing in on 2-rail.  Realistic track is within reach!

 

My outer loop is carbon steel, and actually has corrosion on the sides.  The top must stay shiny, and I use a light oil to keep the corrosion to a minimum.

 

Even brand new rail has mill scale on it - a dark gray color.

Yeah, the shiny rail thing is lost on me. All these hi-rail layouts with that chrome GG track.

Huh? My GG is painted, dark brown/black. Hot Water is right-ish - most rail is not a 

"rusty" rust color - but some is more so than others. Climate/part of the country

influences the color - desert rail is often a different color than rail here in the

Southeast.

 

But NO rail is shiny, except on the top.

 

My driver was personal data collected from two basic locations: I live in the northeast and have analyzed rail from Vermont down to southern Virginia.  And I also took the train from Zermatt to Zurich to Hamburg last March and looked at that (incredibly well maintained) rail very closely too.  With few nuances, the rust is brownish (from medium-dark to very dark). It all has a golden undertone hue to it (very subtle).  And if you look very closely, it isn't solid as though painted with a roller.

I experimented with a bunch of stuff from markers to pencils to paint to chalk.  Decided that if I'm going to do more than a few feet of rail, I want something relatively accurate, relatively easy to apply quickly (without a lot of finesse or steps) and relatively permanent (and chalk was not the answer for me as vacuuming dust from layout could remove this effect).  I finally achieved this effect by first using the Testor marker kit rust marker and then spraying Rustoleum camouflage brown till the right amount of browning was seen.  If you apply only one coat of marker, you get definite remnants of shiny rail peaking through from underneath, which to me yields a finished overall realistic rusting effect. 

Would be great to see other examples from other hobbyists. Post photos please!

Peter

PJB thanks for the info. now i got to get busy got about 1200 feet of track to do.

I must say that it looks worlds better than all of those ugly red rails that I see in the magazine so often. You know, the ones where a perfectly good photo gets divided by two red lines running through the middle of the scene.

 

With this lighting, it looks to me like new rail. After a few years of grime (not RUST) it should look more like the middle rail, but with a greasy texture.

 

Big Jim - and that's what really appealed to me about this simple 2 step process - the tones (at least to me) are correct and the application creates a realistic non-uniform rusting. If your taste is more heavily rusted rail, you can simply apply more product (if you want to preserve some shine, then a little more camouflage brown only) to increase the level of cover. My tests included up to 4 coats of both materials in varying degrees of each, and personally like the lightly rusted rail best.  But the point is the finished product looked pretty darn realistic to me and can be altered to taste via very easy adjustment.  And time-wise, it took me approx. 3 minutes (a little less actually) to apply the most heavily rusted weathering to approx 10 feet of track, with zero finesse - so uniform results are very repeatable.  Peter

Personally I think it looks good.

I do like what you have there...a lighter overspray of the brown over the rust.  Who-da thunk it....thnx. 

Rustoleum camoflage dark brown spray before installing track. Then, an acrylic wash of lighter brown or gray over everything after ballasting.

 

Jim

It is said that "beauty is in the eye of the beholder."  But rail rust (weathering) is in the ERA to be replicated.  Since I was around for that last decade of steam the only rail weathering that looks right is what Hot Water has done.  With all the oils/grease dropping to the tracks this was still prevalent for years after. 

 

If one is modeling very contemporary rail then it is more orange rusty brown.

 

So it is ERA dependent.

 

Ron

 

 

From what I observed around me is new Class 1 mainline track is a charcoal gray with just a hint of brown. The shortline tracks both in regular use and rarely used tend to be closer to what the OP posted. My conclusion is there is no "correct" color. Its not just Era but also location.

 

Pete

Sorry but, era is indeed VERY important. Why? Well, back in the "steam era", virtually all the freight car axle journals were OIL LUBRICATED, which was an olive green color, and dripped all down on the sides of the rails. Plus, in the "steam era", the cars were ALL equipped with cast iron brake shoes.

 

Now fast forward to the CURRENT era, and all the equipment has roller bearings, thus NO oily substance exiting the journals, and all equipment use composition brake shoes, thus providing a TOTALLY different "dusting" of foreign material to the sides of the rails.

