Whether or not to weather!

Walter,

    This all depends on if you are into realism or not, me I do not weather any of my trains, I want my toy trains to look like toy trains on my child like wonderland layouts.

If you happen to like realistic layout go for it.

PCRR/Dave

Weathering of trains is a perfect example of "personal preference". 

 

Happy Thanksgiving, Steve, Lady and Tex

Not in a million years for me. Never, never, never!!!!!! 

For the club... the cars are weathered.

 

For my personal collection; I don't.  But I may just through a coat of dull coat on the cars eventually, just to tone down the shine.

 

Thanks,

- Mario

Never ever, I like shiny and new. Life in the outside world is real enough, in the train room that is how I want my world to be.

 

Art

 

I weather my trains only with powdered chalk, charcoal and detail with a womans make up brush. This way the value of the trains remains unaffected. Weathering does add realism and chalk can be easily wiped off if you wish to change back to the original look.

From what I can tell, the market for weathered trains is very small. When a person decides to weather his trains it is almost like a wedding vow, "Until death do us part". This is my opinion based entirely on watching the hobby these many years.

 

God Bless,

"Pappy"

Mario - Great weathering!  If it wasn't for the track, I would have thought it was real.

 

Art

Thanks, Art... Wait until I start getting into fixed pilots.

Brian,

 

You are correct!  My passenger trains are bright and shiny!

This is a personal choice and each hobbyist should follow his or her own muse. Do what you like!

 

I greatly admire the folks whose layouts and trains are meticulously weathered. They are consummate modelers and they present a very realistic view of life around the tracks. Their work is really art and they are accomplished artists. I love looking at their layouts, but I prefer things shiny and new.

 

I do not have the skill or inclination to weather my layout or trains which makes my decision fairly simple.

 

In my miniature world there's no graffiti, dirt, grime or old beaten up trains. I like that my trains look like they did the day they left the factory, even though that means my layout falls far short in the realism department. But I don't like it when my car is dirty either!

 

 

 

 

 

Modeling in the late 1940s through the mid 1950s "steam era", I prefer everything weathered. The track, the buildings, the locomotives and the rolling stock.

 

 

Who wants dirty trains anyway?

I do, for one, since the REAL trains are also "dirty".

Well, cars get awfully dirty too, as do many other things.  But I clean them because I like clean,shiny things.

To be clear, we are NOT discussing "cars", i.e. automobiles, here. The original poster specifically showed photos of railroad locomotives.

I'm with you, Bob;  Bright and clean in my little world.

OUCH!   Just attempting an analogy for my personal preferences.

Agreeing with some others, I think it's a personal issue. When I was in HO, I weathered about a third of the cars. To me, the unweathered cars looked out of place when running with the others. So, to me, it would be an all-or-nothing affair.

 

Having said that, weathering is a perfect device to camouflage that reworked and heavily modified basket-case piece of rolling stock that you bought for a few bucks and threw under the bench "until later."

 

Like Hot Water shows in his photo, the weathering is not just for the trains - it needs to be the whole layout. BTW, nice job Hot Water!

 

Neil      

"From what I can tell, the market for weathered trains is very small. When a person decides to weather his trains it is almost like a wedding vow, "Until death do us part". This is my opinion based entirely on watching the hobby these many years."

 

  Actually I think the reverse is true. when I sell trains the weathered ones sell easier and bring a much greater price. I've had cars that didn't sell go for twice what I had been asking for them after I re-list them with a bit of weathering. Of course this is only speaking about common trains for layout use. I wouldn't weather some rare vintage collectible but then I'd never have one around here anyway :> .......DaveB

I was traditionally anti-weathering but after seeing multiple images from Don Smith, Hot Water, etc I am beginning to look favorably at weathering. I am not completely on-board with weathering yet but I have begun reading the posts on weathering, air-brush, custom decals more closely than have in the past.

But what about snow? I live in IL & in winter, the leading faces of most trains seem to be covered in snow. Are there any modelers on this forum who model snow on their locomotives? While searching on Google for techniques to model snow covering I came across an image of a HO model of a Swedish locomotive that someone has replicated the snow look as the real train operates in the Arctic Circle.

 

http://www.abload.de/img/img_06730dub9.jpg

 

these are just my opinion,

Thanks,

Naveen Rajan

I'd rather model Hawaii Southern Cal than the Artic!!

Snow reminds me of pain.....

It is pretty to look at for the first time each year.

It would look good in a model polar express type layout.

 Maybe use it to show scale mountain elevations?

 I think that older era model RRs should be weathered heavier. Things were pretty dirty back in the coal burning steam days right?

 I'm going to strive for the use of weathering to describe the age of my modern diesels. The newest, will be shiny clean. The oldest, should look like what they would have gone thru. Maybe some will be rebuilds??

 I don't like selling off these anyways. They're mine!! ALL MINE!!!

In my opinion and experience, i agree with daveb. Anything I have weathered sold much faster than clean cars. There is a huge market for weathered trains as most modelers i have talked with are intimidated to do it. This probably applies mostly to scale operators which have the size and detail. It is stunning when done with the surrounding lanscapes  such as Hotwater's. 

 

Ray Marion

There is always a tension between leaving a car, engine or building like new or weather it. There are people who would weather in a heartbeat just to make their layouts more realistic, but don't do so because they think it will lower the value of the piece.  Then again, what is the quality of the weathering process?  Does it really look authentic?  This is a compromise issue.  I deliberately don't weather my stuff, although there are times I wish I had just to make my layout compete with others who do.  I reconcile it with the notion of what am I going to achieve here?  If I weather and then feel bad for doing so afterward, there is no turning back.  I will feel bad and regret it.  If  I choose not to weather, I can live with the assurance that I have not made a permanent decision and can see if my intentions will change in the future.  I think if one intends to keep the piece forever and could care less about resale, then go for it and weather.  But let's face it:  even non-weathered trains will naturally weather from scratches and chipped paint from use; unless, of course, you keep 'em in a box for collectivity purposes or just display them on a shelf.  But what fun is that???

This kind of weathering raises the hobby to a entirely different level IMO. And -- if I had the skill set -- I would do it on everything I have as well. My problem is that I would be thoroughly dissatisfied if my efforts did not meet my expectations. Something to aspire to though. I plan on being in the hobby for a long time.