Again, amazing weathering jobs from MTL

[OldEastRR]

Uhhhhnnnnn (long groan)  Now heavily weathered cars.... please do some cars thagt would exist in the '50s!

http://www.micro-trains.com/index.php?route=product/search&search=N0617

Surely SOME cars running around in the '50s looked as bad as these do! The covered hopper with barely any legible writing anywhere is too cool .... uhhhhhnnnn...

[up1950s]

Wow wow wow . Is it true that there are MTL trucks parked outside of Tom Mann's crib daily ?

[JoeD]

Uhhhhnnnnn (long groan)  Now heavily weathered cars.... please do some cars thagt would exist in the '50s!

http://www.micro-trains.com/index.php?route=product/search&search=N0617

Surely SOME cars running around in the '50s looked as bad as these do! The covered hopper with barely any legible writing anywhere is too cool .... uhhhhhnnnn...

I'll give it another shot, I did a bunch a few years ago and they fell flat...if you have any suggestions, please forward the images or links to me so I can give them a look

Cheers

Joe

[Ed Kapuscinski]

While we're talking about these.

I just picked up my Conrail ex-EL car.

It's gorgeous. @Shipsure , I hope you're very proud of your work on these, cause you should be.

[up1950s]

Is it true that there are MTL trucks parked outside of Tom Mann's crib daily ?

Latest FPV drone shot .

[basementcalling]

Glad I waited on the UP scale test cars. The weathered one puts the factory new to shame, and they were sharply done.

@Shipsure how about seeing if there is a market for pre weathered trucks in the 10 pack blister boxes? Most trucks ought to weather in similar patterns I would think, with variations for region of the country, but most modelers would likely be happy just not to have to try to weather the delrin plastic.

[thomasjmdavis]

If we are talking 1955, most heavily weathered cars are probably wood cars built 30 or more years earlier.  Most all steel cars would be the newer ones in the railroad's inventory, and likely better maintained.  It was those same (newer from the 50s point of view) cars built in the 30s and 40s that were the rusting cars of the 70s. And it certainly seems from photos, even of a random freight train, that in the 50s, even older cars saw the paint shop more frequently than they would later in the century. The railroads also did a lot of upgrading immediately after WWII, and so many of the most worn cars were either scrapped or rebuilt.  But here a a couple examples of wood sided cars.  The first is dated 1940, but I thought typical of the wear and tear on a wood side car, and also the page has several detail shots that show weathering on the steel parts of the car.
http://www.steamerafreightcars.com/gallery/boxauto/dlw45715main.html

In this second one of an NP car it looks like the left side of the car hasn't seen new paint in quite a while, but the right side looks like it has a recent coat of varnish
http://www.steamerafreightcars.com/gallery/boxauto/np39731main.html

The Steam Era freight car site is a great one for research on details and includes both builders photos and in use photos for a wide variety of roads and cars.

@Shipsure - are there photos of any of those previously issued 50s era weathered cars and/or can you give us an idea of where to look for them in the MT spreadsheet? Does xxx-44-xxx indicate a weathered car?

Tom D.

[JoeD]

If we are talking 1955, most heavily weathered cars are probably wood cars built 30 or more years earlier.  Most all steel cars would be the newer ones in the railroad's inventory, and likely better maintained.  It was those same (newer from the 50s point of view) cars built in the 30s and 40s that were the rusting cars of the 70s. And it certainly seems from photos, even of a random freight train, that in the 50s, even older cars saw the paint shop more frequently than they would later in the century. The railroads also did a lot of upgrading immediately after WWII, and so many of the most worn cars were either scrapped or rebuilt.  But here a a couple examples of wood sided cars.  The first is dated 1940, but I thought typical of the wear and tear on a wood side car, and also the page has several detail shots that show weathering on the steel parts of the car.
http://www.steamerafreightcars.com/gallery/boxauto/dlw45715main.html

In this second one of an NP car it looks like the left side of the car hasn't seen new paint in quite a while, but the right side looks like it has a recent coat of varnish
http://www.steamerafreightcars.com/gallery/boxauto/np39731main.html

The Steam Era freight car site is a great one for research on details and includes both builders photos and in use photos for a wide variety of roads and cars.

@Shipsure - are there photos of any of those previously issued 50s era weathered cars and/or can you give us an idea of where to look for them in the MT spreadsheet? Does xxx-44-xxx indicate a weathered car?

Tom D.

Thanks for the links, I'll forward them...Yes the 44 denotes weathered.    Here is one...



fixed quote wrap -gfh

[OldEastRR]

OK, I will face the fact beaten-up rusty railcars didn't start appearing until the late '60s, when RRs began their slide. Oh well. I might get some anyway -- I run a UP fantasy passenger train on my NH layout; might as well run a late '70s CR train on it too.

[mu26aeh]

Maybe we need to start a thread with car suggestions for @Shipsure for the weathered/graffiti releases.  The Fathers Day car is nice, but the prototype said mothers day, and I can't find the ACFX car/number

[thomasjmdavis]

I'd be happy so see more like the ones in the 4 pics @Shipsure provided. But with the caveat that my personal rolling stock budget is pretty limited as most of my railroad investment for the foreseeable future is going to be in track and basement paneling and lights.

[jargonlet]

I have a number of the weathered rolling stock that's not modern. I have the set that shipsure posted a picture of. Maybe I'll dig them out and post a picture of them on the layout. They were really well done. It's a shame they didn't sell well.

[MichaelWinicki]

OK, I will face the fact beaten-up rusty railcars didn't start appearing until the late '60s, when RRs began their slide. Oh well. I might get some anyway -- I run a UP fantasy passenger train on my NH layout; might as well run a late '70s CR train on it too.

My layout is based on the date of August 1970 and I've been combing through my books and online resources to view rolling stock of that period and I've come to the conclusion that there weren't many rusty cars during that period.  Did you have a lot of banged up gondolas?  Yep.  Did you have box cars that were faded or were covered with a dark grey/black dirt?  Yep.  But overall the quality of many of the paint jobs is decent.  Keeping in mind the wave of mergers starting just prior to 1960 created a bunch of newly painted freight cars during the 60's.