Painting Rails

Is there something more tedious than hand spiking model railway track? Yes, painting rails! Despite the trouble, the work is well rewarded with track that looks much more like the real thing. Most railway modellers take every precaution to make their trains look realistic despite having them move in and out of view, sometimes only presenting them for less than a minute at a time. The track is there all the time, and still most railway modellers simply buy a length of track and pour ballast randomly around it. Remember it's called railway modelling.

First layer of rust paint is drying on the Peco rails. The track already looks much better.

For painting the rails I decided to use Humbrol enamel paint. My experience from the 1/35 Nystrup Gravel is that acrylic paint over time looses grip on the metal's surface and consequently chose to use enamels for this project. I used Humbrol 133 sometimes mixed with 62 for tonal variety. The rails were painted by brush taking care to cover the rail completely. Around the spikes' heads it takes a lot of care getting paint around spike head and the rail's foot - and at the same time avoiding getting too much rust paint on the sleeper. I considered using my airbrush for the task, but an experiment showed that I had difficulty in controlling the amount of overspray on the sleepers. Not wanting a lot of corrective work on the sleepers I chose to work with the brush.

The two turnouts were given an initial layer of paint with airbrush. The Peco turnouts are partially rebuilt with wooden sleepers and as the remaining black plastic sleepers need grey paint to blend in with the rest of the sleepers the overspray caused by airbrushing isn't a problem.

I airbrushed the point as the black plastic sleepers have to be painted grey anyway. A little rust overspray is easily fixed in that process.

I'm now going over the painted rails checking for faults and spots missing paint. Then I will be adding irregular spots with lighter and darker rust paint here and there. Once ballasted I will be adding a layer of dust to the completed track with a combination of airbrushed paint and weathering powders..

And just when you think the job is done, it turns out that the other side of the rails needs painting too!

While my small layout is usually viewed from one side only, both sides of the rails have to be painted. On a quiet day in my vacation the two modules are in for an outdoor painting session in the shade. Until then there is work to be done on both loading ramp and a vehicle.

Vespa

In the early fifties a private car was still something many people could only dream of. Public transport and bikes were used by those that had a longer distance to work than they could walk. Scooters became popular as they provided a good deal of flexibilty, were comparatively fast and relatively cheap. It is no surprise that I had to have at least one scooter on Nystrup Gravel.

Scooters were popular among both young and old. Here three children are enjoying the Danish summer outside Odense in 1954 on a sidecar equipped scooter. Archive: Fynske Billeder.

My model is a Welly 1/18 scale model bought on eBay from China. It is marked as a Vespa 125cc 1953 model. I suspect the model to be an earlier model as the 1953 model saw the headlamp move up between the handlebars. No matter what the model fits the period I'm modelling.

Right out of the cardboard box and onto my small stretch of smooth country road for a posed photo. The Piaggio company originally designed the Vespa to cope with poor post-war roads in Italy. Once a producer of military planes Piaggio went on to produce millions of scooters for those not wanting to spend a small fortune on a car.

Despite being a relatively cheap diecast model most of the detail present on a real 1953 Vespa is represented on the 1/18 model. Some of it a bit soft and clumsy, but nevertheless there.

My Vespa will have brake and gear cables fitted, minor details repainted and will be equipped with license plates. I presume the scooter is owned by one of the younger workers at Nystrup Gravel, having seen the Vespa's obvious sex appeal in the 1952 movie 'Roman Holiday' starring Gregory Peck and Audrey Hepburn.

Vespa posters on a fence in Nystrup. Perhaps a meeting place for the local Vespa club? Vespa enthusiasts will notice that the Vespa World Days poster is way out of the usual timeframe in Nystrup being from the St. Tropez 2016 meeting.