New Micro Trains Weathered Pack for August

[Rossford Yard]

Basement Calling,

Mass weathering is the only way I do it!  If you are running 30 car trains in N, at least all I am going for is a general impression, with maybe a few highlights.  Not every one needs to be a masterpiece for a nice effect, and for me, those MT come in handy for those few that I want to stand out.

I really wonder if spending my time weathering each car to some level of detail would really be noticeable to most viewers?  Don't just a few stand out better than a fleet of all personally weathered cars?  Sort of like having 18 "signature holes" on a golf course, and they all sort of blend together.

Just my take.

[Denver Road Doug]

So what part of that isn't true?   (except I suppose for those whom all the fun does come from opening the box and putting the model onto the rails.)     But words like "lazy" and "ruining the hobby" are pretty choice, y'know.

Well--to me--saying "where'd all the fun go" is akin to saying that RTR tendancies are ruining the hobby.   Never said that is "wrong" or isn't true...it's simply your opinion and it's not my place to say it's wrong.  I *can* however have a different opinion, and mine falls somewhere outside of what *most* of The Railwire OG's believe.   It's not because I don't strive for the best and for creating the most accurate models I can, but rather I just have constraints that probably some others don't with respect to what I'm modeling, how much time and money and talent I have, available space, life interruptions, etc.   Those aren't excuses, btw, but just reality, and I'm not blaming them for their more ideal circumstances.   Someday, I'll be there maybe.   Nor am I demanding RTR items be available. (but I do expect that if they ARE being done, that they have certain criteria met regarding tooling and decoration...else why bother.)   I'm not pulling Dave V into my camp here to be more legit, but what he was saying is really what I'm experiencing except I don't have the skins on the wall from a model railroading standpoint that he does.

THE OVERRIDING point being is that there are a LOT of people in similar circumstances these days that might be drawn to model railroading if certain aspects are "canned".   SO the theme that keeps getting mentioned is...focus on some things you enjoy or that you're really good at, and "farm out" the other things.    I really doubt that there are many model railroaders (or whatever term we choose to call someone that doesn't play with trains by the book) that simply buy RTR and plop it on a table of Unitrack and do nothing more.  Maybe operations is their deal, or researching old train consists, or recreating the trains of their youth, etc.   In other words, there's still lots of fun to be had.

(and, likewise, I doubt there are many that carve their entire layouts by hand from an oak tree, handlay all their track on whittled ties, forge their own rail, and so on...)

It would be nice to at least do the courtesy of figuring out what someone is talking about, before accusing them of loaded words. <sigh>

To be perfectly honest, having NEVER heard of the MR article, I just assumed you were bringing together our two favorite pastimes here....MR bashing and MTL bashing.  (In fact I assumed that you just errantly inserted "MR" for "MTL" and were equating their weathering job as the 7-minute weathering, having no idea that was an actual "thing"...thus my initial overreaction to your post...I think that would have been a cheap shot.)   I wasn't putting the words in YOUR mouth necessarily...the comment was MOSTLY directed at The Railwire collective and the numerous bashing bandwagons that go on.  Heck, RTR gets it from both sides.....the elitists that claim that nobody wants to model anymore, and the blue collar guys that claim RTR is pricing them out of the hobby.   Yet, weirdly, they still sell.   

And I absolutely do hold that the MR article was a disservice, and they deserve the heat for that, but again words like "ruining the hobby" did not come from me.

Again, I probably don't disagree with that, from what I'm gleaning about the article from the interwebs.

Well we are all growing old, and we cannot stop that, so the question I suppose is: how do you want to use the time that you do have?

I don't know what a "happy medium" is supposed to mean, honestly.   Everyone has their own ideas.  It takes effort to make weathered cars, so *someone* has to do it.  The balance is between quality, effort, and volume, and if you don't want to do it yourself then the additional prices are money, accuracy, and uniqueness.

