Weather track
Peter Marriott and George Dent offer advice on bringing more realism to your track.
Partners in grime Peter Marriott and George Dent show you how to make track more realistic.
Model railway track relies on the rails to transmit electric current to the motors within locomotives and multiple units. Accordingly, the rails need to be fashioned from conductive materials, which inevitably involves lengths of shiny metal. Alas, this isn’t how real railway track appears. While the heads of busy lines are shiny, the sides are anything but. Even new rails boast an orange-red rust colour, while the sides of older tracks have a dull brown coating. Sleepers and ballast also take on a grimy aspect, following exposure to the elements and the passing of trains. Heavier deposits of dirt accrue in specific areas, such as steam depots, especially around ash pits or coaling sidings. Similarly, diesel fuelling points can be grotty places, as are areas where steam or diesel traction is likely to dwell. Such locations include signals, station platforms and stabling points, where leaking fuel, oil or soot will accumulate. Stray material from the loading of dusty commodities, such as coal, ore, stone or cement, is likely to give sidings a grubby appearance. To replicate this weathered look, we can paint our track in suitably rusty, grubby shades. Covering large areas can be timeconsuming unless you resort to aerosol-based paints or an airbrush. What is vital is that the railheads are cleaned thoroughly, with any contact surfaces on points and crossings either masked beforehand or scrupulously cleaned afterwards.