That was my middle option in the reply to Bruce. Unless I hear that few steel reefers weren’t repainted by eight years, I’ll paint two and leave one unpainted. If I paint the running boards and hatch platforms, that means the paint would be 2-3 years old by 1953, so there wouldn’t be much corrosion or road grime. A car with unpainted running board and hatch platforms could look pretty dirty and corroded by 1953.

Reefer strings are the perfect cars to show off variable weathering, so that’s something I want to reproduce.

Nelson Moyer

Nelson,

A different perspective and philosophy.  I like variety in my freight car fleet, so I weather my cars differently, even cars that have the same built dates.  Differences in travel, geographies traveled, and lading contribute to a car's overall weathering, so I try to depict that.  I'd probably paint and weather each of the 1945 cars differently.

Todd Sullivan