Before hitting the mainline, I started with the “spur to nowhere” to test how the weathering would look full scale. And by golly, it looks pretty good.

Shaun Track

Last night I did a little test of painting rail.  I again used the Floquil paint pen, but in the Rail Brown color.  It was easy to apply and gives a nice weathered look.

The painted rail is on the front rail, right side.  Compare it to left side of the rail that hasn’t been painted.

Here’s a look at the concrete rail.

The spike heads (or whatever they call ‘em on concrete ties) is the important thing here since this is pre-weathered track I tested.  I was concerned on how the heads would look because when you paint the rails with the pens, you can’t avoid painting them too.  Once the paint dried, I kinda like how it turned out.  It gives the heads a little more metal look rather than having them be the same color as the ties.  Tonight I’ll try out a piece of non-weathered track to see the full affect.

Shaun General, Track

Got some more feeders installed so now both mainlines are in operation on the layout.

The plan is now to install the turnout motors on all the mainline turnouts, and after that begin work on installing the siding closest to the edge along with the intermodal yard tracks.

Shaun Track

First up, a bit of a milestone. The mainlines are in place.  Hurray!  Can’t run trains just yet as I need to drop feeders still.  But soon!  Once I get feeders in, I’ll begin work on the sidings.

I then started to paint the track. I wanted to paint the ties because:

1) To blend all the different colors of ties from the 3 types of wood tie track used.
2) To get rid of the plastic, glossy look of the stock flex track.

So far I’ve only painted the outside mainline using a Floquil Paint Pen in Rail Tie Brown (wood ties only of course).  I’ll get the second mainline done tomorrow evening.  Once I get the feeders soldered to the rails, I’ll go back and paint all the rail on the layout using Floquil’s Rail Brown paint pen.

Painted ties are on the left.

Painted ties on right:

And lastly, just a look at the “cardboard mountain” forming on the Marigny side of the layout.

Shaun Scenery, Track