Another fascinating video. I particularly liked the drone footage and once those darn trains were out of shot we could really see the permanent way we were looking for. Interesting how the real world has such a variety of colours.

I never thought watching paint dry would be so interesting, thanks Charlie another great video.

Another proper job Chas , informative too thos different shades

Very nice like your latest video.Thanks David.

Watching today, very interesting and much appreciated, from an N gauge modeller who is currently ballasting track!

Fantastic video Charlie 👍👍💯 great techniques thanks for sharing a great video 👍

So very helpful. I'll be using n-gauge Kato Unitrack, because all my Dutch rolling stock runs on it reliably and, just as important, I won't be able to use or access the underside of the shelf the railroad will be built on. Unitrack has bed, ballast, sleepers and rails all combined in one which doesn't give me a lot of opportunities, but I still plan on weathering it using some of the techniques you showed - after I practice. A lot of practice. Thank you!

Great Video once again Charlie. Good to see you at the Exhihibition the weekend. Thanks for visiting

Nice finish Charlie, I wish I was 50 yrs younger, I would be joining you.

Good vid, very realistic . I have purchased a set of multiple colour acrylic art pens, I use them on detailing on loco's and rolling stock, grate for picking out details on all sort of things easier than paint brushes no blobs, constant flow. Stay safe Charlie. Thanks

Wooden sleeper = Raw umber, leave to dry and apply a very thin wash of white acrylic. This white wash will highlight low areas of the grain. Concrete sleeper = vallejo model air concrete, brush that on. Rails I use vallejo model air in metallic rust. When all that is done then ballast the lot in buff and grey blend randomly. Weathering is done with watered down burnt umber with a dash of black mixed in which can be mixed to various shades. Mist the ballast with IPA and pipette the colours into the ballast. It'll soak down like it does in the real world. A slightly thicker mix of a darker brown can be added with the pipette along the railsides to takeaway that rust zing. That's how I've tackled mine on the Exeter SD layout so far.

Thank you so much I'm a long term model railway admirer but new builder, thanks to you. Your videos are so easy to follow and entertaining. Xx

Evening charlie. Great video as always. Just about to lay some new peco concrete track found this really helpful. Will definitely use some of these techniques.

I like the effect you produced. I expect that once the ballast has been weathered it would all blend in even better.

Such attention to detail is amazing.

Great watch again Charlie has always. Take care

This never gets old, Charlie. Thanks for sharing 👍

Well, "look at that!" ... a Super job!!!

I nearly didn't watch this video, but really pleased I did. The drone footage certainly provided a great perspective of the different colours of the track, ballast and ground colouring adjacent to the railway. I found this video particularly instructional with some great ideas to emulate real trackwork. Thanks for your time and efforts, really appreciated.

11:38 is the line before the tunnel that heads into Chester City :)

Glad you found the path to the station, it was good to meet you and I was pleased to find that path was mud less when I used it myself later on. Another inspiring video which reminds me of the importance of modelling what you see rather than what you remember when it comes to the colours. A site visit always earths you back to reality and you can never take too many photos, best Simon.

Thank you for another great video.👍

Great video Charlie, have got this dilemma on the practice board, so this has been really helpful. Thanks for the nod to the N gauge compromise, mind you, it'll be less paint used..............it's not much of a plus to cling too, but every cloud! lol

Another excellent video. The Ammo MiG "Track Wash" is referring to tank tracks rather than railway tracks in case anyone needs to know that. When you are dry brushing I would use a brush with stiffer bristles as it makes the task considerably easier. As you found out a small amount of paint goes an extremely long way so the brush really does need to be almost devoid of paint.

Great video Charlie. Always interesting to see the various ways of getting the job done. Thanks for sharing. Roy.

Charlie, Thank you for some sage advice. Painting (Colouring) tracks, and rails is a very personal choice, and can send ou into a bit ofa headspin on what to do. I loved your techniques, and reaseach, seeing a real track certainly helps to visualize what you want to do. Cheers, and stay safe. Michael

Really nice outcome, Charlie. Be well

Great video, Charlie. Much food for thought.

Thoroughly enjoyed that vlog Charlie very interesting 😂😂😂😂❤️

Loved it Charlie, I agree that no colour is wrong, apart from anything that is solid, as long as it is patchy it will always look better than the original.

Another amazing, informative, video, thanks Charlie, a master at work

Hi Charlie, yet another informative video. It's good to see different techniques for track weathering, great results. Regards, David.

You are one perfectionist Charlie keep it up another great video 👍

Excellent video Charlie...very informative 👍

lovely stuff. starting my first railway. my first baseboard just been assembled. cheers for all the videos and tips. greatly appreciated.

