Thanks to everyone for their feedback. I appreciate the kind words and constructive remarks from everyone. RailRon brings up an interesting point about prototypical railroad weathering. His question referred to if there are prototypical examples of such a weathered car. I think he makes a good point, however, I was a professional railroader for several years and happened to see quite a number of heavily rusted cars in use or along the right of way. In fairness most of these were of the gondola variety-I have seen gons with actual rust holes in the sides of cars. I good many boxcars were suprisingly rusted, but probably not to the extent of my modeled car, But in general, I would agree with RailRon. In my second entry, I did explain this car was from the late 60's when railroads were facing mergers and bankruptcy and there were many rustbuckets plying the rails in those days. I actually plan to have this car set out on an abandoned, weed riddled spur. Basically a forgotton car used most likely as a storagecar or perhaps just a general nuisance that noone has bothered to fuss with. This car is an attempt to perfect a rust technique I am working on-I wanted to see how much texture and variety of rust hues I could create, with the more delicate rust holding up to actual handling of the car. I am so far very pleased with the results. I normally go a lot easier on the weathering on most of my cars on my layout, as I prefer more of a clean look to things. But I think a super detailed rustbucket makes my other cars "pop" if you will. I am already using this technique on three other cars, this time with more FRA friendly rust. I must say, they are coming out pretty cool looking. I will post them when they are ready to hit the high iron. Thanks to everyone for the comments and suggestions.
Stuart