Weathered Intermountain Cylindrical Hoppers

When Rapido announced their new "correct" cylindrical hoppers for bulk commodities like cement, I knew a few of my Intermountain cement cars would be phased out in a distant future. With that in mind, I thought it was an excellent occasion to weather them and get some experience before messing up with the Rapido fleet.

Interestingly, cylindrical hoppers develop great weathering patterns over a relatively short amoutn of time, particularly cement cars. Cement is highly corrosive and take a toll on a railcar fleet in no time. Thus, armed with prototype pictures, I was ready to try my hand.

I certainly didn't reinvent the wheel, only using my habitual weathering techniques (oil, powder, washes, India ink, etc.) to get the look right. As always, a good weathering job should always be about layering several coats of dirty to replicate correctly the natural process. If you want to rush things or treat weathering as a single coat of dirt you will fail to capture the real thing.

Meanwhile, I've also started to work on a bunch of Procor cement car, which are even more interesting to weather. They are certainly not straightforward to do and I had to way a month for oil paint to dry, but patience is the only way to get good results. More on them on a later post.