06-24-2014, 10:04 AM
Naturally, modelers are entitled to spend their time in the ways they think are most productive. However, while I go to SOME effort at least to tone down any plastic shine on my track, my own view is that there are so many things in a scene that catch the eye that, in my view, it's more productive to spend most of my time on something else. Just at random, I found a photo that shows some track in it:
Two things occur to me here. One is that the track is mainly just dark brown, and there isn't all that much of a difference in shade between the rail and the ties. The ballast comes up to the tie tops, which means that any effort spent below the tie tops is wasted. The second thing is that the reason I took a picture here that included the track was that there was something else -- the relay case for the grade crossing -- that got me interested enough in the scene to take a picture. In my personal view, the thing that drew my eye overall was something other than the track. In fact, I would think that just about anything in a model scene -- a telephone pole, a battery vault, a relay case, a switchstand, a signal (not to mention a train!) is going to pull attention away from the track itself. This says to me that beyond any basic time spent making the ties flat brown and keeping the rails from looking like shiny nickel silver might not be as well spent as time on other details, scenery, structures, or trains. Your results may vary.
You do mention Lance Mindheim -- I drop by his site a few times a year. The last time I did, he was obsessing with the exact color of concrete ties in the Northeast Corridor, building an NEC layout with the ties that had the exact color, but not catenary. I assume the guy who was paying big bucks for him to do this thought this was a good use for his cash. I wouldn't spend mine that way!
Two things occur to me here. One is that the track is mainly just dark brown, and there isn't all that much of a difference in shade between the rail and the ties. The ballast comes up to the tie tops, which means that any effort spent below the tie tops is wasted. The second thing is that the reason I took a picture here that included the track was that there was something else -- the relay case for the grade crossing -- that got me interested enough in the scene to take a picture. In my personal view, the thing that drew my eye overall was something other than the track. In fact, I would think that just about anything in a model scene -- a telephone pole, a battery vault, a relay case, a switchstand, a signal (not to mention a train!) is going to pull attention away from the track itself. This says to me that beyond any basic time spent making the ties flat brown and keeping the rails from looking like shiny nickel silver might not be as well spent as time on other details, scenery, structures, or trains. Your results may vary.
You do mention Lance Mindheim -- I drop by his site a few times a year. The last time I did, he was obsessing with the exact color of concrete ties in the Northeast Corridor, building an NEC layout with the ties that had the exact color, but not catenary. I assume the guy who was paying big bucks for him to do this thought this was a good use for his cash. I wouldn't spend mine that way!