Patched



A former ATSF car patched and re-lettered
for my late friend David R. Dyck

A look at almost any train these days shows a lot of patched rolling stock--cars whose original owner's names and reporting marks have been painted over by the new owner.

While planning the M & M Sub., I knew I'd need a number of patched cars to reflect the prototype. I especially knew I'd need a good number of patched grain cars for my unit grain trains. Luckily, that was easy to do; all I had to do was buy a grain car of any road and get to work.

I rubbed off the letters just enough so it would look
like an old car that had been re-lettered and numbered.

Also lucky for those who want to do patching, the prototype isn't particularly fussy about how it paints out old names and reporting marks--no need to worry about straight lines or colour matches!

I patched my cars in various ways--spray paint or rubbing off old letters using a piece of brillo pad. (Click here to learn more about that weathering method.) In both cases, I created masking tape masks to define the edges of the patches.

I re-lettered some cars for real private car owners, and some were re-lettered for family and friends. Since there seems to be a prototype private car owner for almost any roadname you can think of, any combination of letters you use ending with an "X" would work.

I deliberately made this patch crooked and off-centre. It's
re-lettered in memory of my dad, Edward John Longhurst.