Well Charlie, you defiantly covered the subject of track railly great... in paint and ballast, LOL. Nice outside footage along the real way lines from above. Showing off the different tones and colours with the track in various states of new and decaying surfaces.

I must confess to having said "Oh, screw it!" to my own track a few times!

A very good video again Charlie. You didn give some good ideas for colouring rails, very effective. Thank you from Canada.

That was a good video. You got the starkness between creosote ties and concrete ties knocked down very well. I am modeling narrow gauge in an era from 1900 to 1912 in SE Arizona, that has it own issues for the Peco O-16.5 track ties. In my time period the railroad used Mesquite trees to make their ties and without Creosote. Mesquite wood is reddish when cut. Those ties were laid out in the blazing hot Arizona desert sun. The sun bleaches the wood and adds a silvering to the color to the tops of the ties. Then you have the tan to orange natural sand from the surrounding environment. Having lived in Arizona I can tell you that there are the occasional dust storms and dust devils that coats everything. Plus the railway I model was a copper mining railway that hauled coal up the mountain to the smelters. Also, it was all steam powered so you had the oil spills from the lubrication of the rods and clean sand dropped from the loco for traction. Of course all that is gone now. However, when I look at the B&W photos of the time period there is another railroad made feature present. The ballast is humped between the rails so that the ties between the rails are not visible. Only the full ends of the ties stick out of the ballast. What is normal ballasting today is not what was normal back then, at least not normal on some narrow gauge lines. Of course most narrow gauge lines did things on the cheap too. I think your experiment is also going to depend on available lighting. Take your diorama track out into the bright sun and compare your results to the lighting in the train room. How would it look at an exhibition in a hall lighting? Another question, what about the track for predominately passenger service as compared to a track used to haul coal to a power plant? Could you say the track to the power plant is darker because of coal dust? Just some thoughts...

Well done again Charlie

Always good mate Thanks Howard

Hi Charlie, excellent as always I think I will give it a go! Thank you for this your instructional videos are always good for us beginners.

Nice vid. Informative, dare I say educational, and entertaining.

Hi Charlie, a great video to go along with all the others. You have produced a great catalog of reference material to go to. Love the the drone videos, almost forgot to look at the track and not the A4…. Thankyou for time you spend off camera and infront on camera and putting these all together. All best again Marc

Very neat job Charlie 👍

Very well explained Charlie. Great to see A4 Union of South Africa in action. A close friend of mine was a driver when she was based in Fife many years ago and got me a ride on the footplate great days.

Great video Charlie as always. Track weathering is somthing which I need to go into much more. Its easy to think its a case of spraying it with sleeper grime and its job done. Goes to show how much more to it there is. Also loved the A4 being involved great locos.

Wonderful video

I do appreciate your love of the label 'prototypical'. My layout would give purists a fit, but I'm the only one to make happy.

I always enjoy your videos Charlie as in my opinion you have a gift for clear easy to understand communication even with complex subjects. Imagine my surprise when watching McKinley model railways a train journey through Hades when in the middle of Hades someone looking suspiciously like you made a fleeting appearance, even prompted me to rewind to check it wasn't my imagination. Spooky

« So having decided of mid summer, what does it got to do with tracks » well in winter they are all deep in bloody snow with only the flange cleared!! Nice work, greetings from Canada!

Beutiful scenery work

interesting aspect . the sleeper colours do change with age and the season, liked the A4 video segment too

Fascinating as always Charlie. Just released a video on painting and ballasting my N gauge track - both concrete and wooden sleeper track. No air brush in sight ! Cheers Euan

Copydex is a few weeks before my time, remembering my own childhood is best done with a whiff of Matey Bubble Bath (if they still make it).

That was great Tony. I love the dry brushing. I must try it. Best wishes, Toulouse, but in Bouzigues.

Re the woodlands scenics marker pen.... I have used a ZIG posterman Brown PMA 50 waterproof marker from my local Art & Craft shop which is a fraction of the cost of the Woodlands product. I totally agree with what you said in an earlier video about the "rivet counters". This has always been an expensive hobby, and now is getting out of sight. Keep on with your down to earth video's.

Thanks Charlie for mentioning N gauge rail detailing. 2 suggestions: if you brush paint your rails don't use your best brushes, they will suffer! And 2, it's easier to paint the track before constructing scenery, because access for the gizmo or brush is bigger. Remember guys double track gives you 8 sides of rail to colour! Ooh...

