Tag Archives: rusty

Weathering Old Coal Hoppers

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CofGa 50T Offset Hopper

It should come as no surprise that someone who runs a site called “Appalachian Railroad Modeling” loves modeling coal hoppers! While unit trains dominate the rails today, a few decades ago it was common to see coal hoppers of all different vintages running together, and the condition of cars ran from “nearly new” to “how is this thing still on the rails!” Last year I wrote a shorter article on weathering a specific hopper using some of the same techniques, but in this article, I’ll go through each technique step-by-step because modeling variety in your hopper fleet requires the combination of many weathering techniques. Not all hoppers get every technique, but most hoppers get most techniques, especially those that … Read more →

Weathering an Old Coal Hopper

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MON 50T hoppers HO scale

(Note: for a more complete, step-by-step process, read ARRM’s more recent article on weathering coal hoppers as well)

Coal hoppers endure some heavy use and exposure to the elements. The loading process and constant scraping of coal on the slope sheets and sides during unloading quickly wears these cars down and produces some neat weathering that begs to be modeled. Younger steel cars tend to show bare metal slick spots, especially on the slope sheets. These metal spots tend to show a bit of rust around the edges, but over time, the whole interior can turn to rust that continually regenerates through the loading and unloading process. Here’s my process for detailing and weathering old “rust bucket” hoppers using a … Read more →