I have not tried my suggested alternative (Rusty Rails Painter), although I thought it might be a good solution. As I was reading the earlier post about the Floquil pen, I remembered the article by Tim Warris (co-founder of Fast Tracks) - the article is on page 101 of the MRH Mag Issue 3, 2009 3rd Qtr MRH Mag (version 2). There Tim mentions one of his finishing touches for turnouts (applicable to track as well):

"Now for the finale. The killer app. The one thing that makes it all look fantastic. ..."

on page 104. Be sure to look at his great slides linked on page 192.

Keep on trackin'

Bill

Bryan

First let me preface this post by saying that the Flowquil paint pens are great and I have used them on many spots on my layout. However to weather an entire layout they just aren't practical. I have found they are better suited for detailing siding or maybe a yard or engine facility some part of the layout that you want to super detail lets say and draw a lot of attention to your track work. The tie color pens are good for coloring a few ties to simulate ones that have been switched out by the MOW crew. I also like the Flowquil pens for detailing all of my Micro engineering bridge track on all of my bridges.

A more economical method I have adopted is to simply paint the rails (before ballasting of course) with either roof brown or railroad tie brown or any color of your choosing that you feel looks like rusty rails. After the paint has dried but not too long go back over the tops of the rails with a bright boy to remove the paint from the tops of the rails. After ballasting and adding in extra track details the tracks look very realistic.