Realistic concrete color spray paint. - Model Railroader Magazine

 There's two things I've tried to simulate creosote ties\wood parts, RIT black dye and cheap WallyMart flat black spray paint.

  The dye works well for ties because no two pieces of wood ever look the same, I use matchsticks from the craft store,[pretty close to HO scale ties in size], Michaels or A.C. Moore, and just soak them in the dye mix overnight. They end up looking very much like sun weathered, used ties. The longer they soak the darker they get so soaking some for longer or shorter periods will yield a more diverse color range.

    For new ties, like you might see in a stack at a maintenance area, I just glue them together and paint them flat black with a brush.

  The cheap spray paint from WallyMart looks good on wooden trestles. I built several wooden trestle pieces [N scale] and then painted them with the spray can. They look pretty good. They are all uniform in color though, and if you wanted to make it super realistic you'd need to weather each one seperately, but all in all I was pleased with the results.

   Wooden trestles that I've seen have ranged from a glossy black ''newly built'' look,to a gray\brown ''been there for 100 years'' look. So there's probably not a ''prototype'' color for trestles, whatever looks good to you is the right color!

  Loathar.....if you ever discover that ''new board'' color absolutely let us know immediately!!   I've tried light tan, almond and even mixed up some colors trying to get the perfect ''newly cut wood'' look....I only got ''sorta looks like new wood'' colors.