Track Painting

[ScottyStitch]

I've been working on my father's layout and going to start ballasting soon. The rail sides and chairs have been painted by hand with Vallejo 984 Flat Brown, and I'm quite pleased with it as it's not too orange and a bit more subtle than other colours I've seen used.

However I'm about to start painting the sleepers, preferably using whatever paints I have. I've experimented with Vallejo 862 Black Grey and I've included a few photos for your consideration. I think it might be too grey, but maybe with dry brushing over the top it will look better.

Maybe after consideration I should be going for a dark brown instead, but I'm concerned it will be too similar to the rail sides. Humbrol's 173 Track Colour appears on the greyish side, but perhaps not as stark as the Vallejo Black Grey.

Thoughts?

Just the sleepers between the rails have been painted here, not the ends on the outsides of the rails.....





and this is a shot of a test piece I made to try out ballasting. I've gone back and picked out the sleepers........

[scotsoft]

If you are going to add a stripe of oily grime up the centre of the sleepers then I think what you have done should look just the job 

cheers John.

[willintas]

Looks pretty good to me,I just spent 8 hrs hand painting rust and a very washy grey on sleepers of half box of flextrack.your rust looks great as do sleepers.

[NeMo]

The only thing I'd watch for is that you may end up with too many contrasting shades. Whether or not that's desirable depends upon the situation, but if you look at most railway lines, the range of colours visible all look pretty similar. If you Google "railway line" or "railway track" you'll find lots of examples.

At the moment I think the contrast between the sleepers and the rail is too strong, and adding the oily streak down the middle will only make that contrast stronger. In fact you don't often see that oily streak on modern lines, particularly electrified routes, so it may not even be appropriate outside of, say, railway depots where diesel engines sit around for long periods.

One workaround might be to attack the whole length of track with an airbrush loaded with a dirty, grimy colour (see below). You could use that to tone down the rusty colour on the track, and the layering effect would be more prototypical, I think, with dust and grime building up on both sleepers and track, but with slightly different results given their original colours.

Cheers, NeMo

[bluedepot]

for what its worth I painted the rail sides a medium dark brown. I then sprayed the track and ballast from about with sleeper grime or track grime paint from a can. looks ok ty me although I think I would prefer cleaner ballast in retrospect!!! my layout is 80s diesels so probably it would have been dirty in real life though unless v new ballast.

good luck with ballasting

Tim

[ScottyStitch]

Thanks for all your replies guys.

NeMo, you've hit the nail on the head with regard to the contrast. I couldnt put my finger on what was wrong but thats exactly it.

I guess what I'm trying to achieve is something like this:

http://www.fotolibra.com/gallery/879071/railway-track-points/

http://www.123rf.com/photo_7948303_railway-track-and-tunnel.html

For the record the layout is set in the early sixties with a mix of diesel and steam, and its a small branch terminus with some goods facilities.

[ScottyStitch]

With help from my wife I've now actually mixed my own colour. Being an artist, she's much more clued up on colours etc and I've now gone for a much more organic, warm, colour, more a brown than the grey. It looks much better, and it will do me. I'll still need to tone down the whole track later, but if I get the sleepers done I can ballast and then airbrush once it's all down.

I'll try and remember an dpost photographs when there's some progress.

[Newportnobby]

If memory serves, aerial views of most of the trackwork in Michael Portillos Railway Journey TV series seemed to have the ballast and the track an equal shade of brown except where new ballast had been laid.
For the era you are modelling there was all sorts of gunge (mineral and human) on the tracks but you may find it hard to source  brown

[EtchedPixels]

If memory serves, aerial views of most of the trackwork in Michael Portillos Railway Journey TV series seemed to have the ballast and the track an equal shade of brown except where new ballast had been laid.
For the era you are modelling there was all sorts of gunge (mineral and human) on the tracks but you may find it hard to source  brown

You mean brown isn't a standard Games Workshop colour ?

Certainly up to the 1980s it was common to see a blackish oil trail down the middle of the tracks. In those days of slack pollution management and even slacker enforcement of BR rules the staff used to make a point of not closing off the oil sump properly so they didn't have to bother draining it...

Alan

[daveg]

I ran a wide, almost dry black marker pen (dry brushing idea) between the rails and that seems to work OK.

Dave G

[DCCDave]

I ran a wide, almost dry black marker pen (dry brushing idea) between the rails and that seems to work OK.

Dave G

That sounds like a really quick way of doing it. Do you have any photos of the result please?

Cheers
Dave

[daveg]

Knew I'd taken a few and just had a quick look but can't put my hand on one just now. Will do tomorrow; sorry 'bout that!

Dave G

[H]

Personally I prefer a subtle overall colour (over the rails, sleepers and ballast) to draw and blend the whole track bed together and tone down the high contrast (as mentioned by NeMo) - after all the whole lot ages and weathers together (and not separately).

H.