There is no free lunch, even in the modeling world, so it seems to me that the key is to understand the tradeoffs and set one's goals accordingly.  It's easy to lose sight of that in the face of these "fast and easy" messages.

"Happy medium" was meant to address the difference between the "50-100 super-weathered cars" versus "300-400 good-effort weathered cars" versus the "600-800 holy crap I've got an ops session in two days" guys.   But yeah, I agree that at some point in that equation you have to be willing to fork over some cash if that's what you have versus the other parts of the forumula.   You could look at the MTL weathered releases in that way, although honestly for me it's more: I need some random freight cars, and it's nice that these are weathered and will fill in nicely.   I'm not sure I would even buy the MTL car to just put in the queue for weathering myself at some point...it's just a unique product that I've bought a handful of over the past few years.   Some of them look pretty good, and I think getting better as we go.   MTL doesn't make a LOT of stuff I'm interested in but I do my best to support them--as I do just about every manufacturer--since I get a good percentage of my joy in life from this hobby, and I want them to stick around.       So the MTL weathered cars are a no-brainer purchase for me if it's something I like and it fits my scheme. (oh, and after that... if I can even get them!  All you n-scale hoarders back away...)

[tom mann]

Please kiss (the photo of Ed K) and make up, you guys are saying almost the same thing!

[jpec]

Although a bit pricey, I like the MT weathered stuff, especially the Soo boxcar and the latest graffiti boxcar set. I also like to "roll my own" as they say and the MT gives me some variety along with cars that other "grunge" friends and I swap occasionally. I know I couldn't carry the lunch pails of the gang over at The Weathering Shop but their work is inspirational and I can't wait to watch Butch Eyler and Tony Sissons do their thing at next month's MARPM conference in VA. Maybe studying these MT cars will inspire a modeler who's never weathered a car to try their hand and get hooked.

Jeff

[Rossford Yard]

Perhaps OT, but does anyone have an estimate of how many cars (% wise) might have been tagged in the 1990's, 2000's, and 2010's?

My impression is that it went up each decade, perhaps starting mostly in CA (at least I recall seeing lines of tagged cars at Colton around 2000, so it seemed more prevalent there to me).  Anyone recall earlier examples, say in the 70's or 80's?  Seems like you would see one or two even back then?

Maybe my bud DRD can go through a few samples of his train photo collection by era to get a proxy for the number of weathered/tags by decade?  Maybe someone else (Joe?) has done some research before tagging N scale cars?

While some do refuse to use the tagged cars, seems like an MRR topic worth some research in the name of weathering accuracy.

Thanks for any help you can give.

[Smike]

Modern tagging (at least according to the book "Freight Train Graffiti) came primarily from NYC and Philly (late 70's) where the taggers used freight cars as practice for tagging subways (This was more so in NYC) As the city cracked down on subway car tagging it pushed them more into Freight. LA and SF followed but just a few after.(mide 80's)

Ichabod YME (T)  'ICH' one of the most active taggers out there has done 2,627 freight tags when asked back in Nov 2012.

http://www.12ozprophet.com/news/Ichabod-Spotlight-Scienceism/

[Ngineer]

I am just curious:

Do taggers/sprayers avoid reporting marks on purpose? I've always been wondering.

Javier

[mu26aeh]

I am just curious:

Do taggers/sprayers avoid reporting marks on purpose? I've always been wondering.

Javier

Ones that want their artwork to stick around for a while will, or even incorporate into their piece.  If they cover the numbers/information, railroad will act quicker to repaint or patch out with new information numbers

[Denver Road Doug]

Perhaps OT, but does anyone have an estimate of how many cars (% wise) might have been tagged in the 1990's, 2000's, and 2010's?

My impression is that it went up each decade, perhaps starting mostly in CA (at least I recall seeing lines of tagged cars at Colton around 2000, so it seemed more prevalent there to me).  Anyone recall earlier examples, say in the 70's or 80's?  Seems like you would see one or two even back then?

