08-18-2020, 10:46 AM
I agree with Tom...while it's nice to have things in good condition and as close to perfect as we can make them, it's also more realistic to sometimes show repairs which look like repairs. That could be as simple as re-painting a repaired grabiron or a portion of a replacement handrail in a colour not matching the original.
Most of my rolling stock has had its moulded-on grabirons replaced with metal ones, but because they continually cycle on- and off-layout, returning to their respective boxes, then back to a staging yard, the paint often chips or wears-off some of those grabirons.
On the real railroads, if a car from off-line arrives at another road's yard, with a broken or missing grabiron (grabirons, cut-levers, and ladders, plus a lot of other stuff, are known as "safety appliances"), the receiving railroad is required to repair that item before it can be delivered to the consignee or before it can be returned to the owning railroad. It's not uncommon for that replaced or repaired part to be painted with whatever colour happens to be available in the repair shop.
At the end of each month, each railroad sends out the bills to the other roads for which they have made repairs - the costs are fixed for all roads, so everbody's cars are kept in good repair, at the same cost as if the owner road had done the work.
Every so often, as I'm shuffling my cars between box and layout, I'll take those needing a little repair into my workshop, fixing or replacing anything needed, then slapping on some paint, whether or not it matches the cars' original colour. This lends a little "history" to each car, showing that it's been somewhere other than only on its home-road.
Wayne
Most of my rolling stock has had its moulded-on grabirons replaced with metal ones, but because they continually cycle on- and off-layout, returning to their respective boxes, then back to a staging yard, the paint often chips or wears-off some of those grabirons.
On the real railroads, if a car from off-line arrives at another road's yard, with a broken or missing grabiron (grabirons, cut-levers, and ladders, plus a lot of other stuff, are known as "safety appliances"), the receiving railroad is required to repair that item before it can be delivered to the consignee or before it can be returned to the owning railroad. It's not uncommon for that replaced or repaired part to be painted with whatever colour happens to be available in the repair shop.
At the end of each month, each railroad sends out the bills to the other roads for which they have made repairs - the costs are fixed for all roads, so everbody's cars are kept in good repair, at the same cost as if the owner road had done the work.
Every so often, as I'm shuffling my cars between box and layout, I'll take those needing a little repair into my workshop, fixing or replacing anything needed, then slapping on some paint, whether or not it matches the cars' original colour. This lends a little "history" to each car, showing that it's been somewhere other than only on its home-road.
Wayne