Well the rivits have absolutely no material on them in that shot, so that’s probably why they look wrong.
The coach bolt/rivet texture is the same as the sheet metal but without the sheet metal normals, since they’re painted in one go once they’re fully assembled.
That would do it. 
Another test, trying to ballpark a reference shot
Light and camera settings don’t line up perfect, and the GG1 has a little more green in the paint, but i think that’s satisfactory
That is really first class modeling. My deepest respect.
Regarding the renders, I think you could improve the look drastically by adapting the normal map in such a way that the unevenness more reflects the strain in the metal. The sheets are pressed to the underlying structure at each rivet but are bulging outwards (or inwards, depending on the curvature and manufacturing process) between the rivets. This can be seen in the reference shot in your last post. In your current setup, the structure added by the normal map seems to be unrelated to the object, which makes it feel a bit off, in my opinion. But this is just nitpicking…
Yeah i know. I cant hand paint or draw worth shit, so i had to make the sheet metal dynamically through painter. It’s just a bunch of Perlin noises set through a string of breakups. Even that result took ages to get. The rivits do have craters painted into the height but i guess i have the strength set too low. I’ll crank it up some .
Perhaps, if the rivets are extra objects, you can use dynamical paint, then using some blurring to get a displacement map? Just an idea…
This is looking really good 
Thanks to Steve Harlow, I’ve fallen in love with locomotives. Sorry, didn’t want to write the generic compliments like “nothing to criticize here” or “the amount of precision and detail is impressive” since I know that it all implies here without a doubt.
Well, now I’m really looking forward to the final renders. Congrats on finishing the modeling!
Steve! Glad to see you here! This is amazing dude.
Bits and bobs have been finished. Expect full renders soon. I just gotta figure out the smoke sim in maya
Wow, you must have many hours in this! Nice work.
Here’s some more glory shots while i figure out rendering
Chaosgroup seemed to have changed the way blender’s vray branch works while i wasn’t looking so i may end up having to convert back to cycles.
Anyone know if cycle’s UDIM support is ok? I’ve seen some people suggest “oh here’s my spiderweb node for making UDIM work” which really defeats the purpose
Did you get your driveshafts fixed? Renders look nice.
Cheers, Clock.
Yup.
I gotta fix the non cocentric movement on the #3 link, it’s expensive as hell and i had to rework it a bunch, but it works perfectly. And the whole sleeve assembly rotates about .5 of a degree between extreme suspension positions. That .5 degrees took more time than the rest of the rig did to make from scratch
Looks really good on the video - well done sir!
Sometimes one little bit takes a hell of a lot of time, but the perfectionist always has to fix it!
Cheers, Clock.
Not a final render, i’ve done some tweaking to all the textures since then and i’ve still yet to fix the seam on the sheet metal on the front. But i think it gets the point across
Excellent work Steve… I am sure you will fix the seam at the front!
Xmas Cheers, Clock.
