Heh heh, Glad I could help Pete.
It appears to be in the budget Neil. When will the models be finished?
I can help you model the junk under the car but not the junk inside the car so I would recommend blacking out the windows like Amtrak!
Lol, nice find Rooster - best bit of Corporate gloss I’ve seen for a while…
The model’s already finished, I’ll post after Cliff’s trestle is done. 
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Et tu, Brute?
When in Rome Cliff… 
Winter update: Cold & wet. Meh.
Main focus has been painting rails & ties as an inside job. Another mini series that turned into a saga… Once I did the Al rails, I kept going with the brass so I had some consistency. That was a wash (degrease), etch prime, then 2 coats of brown.
After all that it looked too consistent so I played around a bit and ended up with a combo of black splatter from an old spraycan, and a dusting of Tan from 5’ away.
Then of course I had to go back and do the black and tan on the track I’d already laid… [Grimace]
Ties got 2 coats of matt black, then washes of a few different browns to mix it up.
I did count. 6 boxes of 12 x 5’ lengths, 360’ track, 720’ of rail, 4900 ties. Ish. I’m happy with the end result, but kinda over it…
The plan is that metal wheels running over the paint will eventually wear it off and get a shiny top.
Last thing on that workstream is to redo the turnouts at some stage. 2 years in the sun and all the colour has pretty much gone.
Other doings - I ended up printing some rail joiners for the Al track. The electrolysis between brass joiners and the Al rail was horrendous. Blame it on salt air I guess. These are just painted PETG at the mo, not hard to redo or change the design if summer proves too hard on them.
And I started mocking up the bones of a coal bin for the mine. Loosely based on a photo I found of a local private operation taken mid 60’s. I’ve got a couple of other angles but this one best shows the high standard of H&S back in the day.
Thanks for watching.
Cheers
N
3 Likes
Neil,
A sand paper block will clear those rail tops quickly.
Glad to see someone else uses the CAD (cardboard assisted design) system to layout projects 
That’s Plan A Rick. 
Then I wondered if the wheels might wear only some of it off and leave a rusty strip on top. Old hardly used kinda look. For once Plan B is first, with Plan A as fallback. 
This is the CAD I’m better at for sure!
Cheers
N
Neil, for Plan B, are you ok with the wheels of your locos and cars picking up all that paint? I suppose the locos will first, being heavier.
Plans A and B are better than plan C (for Cliff) and let your wheels and bearings all get flat spots from sitting on the shelf.
Or plan D like I did: Acetone on a rag and clean the tops!
I never thought of that Cliff, I kind of imagined it would rub off as dust and just blow away. Now I’m overthinking whether I’ve got a problem or not with Plan B. 
Jon, Acetone became a rarity in my supplies once my girls discovered it was nail polish remover. I might check what the current state is (I buy quart bottles).
Cheers
N
You could just run an LGB track cleaning loco
The downside of an Acetone wash is that it usually removes the paint on both sides of the rail head. That’s OK inside the gauge, but doesn’t look quite right on the outside of the rail.
The last time I painted rail was for a bridge. I used a razor knife to clean just the top. The wheels eventually cleaned the inside of the head. I don’t recall any issues with paint transferring to wheels, but it was a short 8 foot section of track.
Your battery powered right? Don’t worry about it. I never clean the tops after painting.
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Yup, that was the underlying premise.
That’s one thing I was hoping to avoid - tks for the heads up Jon
Well, you could tell your girls that since they used up your acetone they can scrape the paint off the tops of your rails with their nails. If you decide to go that route let me know how that works out for ya’.
If you never hear from me again, you’ll know I asked the q… 
Who gets your trains then cause the girls don’t want em’ and I don’t want em’ either!