Maybe my bud DRD can go through a few samples of his train photo collection by era to get a proxy for the number of weathered/tags by decade?  Maybe someone else (Joe?) has done some research before tagging N scale cars?

While some do refuse to use the tagged cars, seems like an MRR topic worth some research in the name of weathering accuracy.

Jeff,

We did touch on this a little in this thread: https://www.therailwire.net/forum/index.php?topic=31499 but it's still something I'd like to get more info on.   My take on it was as follows:

For the record, my era is 1998-2003, give or take.   I look to 1999-2000 or so for the focus of rolling stock, with the post-2000 stuff being exceptions.   

I feel like the explosion of graffiti was occurring during that time, but percentage-wise it was single digit percentages in 1998, and maybe 20% by 2003, and probably approaching 35-40% in 2005.  I think we've probably hovered there for a bit, with the introduction of new rolling stock and the retirement of a lot of older cars during the outset of the Great Recession.

I've tried to find hard information about the graffiti phenomenon, but so far no good hard evidence.

There was some suggestion about it being 75% now, but I don't think I buy that....there are still a LOT of cars without graffiti...at least the really garish stuff we're talking about.   Part of me even thinks *my* numbers are on the high side, although honestly I haven't put them to a litmus test in the field.

Most of my photos are post-2001 and I didn't start shooting a large volume of freight cars until about 2005 so I'm afraid my collection wouldn't be that helpful.   If I were modeling 2005 I would probably do no more than 1 in 5 cars.  I'm planning to shoot for about 1 in 10 for my 2000 time frame.

[Rossford Yard]

Thanks for the mention of the book "freight train graffiti."  Haven't ordered it (on 4 new left on Amazon, but over 68 used!) but the forward material (written in 2006) says "its roots reach back to the earliest days of the American railroad, has become much more pervasive in the last ten years.".  That would sort of jive with my basic assumption of it becoming prevalent in my era.

I am with DRD.  Just watching trains roll by now, its nowhere near 75%.  Tops 35% to my eye, but seems like more in a few areas, like when I am in the NE or CA. 

I think I have about 20 of these (maybe 30 with my own home made decaled efforts) out of 700-800 cars.  Seems as if I want to get to 10% of my fleet to represent 2005, I need about 40-50 more, so keep them coming Joe (and others!)

[bbussey]

I was still shooting regularly in the early 1990s, and I don't remember it being so prolific that tagged cars were the norm rather than the exception.  It's definitely increased exponentially in recent years, but it's not everywhere.  I came across a northbound general freight waiting for clearance on the West Shore two days ago, and I didn't see one tagged car among the first thirty.  Although, it did help that half of the ten auto racks on the point were just built within the last four months.

[mu26aeh]

Got my email from Pete that the MT Chessie Safety caboose pack is in the mail.  Can't wait til they get here and next group is announced

[cfritschle]

I used a VHS camcorder to take video of complete trains passing through the Nampa, ID yard from 1987 to 2003.  As others have noted, graffiti was not nearly as common in those days, and most of it that did exist was the "white line" variety.

The multicolor, full car side graffiti (or full car length) seems to mostly be a product of the last 10 to 12 years or so.  Granted, some cars seem to "invite" it more than others, especially the white ARMN reefers.

I personally don't like to add graffiti decals because finding a match to the prototype for a specific car number is like looking for a needle in a haystack.  However, when Micro-Trains posts the links to the prototypes, it is easy for me to determine if the graffiti covered car is appropriate for my modeling era.

So thank you Joe for documenting your work!

Carter

[Ngineer]

If you want to see a documentary on Graffiti, well, sort of, you can watch:

Style Wars from 1983

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Style_Wars

Parts of it can be seen on YouTube.

Javier

[sdodge]

Speaking of percentage of cars tagged...A quick cell phone shot of a UP train at Fernley, NV. All of the cars were tagged with the exception of the tank cars.