streak

streak Streaking...
Right along with overspraying and washing is streaking. Dirt and grime on a railroad car gets partially washed off by the rain. This leaves dark streaks down the side of the car. Also old white lettering and some dark lettering streaks after years out in the elements. Spills also occur where the product going into a car doesn't quite make it in the car and flows down the side. You can see that there are lots of ways a car can get dirty. The trick is to do the right type of streaking. Below are some actual examples.

The first is a Chessie WM covered hopper that is about as dirty as they come. Most of this load looks like it missed getting into the car. The second pic is of an old WM box car. Notice, especially on the right side of the car that the white under the word "Maryland" is streaking down the car. This is most commonly seen on white writing on dark colored cars, like this one.

How to:
To streak a car you can use either of three methods: dry brushing, weathering chalks/pastels, wash. We covered how to do drybrushing before, but if you leave just a little more paint on the brush it will streak the car and not just high light the raised detail. If you have tried to dry brush you surely have done this by accident already. Weathering by chalks or pastels is also effective. That is what I did for the white spills on the covered hopper below. Finally the wash was used too on the same covered hopper. Here it was given added contrast by using an eraser in the middle of the panels to accent the dirt in the crevices. The Erie boxcar shows how white letters steak after years in the sun.