Weathering a Covered Hopper

Weathering an old Atlas covered hopper for practice.

Before committing to weathering a $60 Tangent covered hopper, I decided to refine my skills on a cheaper car. I am used to weathering N scale rolling stock and have weathered many, but HO scale demands more attention to detail.

In the past, I have already custom-painted and weathered an HO scale Athearn Genesis GP9, but I had never tried doing the same on a freight car. I picked up a used Atlas PS-2 covered hopper as a practice model.

First, I disassembled it by removing the trucks, wheels, and couplers.

Then, I airbrushed the car shell with a 10:2 mix of thinner and white paint to achieve a faded look.

While the paint was drying, I painted the wheels with Vallejo Rust 71.080. To create a more realistic rust finish, I applied brown pigments mixed with Liquitex Matte Medium.

Afterwards, I applied an AK enamel black wash to the roof hatches and side panels. I worked carefully with a fine brush, then used a Q-tip dipped in white spirits to remove the excess.

Here’s how it looked once the wash was complete. I wasn’t completely happy with how the roof turned out, so I dipped a Q-tip in white spirits and rubbed it over the panels to remove the unrealistic streaks.

Then, I started adding rust using a mix of paints. When it comes to rust effects, I prefer working with oil paints. They offer several hours of working time before drying, which makes it easy to adjust or undo anything I don’t like. Acrylics, on the other hand, dry too quickly for that.

The main colors I use are Raw Sienna, Burnt Sienna, and Van Dyke Brown. I also added some AK Crusted Rust Deposits enamel paint for extra texture.

To achieve realistic rust tones, I find it essential to blend those three main colors. I applied the paint using both a 00 brush and a small piece of foam. It’s a time-consuming process, but I think the results are well worth the effort.

I wanted to give this old car a rusty, weathered look, so using some reference photos, I applied oil paints to the roof to achieve the desired effect.

I let the oil paints dry for a week before spraying a final coat of Vallejo Matt Polyurethane Varnish to seal the weathering work.