Trains kick up dust, grime, and dirt as they cruise through the world; they are battered by elements such as sun, rain, smoke and soot. On top of this, they are oiled, greased, loaded, unloaded, washed, painted, used and abused some more. All of this leaves the typical train rather more messy than the hobby-shop-new piece that comes out of a gleaming new box. While we've tried our hand at brush painting with some nice results, stepping up to an airbrush is the next phase in learning to weather on the NPF Railway.
Airbrush Gallery - Painting over Brush-painted cars and Factory-painted cars
For comparison, here is a set of boxcars we've painted by brush, with some attempts at a weathered look as we went.
Using a Paasche single-action airbrush from Inside Gateway Hobby Shop. We got a Porter Cable 6-gallon air compressor, a moisture trap, and fittings at the local Home Depot. The bigger air compressor setup costs about the same as a good entery-level hobby air compressor, and is quieter because its 6-gallon tank allows the motor to shut itself off most of the time.
The backdrop is a box fan on low speed with a furnace air filter and paper towels taped in front of it. The long air hose that came with the compressor allows us to put it in the shed to make a quieter workstation.
Weathering on some boxcars. Note the upper middle boxcar has a lot of paint applied to its middle areas, trying to cover the brushwork from a prior paint job.
The weatherd boxcars look good in the context of a wooded scene.
On the upper level is the same train as in the first shot, with airbrush weathering applied over the brushwork.
The older Lionel Fundimensions boxcars make great practice pieces. We don't run these much since they are better suited to a "carpet central" layout. Plenty of grime on these; there is also a layer of mud/dust that is hard to distinguish. We tried to put a little extra around the door opening, where workers' hands would tend to get it more dirty.
The same color grime that looks dark on a green boxcar looks light on a brown boxcar.
These reefers have some drip stains running down from each ice-hatch opening.
These cars have dust but no grime. The trucks will be painted grime with some shiny black grease streaks to be added also.