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I have never seen rusty rail on the side of track. Unused rail may have rust on the top but not on the sides. I found some old rail from the old Northwestern Pacific with a date 1954 and no rust. On my new layout I have been painting my Gargraves track dirty black. Looks much better. Just thought of an idea for "O" gauge track makers. Paint them, then sell them. Don

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Couldn't agree more! Just painted 100+ feet of rail this afternoon. A mix of rail brown, railroad tie brown, and some grimy black. Nothing out here is rusty....you have to have water to create rust, and we all know how much water we get.

 

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Time to ballast! Where's Dennis Brennan anyway? Probably getting ready for York

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Last edited by Former Member
Originally Posted by Laidoffsick:

Couldn't agree more! Just painted 100+ feet of rail this afternoon. A mix of rail brown, railroad tie brown, and some grimy black. Nothing out here is rusty....you have to have water to create rust, and we all know how much water we get.

 

20151016_153255

 

Time to ballast! Where's Dennis Brennan anyway? Probably getting ready for York

LOS

 

That looks great. Was that done with spray can paint or an air brush?

Originally Posted by Engineer-Joe:
Originally Posted by scale rail:

I have never seen rusty rail on the side of track.

WOW! I don't know what to say? I would bet, you haven't been around here much?

Even if he hasn't been around the OGR Forums much, that still doesn't mean he is incorrect. Having been "around the real railroads" pretty much all my life, "rusty/red" rail is generally associated with unused or new rail. Rail that has been "in service" and heavily used, such as main line rail, tends to accumulate that brownish color in today's modern world of real railroading. 

 

Back in the "old days" of steam and oil lubricated plain bearing equipped rilling stock, the sides of the rails tended to have a dark "greenish" coating, due to all the journal oil (which was indeed green color) which dripped out of everything.

 

I must admit that some folks that spray, or brush, paint the sides of their train tracks red, sure makes them look toy-like in my opinion.

HW, it was more of a crack on the good life those "guys" have out in the Southwest. I was in AZ for awhile and looked at many cars. Their biggest issue working on cars is getting the dirt off of bolts! Up here, we have to torch almost everything anytime a bolt needs to be removed under our cars. Rust goes after everything.

 It does appear more of a brownish color even to me!

 

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Originally Posted by Laidoffsick:

Couldn't agree more! Just painted 100+ feet of rail this afternoon. A mix of rail brown, railroad tie brown, and some grimy black. Nothing out here is rusty....you have to have water to create rust, and we all know how much water we get.

 

20151016_153255

 

Time to ballast! Where's Dennis Brennan anyway? Probably getting ready for York

LOS:

 

VERY nice looking trackwork.  Looking forward to seeing it ballasted. 

 

Save yourself a few bucks.  Go get some play sand.  Build up the profile and fill in the ties just below the top.  THEN sprinkle on that great looking Brennan's ballast. 

 

There ya have it, your Bohemian money saving tip for the day. 

 

I do this even with my HO projects, and did it on all of my three rail projects.  I was using Woodland Scenics product though.

 

Regards,

Jerry

 

Originally Posted by DennisB:

Krylon or Rustoleum Camo Brown is the perfect color for rail.

For the modern "diesel" era, I fully agree. Our layout however is modeled in the early 1950s, i.e. big steam, and thus the rails/track is all weathered with a Rustoleum "charcoal green" color. The green journal oil from all those plain bearing freight cars and steam locomotives soaked the rail sides heavily, giving it that greenish tint.

Originally Posted by 86TA355SR:
Originally Posted by Hot Water:

......Rustoleum "charcoal green" color....

Do you have a picture of it?  I'm interested....

Here is another photo showing the color, slightly different light. Notice how the switch was just re-ballasted after the track gang finished their work.

Regards,

Jerry

 

 

NP Mikado at Grand cropped

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Last edited by gnnpnut

Here is another photo showing a slightly different rail treatment.  On this one, rail brown was used, and Paul elected to leave the center rail black. 

 

 

Northern Pacific F3 at Cooters

Here is another shot on my engine terminal modules.  I wanted something I could do with minimal effort, so these were simply shot with Floquil grimy black, which is what I do on my HO railroad. 

 

 

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At the end of the day, I don't think it matters what shade the track / rail is painted, the object is to get rid of the shiny rail.  My object was always to get the viewer to focus on the motive power and equipment, and lose sight of the fact of that pesky center rail in the photo. 

 

Regards,

Jerry

 

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I've been on the fence about painting my rails or not.  But seeing these pictures you gentlemen have posted is an inspiration!

 

Here are the tracks on the Norfolk Southern (former PRR) mainline in Duncannon, Pa. that I am using as a reference.  Lots of break dust on the ties too:

 

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Last edited by Traindiesel
Originally Posted by Hot Water:
Originally Posted by SteamWolf:

Sandblast it, take it outside and leave it there for a few weeks, bring it inside and sand the tops.

 

Works just like the real thing.

Not with Atlas solid nickel silver rail, it doesn't.

As Hot Water says.  Also NOT with MTH ScaleTrax or GarGraves SS.

 

Ron

Originally Posted by Hot Water:
Originally Posted by DennisB:

Krylon or Rustoleum Camo Brown is the perfect color for rail.

For the modern "diesel" era, I fully agree. Our layout however is modeled in the early 1950s, i.e. big steam, and thus the rails/track is all weathered with a Rustoleum "charcoal green" color. The green journal oil from all those plain bearing freight cars and steam locomotives soaked the rail sides heavily, giving it that greenish tint.

This is correct.  On the PRR mainline, those "charcoal green" rails even had a distinctive oily smell.

 

Originally Posted by Hot Water:
Originally Posted by Jim 1939:

Looks nice but for me it would be a box of paint pens, I would be to lazy for any other method.

Taking the "easy way out" is exactly why I spray painted all the track, prior to laying ANY ballast/scenery! I simply can NOT imagine bending over all that track using "paint pens".

Hindsight is 20-20 as they say. I regret not taking care of this when we first started laying track on the club layout 12 years ago. Unfortunately, given that it is 80% fully sceniced, the paint pens may be our only option.

 

I'm at the very early stages of a new home layout and this will be done at the start. I'm still undecided about spray can vs airbrush having never used an airbrush before.

 

Keep the comments and especially the pictures coming. Enjoying this thread

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