Supercrud

Obviously this Micro-Trains hopper has seen better days—you can't even tell what the roadname was (it's Rix Rox, a private rock quarry line). I've seen real cars that were even more beat up than this. The physical aging was accomplished with the old "soldering iron" trick—sort of. Most modelers make the mistake of actually pressing the soldering iron into the plastic; this produces some characteristic distortions that are usually not very realistic. The trick to better battering is to hold the iron close to the plastic, but not touch it, and as the plastic softens, use a blunt object to shape the plastic. I use a cotton swab with most of the cotton removed, as well as the blunt end of a toothpick. Note the mismatched trucks on this poor old thing. It also has body-mounted Z Scale couplers and Northwest ShortLine wheels.

Image specs: This image was captured with a Canon 20D digital SLR.

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