Thank you Charlie for this video. Lots of good ideas. My own layout is so small (1 x 6 feet, two turnouts) that I decided to hand paint all the rail and ties, using acrylic craft paints. I figured that having track sections showing different levels of age and maintenance would help compensate for the smalll size. I also made a few places where new ties had been inserted and ballasted where the track was supposed to be old. On the whole I think it worked, and I'm satisfied with the results. It was fun to experiment with different color mixtures to get the shades I wanted. However, if I'd known how tedious and time-consuming the painting would become, I would have done otherwise, say use those nifty paint markers for the rail. Cheers from Wisconsin!

Great video Charlie ! I’ve literally just managed to assemble my baseboards. 15ft by 7ft . First model railway build and it’s going to European . I think your videos are going to be extremely helpful to me !! Many thanks !

Nice one Charlie. Just to let you know I bought one of those 8 pin socket for a D.M.U. I had hot wired some time ago and followed you instructions. and i am very pleased with it it saves a lot of bother if you have to change the chip. thank you. Top man .

Great tutorial Charlie. My layout is all wooden sleeper and I like the effect with the two paints. In fact I think you got just as good an effect with a little too much white and wiping it back off. I've been swithering about whether to paint before or after ballasting and you've very kindly made my mind up for me! I was also pleasantly surprised at the price of the Woodland Scenics rail pen - probably safer for me than a shooglie brush! Cheers

Once Again a Great Video very informative. Don't apologise for showing the Class 66 and the A4 they added to the Beautiful Drone footage you displayed. It was very interesting to see various sections of track from above an option we rarely see in the real world but we do see it like that on our own Layouts os it gives us a view to recreate. Keep up the Great Work

Nice video Charlie that rail painter looks like a great little device certainly saves time when painting the sides of your rails with a paint brush and paint! - Nicholas.

A useful reference tool is Google Earth, zoom in and look at the amazing variety of colours especially near stations news goods yards.

Great stuff Charlie! I've used copydex a lot since you reminded me that it was still available. One tip - if you drill a hole through a glued-down sleeper with a power tool, it tends to pick up the copydex layer and wind it round the drill bit, ripping it away as it does so. Using a pin vice (oscillating action) is a bit more controllable, as you can see it happening and stop. Cheers. Mike

Copydex is also frequently used to apply false eyelashes in the theatre to make sure they stay on during entire performances.

good vid on your channel keep up the good vid work looks good thanks lee

Hi Charlie. Thanks again buddy for another great vlog. Just completed my baseboards so the happy times start now😁. Although you were vlogging on your track, I was also looking at the way you put cork down for your points. So you you don't need to cut point shapes just fill in the gaps between track.👍 Drone footage was great, should have given us a bit more on the A4😉. Keep it up mucker. Learning a lot from your tutorials and be using a lot of them. (Scenics not dcc). Keep safe Charlie. Pete and Su.

Many thanks Charlie - good timing as im getting near to this stage of the layout.The little wheelie gismo rail painter that you used previously seems to be no longer available so have resorted to the same rail painter you used. thanks again!

Darrenbury Central Hi v interestin g film makes me think. Im hoping to move house and will be trying out what your showing on my next layout. You have really inspired me. Great show . Tatty Bi

On my N gauge layout , I use the wash , and wipe and the pen method as you have done there .. this with kato track .. looks very good

I trust you had a cup of black tea with a slice of lemon, and a slice of homemade fruit cake during the twenty minutes.

An Enjoyable video, Charlie. A couple of points (no pun intended 😀) of interest. The term ‘turnout’ is not just a term used ‘across the pond’, it is the correct railway engineering term for what is colloquially known in the UK as ‘points’. Points refer to the two ‘Switch Rails’ which are, as we know, pointed at one end. So, the term ‘changing the points’ alludes to the moving of the switch rails. A turnout is a combination of what used to be called ‘Points and Crossings’, now known as ‘Switches and Crossings’ (S&C) in railway engineering circles. When I was a lad, at the model shop, you asked for a pair of left hand (or right hand) points, meaning a single turnout. Today a single turnout, in UK modelling circles, is referred to as a ‘Point’ although it has two of them. 😂 The term ‘frog’ is actually from across the pond, from the days of the old ‘Iron Horse’, so called because it looks like the frog at the base of a horse’s hoof. The UK railway engineering term is ‘Common Crossing’ and is the term used by those in the industry, who build and maintain the permanent way. In the UK, the term ‘frog’ is almost exclusively used in model railway circles. As always, we all can choose to use whatever nomenclature suits our preference. Best, Jason.

Thank you for another enjoyable video. I use the Woodland Scenics rusty rail pen and the biggest problem for me is the two nibs provided wear out/get damaged before the paint. I also use the weathered tie to paint my wooden sleepers but that is a very slow process. I look forward to see your next video.

