@Ron H posted:Which ever way you build or lay your track, hand or ready made, painting the rail first makes a huge difference. I spray the individual rails with a Rustoleum brown and then weather with diluted india ink and use separately pre-weather gray tie strips with wooden ties laid in here and there. It's [pretty effective.
@mwb posted:Or you could just start with weathered rail.
Weathered rail is preferable to me and it's pretty much all I've ever used. I also like to tape off and airbrush the rail using a mixture of rust and grimy black colored paints after everything is ballasted. I find a small amount of overspray bleeds through down between the ties and helps weather the ballast a bit as well.
I haven't been able to find individual code 125 NS weathered rail sections for some time so have been installing non-weathered rail instead. I don't mind scavenging rail from flex track sections to build a turnout here and there, but not for a larger area of trackage. I currently have about 35' feet of rail to weather but that will need to wait until after I get caught up on some other projects. Luckily, I haven't installed these sections permanently and they're up on rollers, so all the rail is easily accessible to prep and airbrush.
After I get those sections caught up, I'll be installing flex track pretty much for everything else on my layout except for turnouts and bridge decks. I definitely think hand laid trackage looks better but I don't mind mixing it with flex track and think it can look pretty good. Here's a shot of the two being installed together.
MicroEngineering's O scale, and the Proto48 code 125 rail they produce for Right 0 Way look very good imho, especially after ballasting and weathering. I too have never found the weathered flex track to be any more difficult to shape than the non-weathered. Here's a shot of ME's O scale flex track, (left side of photo)
John
