Weathering HO scale track.

The atmosphere that I hope to create for this French mainline station of the late 1950s early 1960s will be urban, murky, busy and either autumnal or wintry.

Every part of the diorama will contribute to this atmosphere. Practically, the first thing I can do is to weather the track.

I have practised weathering in the form of ballasting on my test layout - see earlier bogs. But, for the station itself, the tracks will not require much in the way of ballasting. See first picture below where the track seems to have been bolted down onto fairly flat concrete.

If one contrasts the picture above with that of my layout, below, what are the main visual differences?

Firstly, there is a large contrast in the darkness of the model sleepers versus the rails themselves and the cork underlay. In the picture above, sleepers, rails and underlay all seem  to be of similar tone. So my first task, will be to paint my track to achieve that uniformity of tones while introducing some rust and oil colourings. At the same time, I will want to maintain a contrast between the shiny top surface of the rails compared with their rust ridden and murky coloured flanges. (See bottom picture.)

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Afrobeats:

Great discovery on Radio 1 extra, the sounds of young black urban Africa.

More of this another time.

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Last night's dinner:

Emptying the freezer in preparation for next weeks evacuation to France; so 2 pieces of salmon, artichokes and fried potatoes.