I turned 66 today. Fifty years ago, on 10/24/76 I took my first “serious” railfan photo. Kodachrome. God bless that film. I was a junior in high school. What you can’t see is that by a bizarre twist of events, I found the Indiana University Railfan club. They accepted everybody. To my right and left were college graduate students, master photographers, who told me where to set up, what aperture to use, and what shutter speed. I’ll be forever thankful for the generosity of those guys. They gave me my PhD in photography. In this shot, an ICG pig train, pulled by Paducah rebuilds, has left Bloomington and is heading north across the Shuffle Creek Viaduct to Indianapolis.
CSX GP40 #6611, an Atlas model in the YN2 paint scheme, sits in front of SALCO on the East Rail 2 layout. It’s the newest addition to my roster.
Until recently, I only had two CSX locomotives to handle duties on The Downtown Spur. I’ve had both for many years, and they’re starting to show their age. In addition, every photo I have in print will feature one of those two. That gets repetitive. It was time to add more power. I’ve always been partial to the old CSX gray and blue YN2 scheme. As I dove into Google and eBay to look at loco offerings, there wasn’t much to pick from, especially in the four axle GP38,39,40 models. Eventually, I found an Atlas GP40 and scooped that up. During my search, it did appear that some of the big-name manufacturers have some YN2 four-axle models in the pipeline, but who knows when they’ll hit the US shores.
In November of 2008, my buddy Tom Klimoski sent me this absolutely perfectly lit image of a CSX unit in the YN2 scheme taken on the east end of The Downtown Spur. I used this as my painting and weathering guide. Items of note: the faded gray, the very distinct panel lines and grills, the faded and mottled blue, and the faded yellow nose.
In my latest book, I discuss the importance of fades and panel line contrasts. That was my focus going in as I approached the weathering.
I always start with the easy and low-hanging fruit. In this case, that means the trucks, fuel tank, and couplers.
-The couplers were replaced with Kadee #158 scale medium-length ones.
-The fuel tank and trucks are not the same color. The fuel tank was painted with Tamiya Nato Black. Next, it was given an ultra-dilute wash of Tamiya Buff (thinned with X20 thinner) using vertical brush strokes.
-The trucks are slightly lighter. They were airbrushed with Tamiya IJN Gray. When that dried, I ground in Bragdon Weathered Brown (FF-69) and Soot Black weathering powders.
-Next up on the “easy scale” were the grills. These were airbrushed with Tamiya Dark Iron. When that dried, I ground in Bragdon Weathered Brown with a small, ratty brush.
Now for the hard part: the panel lines and fade. There are two basic methods. One is to fade the car with an airbrush first and then follow up with an overall dilute wash. Boomer did this in a recent (excellent) video. The other approach, which I used here, is to apply the panel line contrast first, and then fade afterward. Tamiya has a dedicated panel line accent paint which I really like. The only caveat is that it relies on capillary action. This means you need a smooth, glossy surface for it to work, i.e. apply it before the fade coat. Once the panel lines were done using the Tamiya product, I faded the entire car with a super dilute wash of Tamiya Flat White or Buff (as Boomer did in his video).
This is the Tamiya Panel Line Product I used.
For the mottled blue, I used a light blue weathering powder by Bragdon called “The Blues”. I took a tiny, ratty brush and, using a stabbing motion, dabbed it and ground it over the dark blue. This blue fade needs to be sealed. If you aren’t very careful with your Dullcote technique, it will render the light blue totally invisible. To avoid this, keep the Dullcote can a good three or four feet away and spray it on with very light puffs. If you don’t do this, all of your hard work will completely disappear. Can you tell I’m speaking from experience?
The roof is more faded than the sides of the car so I added more airbrush layers of the Tamiya white paint wash. The exhause is Bradgon “Soot Black”. I also added some light applications of Bragon “Weathered Brown”. The panel lines were done with a super sharp black artists’ pencil.
Closing thoughts. Paints, washes, and weathering powders are chemicals. Learning how they react with one another takes experience and can yield some very unpleasant and unexpected surprises. I always suggest that folks practice on samples and cheap scraps before moving to their $300 model. If you’re at a train show or browsing eBay, pick up some twenty-dollar boat anchors to practice on. Also, at some point you need to decide if you are content being a casual recreationalist or if you want to move to the next level. It’s your call. No judgement. That said, if you want to move forward, you need to get out of your comfort zone, buy that airbrush, and get comfortable with it.
A northbound Thoroughbred approaches the iconic, and rail fan favorite, Bridge E-8 on my old Monon layout.The sky I cropped in was taken across a farm field in Maryland. Note the light blue to dark blue color transition at the horizon. I also experimented with slightly warmer hues.
Photo editing is a lifelong learning process. I know more than I did five years ago and am going back and trying different interpretations of old images and experimenting with new tools and looks.
Every image reacts differently to a given tool. I’ve been having luck lately breathing life into many of my photos by using the Auto Haze removal tool (Adobe Elements).
However, the Auto Haze Removal tool does lay the saturation on a little too thickly so as a next step I dial the saturation back. Depending on how a given image turns out “sometimes” I’ll use the color correction tool. At times it’s sorely needed. At other times, it has a tendency to make a photo a little too blue, too sterile. It’s only one button click so give it a try. If it works, use it, if not, hit the undo button.
This shot, which I cropped in as the background sky, was taken at the golden hour on the Demarva Peninsula. As you look at the sky, take note of how the color transitions from almost white at the bottom to more blue as you look upwards. If you crop a real sky into the background of a model photo, it’s important to reflect this. I was late to the game doing so, and as a result, have a ton of photos that I’ve grown not to like. Also, note the distant treeline. The distance to trees or buildings will vary from situation to situation, so as you build a library of background photos, work to create a mix of different distances. In some, but not all, cases, having a hint of the distant treeline (or buildings) protruding into your model photo looks better. Finally, with my library of background sky photos, I have a bunch of shots of dramatic sunsets and cloud formations. I use these less and less with each passing year.
Work continues with my program of re-shooting The Downtown Spur layout. Shown above the local passes Family & Son, a food processing company that is still active to this day. I used to fly to Miami annually for a one-day photo shoot. On one of the trips, I photographed the industry at ninety-degree angles for the sole purpose of using the images later as a photo wallpaper laminate. Re-creating the complex coloring would have been totally impossible via traditional means.
For this particular shot, my iPhone 6 gave the most realistic angle. The background sky was cropped in using a screen capture from Google Streetview taken from I95 near Melbourne.
If you look closely, you’ll see a dot of red on the right under the crossing flashers. Back in 2012 I was walking the line and noticed something red by the street. When I walked up to it, I saw it was an empty box of booze dumped by the side of the road. Not really thinking about it I took a quick photo and moved on. Years later, in a clear case of having too much time on my hands, I printed the box out to scale and put it on the layout.
Large format versions of my work can be found on my Flickr page.