Great video, The rail colouring 'pen you use works well. I use two products from the firm EDDING. The Edding 1455 Creative has a wedge shaped fiber blade and the Edding 4040 Deco Marker sounds very similar to your 'pen' with a small ball rattle inside. Both give realistic oily rust colour to the rails and after track cleaning, if the rust colour has been removed from point check rails, a quick wipe with the pens restores the colour. .

Awesome 😎👍👍👍👍👍👍

"My lunch is now a distant memory" LOL, I was waiting to hear what you had ? but never mind it's still made me laugh. Once again Charlie great video, it now helps me on my next part which is exactly that... laying the concrete sleeper track and trying to get that 1960s, 70s look from when the WCML track was replaced and I'll be replicating and midsummer scene, so from my days as a kid back in the 70's playing on my local track and not caring about the dangers of trains or electricity would sit by the trackside and watch the trains go by with great delight, class 310 emu's, class 86's, and not to mention freight trains, coal trains and car transporters a many, which all went to making the track that dirty brown colour that you were achieving in the video, thanks for the help mate, all the best. P.S. I'll try that track pen it looks just the job ! & I'm having a class 310 made for me at the moment especially for the scene... memories hey !

Nice video Charlie well put together and interesting even for a N -Gauge modeler like myself. I glue my track down like you with Copydex, I then spray it with Railmatch Track Grime before ballasting with Woodland scenics fine ballast. Some n gauge modelers use chinchilla sand or something, never tried it myself, I am happy with the fine ballast, I find n gauge track a bit small to paint the sides of the rails but I do put dark patches in stations and the like where locomotives stop etc. Chris

Hi Charlie, nice presentation, thankyou. There is no doudt the act of "rusting" the rails is one of the most convincing things to do to our track! On another tack, I noticed some verdigris where you had soldered the jumper wire between the stock rail and point rail! After any soldering to rail or electrical joints and where (read always) I've used flux, after soldering, use a brush dipped in Metho to neutralise the acid in the flux. I know there is a good brand of flux that reckons its no clean flux, that in my experience does not stop the green crud from forming after. Cheers

Well done Charlie. Always interesting to see the many ways the track color situation can be approached. BTW points are called switches by railroads and only modelers call them turnouts on this side of the pond. Seems that one of the magazines started using the term because they found it being confused with electrical switches. And so it goes. Looking forward to your further adventures in 2 weeks

I used very dilute Tamiya flesh colour as per Boomer Dioramas tip for accenting some of the sleepers and it works fabulously. Turns out some of the colours you least expect can make a huge difference!

One option I've seen is to use a small drop of indian ink in the mix used to glue the ballast down, it provides a bit of contrast to the uniformity of most ballast mixes.

Hallo Charlie , I use a cap of beer bottles for a drop of paint . Great job . Greetings from the Netherlands.

On the subject of ballast colours, there can be so much variation. Quite often, you’ll have a running line in each direction (up and down) but the ballast was brought from different locations on each running line when replaced. As a driver, I see it a lot! For example, the Melton Mowbray line has extremely noticeable variation. The up line has ballast quarried at Mountsorrel (prepared and brought up from Toton) and is famously a vivid pink shade. However, down line ballast was brought in from Whitemoor and is a blue/grey colour. In the sunlight, the colours are very bright! It’s something that I reckon is worth considering when ballasting a model railway based on a real location. The naturally occurring variation in igneous rock will vary based on where it’s quarried and staged for engineering work. Since most engineering work (T3’s) are usually worked in one through direction, you’ll get the effect mentioned above, where each line can have totally different looking ballast on each side. It doesn’t always happen, but in my experience it’s something you’ll find regularly on double track routes that are pretty far from a large staging/marshalling yard. So the reason for it happening in my example, is probably just because Melton and Oakham are fairly equidistant from Toton and Whitemoor in each direction. However, I’d be willing to bet that the ballast near Toton is nearly all pink, but the ballast near Whitemoor is nearly all blue. That’s just because Network Rail are more likely to make the effort to source the materials from a nearby staging/marshalling yard, then have a larger engineering worksite when a staging yard is nearby. Network Rail would be more keen go through the more complex effort of running the T3 and ballast replacement over numerous lines at once if they’re not far from the starting location. I’d imagine British Rail did the same, it just makes sense from an operational perspective. Then, if a Tamper and Stoneblower turn up to replace a patch, you’ll get a mismatched area of ballast colour, because equipment like that can just be sent off from any random siding in the country, with whatever materials it was carrying or supplied with previously. You can see that in Charlie’s picture in the station, although I suspect that’s a wet bed repair, where the discolouration probably just comes from chalky mud being brought up from the drainage under the ballast. All that feels like a very complicated way of saying; “sometimes the ballast doesn’t match on both lines”, but I hope someone appreciates the explanation. Essentially, I’m just trying to say that it doesn’t all have to look the same, or even similar!

