HI, I'm currently working on Dragon's heavy railway transport kit and was wondering what color the upper wooden part that the vehicles sit on would be.

I'm thinking maybe just a bare wood color overall, but then again, wouldn't it be painted the same color as that of the overall railway carriage? If so, I would just paint it the Pz. Grey and give it some heavy draybrushings of various wood colors to show the "bare" wood underneath. Can't make up my mind on this one. Maybe both would be correct. Any ideas here?

Thanks and take care, Sgirty

Larry,

For what's its worth, all the wooden planks on rail cars I've ever seen have been natural, not painted....granted, those I've seen have been from the early '80's to late '90's and have been on U. S. and German trains. It does NOT take long for them to dirty. If I recall correctly, they get dirty pretty much overall, with oil/grease stains more to the center and dirt "dirty" on the outsides (within a few inches of the edges [from wheels and tracks]). Realizing this is kind of ambiguous, I HTH.

Mike

I railheaded twce and both times what I was on was wood. remember hammering large blocks of wood to stabilize tracks into the wooden railcar deck.

The blocks of wood (chalk-blocks[sp?]) were used to stop the back-and-forth motion of the vehicles. I recall railheading in Germany (going to Bosnia) and that that was all we used...NO tiedowns. That was nice. Yet, we used the blocks and tiedowns going to Graf. All the railheading in the States required the blocks and tiedowns too. What a pain in the .

The blocks were made out of wood (duh) and were light colored (pine?) and all one piece...not laminated pieces, just one solid one. They were nailed in with "spikes" that were about (guessing) 8-10 inches long with a head about 3/8" in diameter. Like a 16-penny on a lot of steroids! I doubt much has changed in 50 years.

Railheading....Uggghhh.

Mike

Larry,
I've wrestled with the same question. It seems to me that bare old wood takes on a green/gray color. I've tried mixing but have never been satified with the results.
Using wood chocks instead of tiedowns is interesting.
If anyone has a good color for weathered wood I'd be thrilled to know.
Chuck

Well, the specific railcars is as I believe a "Rlmmps" (and other types used in WW2) are still in use with todays DB-AG and with the modern Bundeswehr.
So, looking at some pictures of todays cars, I would asume the wood was painted those days but you can be sure it was worn off very quickly by the use of the car.
So the wood would be bare, but darker under the influence of rest paint, oil, dust, rain and weather and all other influences.
So your idea about painting grey and give it some heavy draybrushings of various wood colors to show the "bare" wood underneath, is an excellent one!!!



These pictures I found on a marvoulus site: www.panzerbaer.de/.../ bw_ebtrsp_flachwagen-a.htm (There are more pictures on the site under: http://www.panzerbaer.de/archiv/bw_ebtrsp_2003-a.htm)







Here is also one picture I found on: http://www.21tsc.army.mil/1_tmca/railcars/railcars.htm



Hope it helps!

Paul

Hi, Thanks for the replys, esp. those photos Paul. They show some good color ideas on the real beds.

I have since noticed a photo sent in by a builder over in the 'Constructive Comments' section of Missing Lynx of a Tiger I entrainment. Now his bed color is a lighter brown, which sort of give a "frame" to the vehicle, seperating it from the RR car and letting stand on it's own more.

And I would have to think that weathering a lighter base color would be easier than weathering a darker one. Have found this to be the case at least on the lighter colored German later war vehicles with their Panzer Yellow color, compared to the earlier darker Panzer Grey. Anyway, this is my thinking at the moment.

Yes, I've seen that the tracks have to be "chalked" with wood beams and this is one of the reasons I used the Fruil tracks instead of Dragon's "Magic Tracks". That, and also the fact I have yet to successfully build a set of these d---- "magic" things too. Ha!

Am considering adding a real balsa wood bed to the kit, but am not sure that this can be done successfully, at least by me. But I'm still considering it.

What we builders could use are some newer, more detailed, RR cars in the various configurations that the Germans used during WW II, much like the detailing that Dragon is now putting into it's newer AFV kits, as this Dragon heavy flat bed model is starting to show it's "age."

Maybe with the advent of Trumpter's new loco. coming out next year we will see this happen, either by the Dragon folks, or Trumpter as well. We can only hope, as I think that these would add a whole new dimension to various AFv dioramas.

Thanks again, and take care, Larry