Dirty lorries / traffic patina / weathered wagons
It wasn’t until I started working with model goods vehicles that I really considered the difference between one soiled wagon and another.
However, when I was doing long-haul TIR work I noticed things like:
Lorries across Western Europe in Winter tended to be coated with a dark traffic film from top to toe, but at about chassis level the colour was leavened with a crusty whitish colour from the salt on the roads.
Lorries that had just crossed Eastern Europe in Winter were dirty from the waist downwards because the poor roads and slow driving meant that traffic only passed each other at a closing speed of about 85 kph on main roads.
Lorries crossing Turkey at higher speeds in Summer tended to have a dry coating of dust to about two-thirds up the trailer height.
Lorries coming off the desert were coated with a fine dust of a yellowy or even orange colour.
Then there were other colours from the specific ores or elements in the earth from the various quarries if you were noticing local tippers. Limespreaders were a league of their own!
I’d be interested in the observations of those with sharper eyes for colour and texture than I have; particularly those of you who have experience in ‘weathering’ model trucks (which I definitely haven’t got!). Talking of which, if you buy ready weathered off-the-shelf models like Tekno’s ‘dirty’ Middle-East collection, it can be the devil’s own job to mix and match wagons if there is even the slightest difference in patina colour between the unit and the trailer.
This one, for example, looks ridiculous:
But this one is more carefully matched:
Any thoughts on this subject chaps?
Ro
I have serious OCD about ingrained muck, including salt, can’t leave it like that to bake on, during winter regularly go round the motor whilst its discharging with a bucket of water and brush to clean all the windows mirrors lights and reflectors.
My real bugbear though is the sight of thick black brake dust especially on disc braked wheels, part of lorry driving, to me, is using all the auxilliary retarding devices you have whether exhaust brake, jake, retarder, even terrain, to slow the vehicle in preference to the service brakes which in my world are there only to bring the vehicle to a final halt and to be kept as cool as possible in case a serious stop is required.
Sadly this is something else that’s been trained out of new hgv drivers in too many places, the brakes to slow gears to go mantra might apply to cars that have no auxilliary braking and the brakes of which are generally more than capable of stopping the vehicle repeatedly from very high speeds plus the cost and simplicity of brake renewal in most cases is more economical than using a gearbox not designed for prolonged engine braking at high revs.
Lorries however are designed at great expense to include some sort of auxilliary retarding, including automatic gearbox downshifting to keep up efficient engine exhaust braking levels, they didn’t design and fit these systems because they were bored on a wet Sunday in Grantham, they are there for a reason, brakes to slow etc has no place in the world of lorries in my humble, i’ve had a heated discussion with a dcpc instructor over this issue who annoyed me no end repeatedly telling the young drivers in the same training class how because of new designs in brakes you no longer needed to downshift but just stay on the brakes in top gear right up to the hazard/junction, not a bloody clue but reckoned he was an hgv instructor which may go some way to explaining what we see out on the road.
Nothing pleases me more than to see a well kept wagon that the driver takes pride in , doesn’t need to be bling or covered in hundreds of lights either, amazing how even a set of clean wheels and clean windows and mirrors can set a motor off, almost certainly you’ll see the same driver doing everything in their power to avoid tyre shredding U turns etc.
To be honest, I never had much of a problem with dirty lorries, as long as the glasswork, including lights, mirrors and windows were all crystal clear. 
But to be crystal clear about purpose of this thread, it sets out not to bemoan filthy trucks, but rather to rejoice in the different types of patina coating them under a variety of conditions; and to consider the manner in which that patina is distributed over the truck in different heights and densities depending on speed, road conditions, weather and so on.
This was an Iveco I was driving on Europe work in Winter about 20 years ago. [See if you can identify the port!]
This Dutch Centrum artic appears to have passed through a wintry Turkey into Arab territory.
Russian muck seems to have a nature of its own, combining the East European effect (dark, waist-high patina) combined with heavily soiled front end.
This artist has observed the trajectory of the dirty across, and up, the side of the trailer.
Desert sand and dust has to accrue particle by particle but it soon sticks! Here is a picture I took of the front of my lorry in Saudi (about 21 years back) immediately after driving out of a ‘mud storm’. I call them mud storms because I’ve never heard them called anything at all. It’s when it rains during a sandstorm (a rare occurrence) and plasters the front of your lorry with mud. Not nice, I can tell you: worse than fog. You can see where the mud has settled and dried, especially in the bumper region.