10/10 that was great

Interesting! For information, I watched a friends video of the train route from Hindlow to Crewe on his KZfaq channel, ( Don Coffey )after watching your video and the drone footages you took. Your video, Charlie, was identical to the real thing! The run to Crewe showed both conctrete and wood sleepers on the journey, and the myriad of colours.

Good video, Charlie. When you started dry (not dry at all) brushing the wooden sleepers with white, I was waiting for you to say proudly that you'd created concrete sleeper points out of wooden ones.😀 The drone footage and prototype photographs were interesting, and just go to show that we should aim for more variety, particularly (in UK terms) between the fast and slow lines on a four track section. The other interesting thing (which I have actually noticed when stood on station platforms and even on Google maps aerial views) is just how often sleepers are covered with ballast. I've sometimes wondered if it's the difference between hand-laid track and machine-laid track, which has had the Plasser & Theurer tamper levelling it all out, but you also see piles of ballast on the sleepers on newly laid mainline track - as indeed in one of your overhead shots, where as you commented, the ends of the sleepers were completely buried in new ballast. Presumably over time, it all settles down, and a few hundred trains running over must work like tapping the rails with the handle of a brush or whatever. But I think it goes to show that we don't need to worry about ballast on top of sleepers.

Great video. I model N gauge. The size makes for less need for fine detail so there is some trade off.

That was a great video and experiment Charlie. I'm assuming that is the one you were talking about in Frome. I like to use diluted paint and washes on my ballast to give variance and even include a bit of glued down weeds here and there. Great stuff mate, as always. Keep up the videos. If I could subscribe twice I would :)

Very interesting and informative as usual, Charlie. Didn't recognise Cary station at first; looks like you've been up that (newish) footbridge - it wasn't open the last time I was there.

Some tips for drybrushing: Get your hands on some cheap makeup brushes. Those will work much better for this kind of application! Also keep wiping the brush until you have barely any paint leaving the bristles. It's much easier to add more paint than remove what's already there! 😉 Thanks for another great video 👍

for the white drybrush there are two other colours worth a look, the first is "Off White", which is just a bit less sharp, the other is "Iraqi Sand" which is a more pale cream colour - also for drybrushing, wipe the paint off with kitchen roll, works way better. for the oil washes, have you considered making your own? artists black and burnt umber paint, dirt cheap in a tube, small glass paint jar (the Tamiya jars are ideal) and white spirit - can get whatever consistency and colour you want - costs pennies. good over rails as well

Another great video. I have been watching your creation for many months now. I am more interested in the construction and scenic aspects rather than the details of the rolling stock (engine classes, etc). Watching your recent video I noticed on your viaduct board that by looking under, and beyond the viaduct all you see is a deep valley and the sky. It may be of use to you to put a mirror between the end of the valley and the backscene. This will artificially extend the view in an optical effect taking the valley further into the distance. By adding a panel from a bridge would also disguise the top of the mirror and create a bit of interest in the distance.

Charlie - it's called DRY-brushing. Rubbing on paper is no good - you need a slightly absorbant piece of towelling!

Charlie The Cess is the area either side of the railway immediately off the ballast shoulder. This usually provides a safe area for authorised workers to stand when trains approach

Hi Charlie a great video I really injoy it every interesting it will help me with my new layout I one are bedroom I am still in the planning stage at the moment the last train ran on my old loft layout last week sadly I am downsides at the moment to be work beginning some club members are take the old layout down for me goodbye for how clive in N Ireland

Brilliant, thanks Charlie. Just what I needed at this time as I’m about to embark on 10 days holiday to get my model railway into that sort of state - hopefully! Your drone footage of Union of South Africa is superb. Well worth the video for that alone! As an aside, Matt Dawson showed on Twitter how you could run non-coreless motor DC locos on DCC using a ‘zero zero’ programme code on a Digitrax controller. Is this something you have tried or could demonstrate please?

Awesome 'how to' Charlie!! Thanks for sharing. Cheers Onno.

Another great video Charlie. You hardly ever see how people go about colouring the trackwork. I mainly work with buildings and I never use pure white, I always put a little of the original colour in to keep the tone correct. And if you cut half the length of the brush off you will find it makes a better "dry brush". 👍