Finshed the weathering on one of my babys

[RAM]

I think most of the weathering was mostly the fading of the paint. 

[Steam Freak]

And finally I finished my EM-1 

That looks really nice man 

[Steam Freak]

accurate models float my boat.

PF

[Desertdweller]

Nice work, GN!

My advice when planning weathering is to find as many photos of the prototype of your model as possible, especially color photos, and paint accordingly.

Les

[Steam Freak]

I've looked in my book "MoPac Power" by Joe Collias and there are a few heavily weathered steam engines but they are very, very rare and then very late in the steam era.  

I'm not weathering my engines.  Might dull-coat them a little but that's all.  The Mopac took pretty good care of their engines and what's good for the MOP is good enough for me.

PF

To each their own. I think he did an excellent job. And FYI, there were tons of heavily weathered steam engines. SP, B&O, N&W were notorious for not cleaning their engines. I went on google images and typed in B&O EM-1 and found tons that were very dirty. Unless pulling passenger service, most of the freight steam engines I've seen were covered with filth.



But ya know...all steam engines were clean at one point or another; like just out of the factory. So either weathered or not are both considered "accurate".

[Desertdweller]

Steam locomotives could get dirty in the course of a day's work.  The only time one will be perfectly clean is if it is fresh out of the paint shop, or if it has just been pressure-washed.

It's just a matter of taste, if you want your steam locos to be sparkling clean, or not.  I have only four steam engines, but all are weathered except for my UP 119, the historic 4-4-0.

I would suggest, even on a clean engine, that the running gear and drivers be dry-brushed with a light color for the purpose of making the fine details visible.   I do the same to black car trucks, just enough to make the details visible.

[NWsteam]

SP, B&O, N&W were notorious for not cleaning their engines

In the mid to late 50's this might be true of the N&W, but earlier than that the were know for keeping them pretty clean.

-Brad

[uncbob]

Just visit the Strasburg RR where they run them regularly
They keep them pretty clean
You can see them here
http://bandb3536.com/strasburg/strasburg.htm

[rogertra]

Just visit the Strasburg RR where they run them regularly
They keep them pretty clean
You can see them here
http://bandb3536.com/strasburg/strasburg.htm

Sorry guys but you cannot compare modern day steam tourist railroads with what happened in the steam era.  Places like Strasburg et al treat their locos like babies and the standard of cleanliness does not in anyway reflect what happened in the steam era. 

It's comparing apples to oranges.

[GN.2-6-8-0]

My engines were built in the early to late 20th century and ran may to the mid-late 50s PF and you obliviously worked on a tourist road where spit and polish was part of a regular maintenance program.
Not so on regular roads where even a scheduled washing normally consisted of a spraying of high pressured steam and some type of harsh solvent and a good scrubbing with a long handled brush........time permiting.
And as for fancy paint/scrollwork polished brass and gold leaf!......that would have been common in 1850-1860ish
not so much in the 20th century.
If you like your motive power to look brand spanking new ,hey' great go for it their your engines......but don't criticize those of us that preferr a bit of dirt and road grime that helps showing the many fine details that are hidden by the glossy black paint OUR" models come in.

This will be my last word on this matter I've better things to do  

[J3a-614]

This weathering discussion reminds me of the days in the 1950s, when this was a much more controversial subject if the letters in the columns of Model Railroader were any indication.  

Some people--most at the time, in fact--didn't like weathering.  Part of it was that so many went to the effort to build really nice engines (we're talking about the craftsmen scratchbuilders here) that they couldn't bear to let their models look bad, others I think had enough trouble just getting good finishes on what they had, and others--like some here--were familiar with railroads and an earlier era that kept engines in better shape.  Even the late, great John Allen, who was a pioneer in weathering effects, came in for some criticism on these grounds.

I have to say it is still an art as much as anything, and I haven't done well at it at all.  It's too easy to overdo effects, or get them to come out bad, as I know from first-hand experience.  The excellent finishes available on modern models make me hesitant, too; it was one thing to dirty up (and mess up) an Athearn Blue Box model with the sometimes not-so-hot paint jobs back then, when the model also cost only $3, but nicer cars and locomotives (which are also a good deal more expensive than before) make me hesitant again.  If and when I can figure out how to do it decently and not have to worry, I'll take it on; after all, at least freight cars tended to be pretty grimy, especially in the steam era.

The comment by Flory Now about the Southern Railway's engines looking so good brings to mind that part of that was that the Southern continued the practice of "single manning" or "assigned engines" longer than most other roads.  An engineer and a fireman were assigned a locomotive, and it was "their" engine for a long time, sometimes for years at a stretch.  With a locomotive that was "yours," you could add a little decorative touch to it now and then, and it would always be there.  Such touches included extra striping, eagles over the headlight, the brass "candlestick" flag holders, a fancier than normal number plate, or your own distinctive whistle that wouldn't sound like anything else.  Of course, such pride in "ownership" also often lead to the impeccable cleanliness that was so characteristic of Southern Railway power, in which the engineers and firemen would spend time off just cleaning their locomotives.  

The downside of this was that it seriously limited engine utilization.  This wasn't too much of a problem in the 19th century and well into the 20th, when steam locomotives were much more maintenance-intensive than they would later be, but later engines (such as the EM-1), which were more dependable in high-mileage service, and also more expensive to purchase (and pay the banks' interest on), could be used a lot more than the crews, and so engines went into "pools," and you came onto a run with whatever the roundhouse foreman would give you--which is the normal practice today with diesels.  

Not like the old days, which according to railroad historian H. Reid, and engine crew got an engine for "800 days."  That's a bit over two years, and I wonder if that was a shopping interval for locomotives before mandated inspections and the like from the 1920s.