Track Painting

One of my layout goals for this year was to paint the track, and I'm now about 95% of the way there with 2 months left in the year. Yesterday I was granted a large block of time to do what I pleased, and I seized the opportunity to lug the compressor and airbrush from the basement up to the attic and paint the track.

I used Vallejo Game Air Charred Brown (72.745) thinned about 4 parts paint to 1 part Vallejo airbrush thinner. It took 2-3 passes over each section to get a good coat, and I ended up going through almost 2 bottles of paint. To avoid getting paint in the electrical contacts at the point hinges, I didn't spray these areas and will come back later to brush paint them. It would have been really tedious to brush paint all of the rails even on this small layout, so the airbrush really saved the day here. In addition, it wouldn't have been feasible to use an aerosol can in the attic - too much overspray and fumes.

A scrap of 2x2 wrapped with paper towel was handy for wiping wet paint off of the rail tops.

Conspicuously unpainted in the first photo is the siding in the middle of the layout that will serve the feed mill. This was intentional, as it occurred to me recently that I should realign this track to be parallel to an adjacent street. I started laying out the streets earlier this year, and as shown on the photo below, with the current track arrangement the feed mill would end up in a triangular-shaped lot that would look unusual in context. 

It shouldn't be too difficult to realign the siding, other than now I'm wishing that I hadn't soldered the rail joints.