If a trailer is left uncleaned for any period of time, all that history of speed, conditions, trajectory, patina quality etc etc just gets smudged into a deep grime. This old Elvex 12m tilt trailer I picked up in Dartford docks on traction work about 20 yrs ago is a classic example.
To be honest, you can hardly blame Elvex for sending a tilt in that condition to the UK when you consider how they were treated by the natives (not the lorry drivers!). This was a brand new 13.6m tilt on its maiden voyage. It got torn to shreds by the Tipton tilt slashers 
. Mindless vandalism, as there was nothing to steal.
ERF-NGC-European:
Russian muck seems to have a nature of its own, combining the East European effect (dark, waist-high patina) combined with heavily soiled front end.
20
This artist has observed the trajectory of the dirty across, and up, the side of the trailer.
1
And only 1 wiper, must be saving on the leccy
Kempston:
ERF-NGC-European:
Russian muck seems to have a nature of its own, combining the East European effect (dark, waist-high patina) combined with heavily soiled front end.
20
This artist has observed the trajectory of the dirty across, and up, the side of the trailer.
1
And only 1 wiper, must be saving on the leccy
Probably blind in the right eye
I snapped a pic of this 1:24 scale model at Gaydon about 6 yrs ago. It was impressive but the picture doesn’t really show up the subtleties of his patina work. Nice little details like mends in the tilt canopy.
mushroomman:
PAGING, HARRY GILL. 
0
Good example of the uniformly spread road film. 
ERF-NGC-European:
Kempston:
ERF-NGC-European:
Russian muck seems to have a nature of its own, combining the East European effect (dark, waist-high patina) combined with heavily soiled front end.
20
This artist has observed the trajectory of the dirty across, and up, the side of the trailer.
1
And only 1 wiper, must be saving on the leccy
Probably blind in the right eye
Lost the wiper on a trailer door handle:
With that much muck on the front of the truck, I`m wondering whether he is an habitual tailgater?
Franglais:
ERF-NGC-European:
Kempston:
ERF-NGC-European:
Russian muck seems to have a nature of its own, combining the East European effect (dark, waist-high patina) combined with heavily soiled front end.
This artist has observed the trajectory of the dirty across, and up, the side of the trailer.
And only 1 wiper, must be saving on the leccy
Probably blind in the right eye
Lost the wiper on a trailer door handle:
With that much muck on the front of the truck, I`m wondering whether he is an habitual tailgater?
I think it’s more to do with the driving style in Russia. Many roads are two way like our A-roads and relatively low speed limits for trucks are enforced; so they are able to travel closer together in dirty conditions. Wintry pictures of Russian lorries generally feature filth-plastered front ends.
If Middle-East work is an excuse for dirty wagons, tipper work is a veritable licence for it! There is a wide spectrum of dirt on tipper work.
This can vary from just having dirty wheels from having ground slowly across a construction site in low gear:
Through to chassis-only muck from jostling with other tippers in narrow lanes:
Right through to getting your sleeves rolled up and literally mucking in!
Shunters had their own variety: ie usually wheels and lower chassis muck only:
Then there were those left to rot! They developped a patina style all of their own.
Another lower speeds waist high example
ERF-NGC-European:
Franglais:
ERF-NGC-European:
Probably blind in the right eye
Lost the wiper on a trailer door handle:
With that much muck on the front of the truck, I`m wondering whether he is an habitual tailgater?
I think it’s more to do with the driving style in Russia. Many roads are two way like our A-roads and relatively low speed limits for trucks are enforced; so they are able to travel closer together in dirty conditions. Wintry pictures of Russian lorries generally feature filth-plastered front ends.
210
I do see that traffic going in the opposite direction will chuck up spray. That will unavoidably get on the front of vehicles.
But still maintain that if youre travelling in someone elses spray, be that at 60mph or 20mph you`re too close.
That blue DAF seems to have a very dirty front, but not so bad on the sides. Doesn`t that appear to be caused by tail-gating ?
Tailgating may well be the habitual Russian style!
You mentioned the Tekno ‘dirty effect’ Middle-East series of models at the top of the page. They go for silly money though I’ve found some pictures of some of them online:
