I'd be grateful to hear about the methods and materials used for the above. There are so many differing opinions out there if you do a 'wide' internet search! The only major factor in play is that, as this was an acquired layout, the scenery and trackside grass etc is already in place and therefore I'm guessing that air spraying is a no-no. It would be useful to hear about the actual paints used (for example Humbrol 123). Looking forward to reading about your suggestions.
We just paint all the ballast, the sleepers and the sides of the rails with Humbrol matt 'rust' No. 133 using a fine brush. Obviously avoiding getting it under the moving parts of the points. This takes two sessions one with the point set in each direction with drying time between. Any paint that did get on the railhead is just cleaned off with a fine track rubber when it is dry. This does take some time.
It should be noted that as we have frog polarity switches on every point any paint in the blade to fixed rail contact gap area has no adverse effects.
I've used both acrylics and enamels. Something to be wary of using acrylics on rails especially is not to apply it too thickly - and for both to clean off soon after painting as I've had it chip when doing so when it is hard.
Also rails, sleepers and ballast come in a wide variety of shades. With the rails, newly rusted are orangish and wet and greasy rust are not far off black with all sorts of shades in between. Similarly sleepers can be near black to bleached depending on age and location.
Another part of the equation when it comes to painting code 80 track is to tone it down and not have it stand out as it is over scale in many situations. A strident brown rail web and large contrast between rail and sleepers could draw attention to the over scale height.
The rail rust or 'track grot' colours are good, but possibly any grubby nondescript brownish shade will do as well.
I had the 'brilliant' idea of using brown Sharpies in places. Unfortunately on the sides of rail it left a nice thin but very glossy finish which was entirely inappropriate.
Thank you Brian and Graeme for your replies, much appreciated.
Ammo/MIG do some rust colours in bottles with an integral brush. I haven't used them myself, but I believe some folk have used them for rails?
I spray the entire track, sleepers and rails, with Railmatch Sleeper Grime enamel and scrape the top if the rails with the edge of a wood offcut before the paint has gone hard.
This will give you the darker rail web with shiny top, and it tones the sleepers down superbly, taking away the shiny, plastic look.
Again thanks very much for the suggestions, I'll take a look at them.