Jack, If you are going to quote me then read what I said. I didn't say it was unimportant, only that it is not the only factor.

 

Pete

       
       



Jim - thanks for sharing. This looks very realistic to me.

"Sure enough, I showed it to my twin sons"

 

Just curious, are they identical. I do like the effect, the tracks sure look rusted.

But, you leave out the gear-tack in the gear cases of the diesels that will seep out by any way it can AND all of the slippery stuff from the rail greasers.

 

BTW, Jim's rail looks very good too!

PJB's and Jim's methods definitely result in very realistic looking rail 'color'.

 

Has anyone one achieved a similar look with a method suitable for rail (track) that has already been installed and ballasted, and where spraying is out of the question?

 

Jim, I do like your "Then, acrylic wash of lighter brown or gray over everything after ballasting." as this is something I can do.

 

Thx!

 

Alex

I like what you have done.  I am about to start a new layout and need to find a faster way of weathering rail.  I will be using Atlas O.  This is a photo of a practice piece I did with some Atlas Track.  I started out using Rustolium Camouflage brown too then some powders on the ties and plates., then sealed with Dull Cote. This could be quit the process for all my track.     

Alex,

 

I like that final wash to bring everything together. Rails, ties and ballast all gather the same sort of grime and weathering to some extent. The wash reduces the contrast between all the elements of the right of way and gives it a more uniform look.

 

Peter's original photo shows how realistic it is when the tie color and rail sides are similar. It looks really good.

 

The wash also helps take attention away from the center rail. A deep dark black isn't the best color choice to hide it. It will never be perfect, but giving that rail the same weathering as the ballast and ties is the best disguise IMO.

 

 

Jim

That gear case "Crater Compound" would generally be only on the inside of the rails, since the traction motor gear cases are inboard and NOT outboard as journal boxes are.

My principle concern laying Gargraves track and Ross switches 10+ years ago was the shiny sides of the rails.  I used Floquil's rust brown IIRC applied with a hobby brush that I had--it was included in a package of brushes purchased years earlier and was the one that was relatively long bristled and wide.  A dip in the paint and then apply to the sides of the rail.  New, uninstalled straight sections and switches received paint on both sides of each shiny rail.  Previously laid rail received paint only on the sides that were visible on the around the wall, 15' X 24' under construction.

 

Someone gave me a box of 1000 O scale rail spikes at some point long before I undertook this layout.  I thought I'd try using them, again in areas where the flex track was already laid (and only on the sides that were visible).  A pair of needle nose pliers and a nail finishing tool made fast work of the rail spikes.  (For its size, the layout had a fairly large number of Ross switches, including the double crossover located in a prominent location, with their individually "spiked" rails.  Not having spikes in the GG track bothered me, so the scale spikes were used.)

 

Lastly, I used the upholstery tool from the wife's vacuum as my ballast tool.  Just loaded it with a blend of Woodland Scenics coarse ballast and pulled the tool between the rails and along the sides of the rails.  It worked really well because it left only a minimum of excess ballast on the ties (perhaps 1-3 pieces easily dealt with) and the "fall" of the ballast on the outside rails over the Midwest cork roadbed under the track looked good.

 

In my case, I was trying for some level, acceptable to me, of verisimilitude.  I wasn't going to hand lay track and use different codes of rail for mainlines and industrial sidings.  But the ballast used around my postwar tinplate coal facility accessories (Lionel 397, 497, and 456) was virtually all black.  And because these accessories were an important part of my enjoyment of this hobby, they were installed along one wall to control perspective.  Much of the rest of the layout, actually built and planned, was much more scale-like.

 

But what I've described is my personal view on verisimilitude in the context of wanting to incorporate what was important to me in an operating layout.  Others will naturally have their own views, be it rail color, weathering, track preference, the equipment on one's railroad, and so forth.

 

Hopefully, each of you will find a rail color that satisfies your "eye" and sense of verisimilitude.

 

Carl 

I love the Rustoleum camouflage series! Ultra-flat and easy to use. Like Jim, I use the brown for just about everything. I spray the undersides of my frames and trucks, sideframes and wheels using it. Can't wait to try it on the track!

Thanks for all the advice!