Pair of Bachmann Class 37’s

Both these Class 37’s have been weathered to a medium level. Although from different eras the method was the same – wash and wipe followed by airbrushing and a little dry brushing.

37026 Loch Awe

This loco is from the Early 80’s Scottish Region and was part of an influx of 37’s that replaced small Sulzer powered locos. This was one of the first locos to carry the Scotty Dog emblem of Eastfield Depot.

37423 Spirit of the Lakes

This is a loco that is currently running in this condition as part of the DRS Fleet. This loco is one of a few locos that have had their original lights replaced by light cluster pods. The Loco was purchased by a friend from Rainbow Railways who did the conversion. I super detailed it and weathered it only.

You Tube Videos

I have lots of video from my travels over East Anglia over the last couple of decades and would like to share them. To this end I have started posting videos on my new YouTube channel.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCirztR36aAOZq4IhvaiT0mw/

Hopefully I will get some footage of my current layouts over time and will be able to upload this too. In the meantime here is my first video – A class 31 & 37 on startup at Norwich station in the snow, taken when on a day ranger around Dec 2005.

Special thanks to my son John – without him this would not have happened.

40080 Heavy Weathering

As the title says – this is a heavy weathering on a Heljan Class 40. This Loco has become a labour of love over the last few days with extra washes and special attention to the tops of the nose. I would call this about a 8 out of 10 as far as weathering goes, certainly the roof, underframe and bogies could not be much dirtier, the body is subtly streaked with shadow using dark grey and a little light grey for wear and tear.

This was a multi method job using ‘wash and wipe’, airbrushing’, ‘dry brushing’ and a little powder here and there.

Just noticed that I have not done the headcode discs – these will done before calling it finished.

Three diverse wagon weathering

This batch of wagons are very different and the approach to weathering is also diverse.

Firstly the dear old 16T Mineral wagon – I have weathered many tens of these wagons and most have been grey – this one is of the brown, fitted example. Matt Black is the base wash and wipe colour and three tones of rust were used.

The next wagon is a Catfish Ballast Wagon, the wash and wipe on this wagon was a light grey. The inside of the hopper also had a little light rust added before being filled with O Gauge Ballast. The Ballast is left for an hour and then emptied out to give the desired effect. I look on this method as only reproducing what happens in the real world!

Lastly we have an OAA Open Wagon in Bauxite. After adding the door chains to the sides, these were painted medium rust. I then used a very dark brown to do the wash and wipe with.

Finally the photo below shows the diverse wash and wipe used.

East Anglian Shunters

A pair of my old friends from the late 70’s. A Dapol O8 re-numbered as O8250 a NR (Norwich) Engine and a Heljan O3 as O3175 a MR (March) Engine. Both are Vacuum braked examples.

Both are medium weathered and are DCC Fitted. Special attention has been paid to bonnet hinges with a little rust of the O8 hinges. The wipe and wash method used again to make the engines look 3D rather than coloured plastic.

12T BR 4 wheel Vans

Here we have a pair of Dapol standard 12T Vans, my only brief was for a light – medium weathering. Not too complicated at all, one van being planked and the other plywood sides.

The key to weathering these wagons is the wash and wipe method and getting shadow into every crevice, before airbrush weathering. A few old chalk markings are added to pull everything together.

The Roof on each van has been stippled with a piece of foam dipped in dilute matt black.

Coke Challenge !

No not a famous brand of liquid refreshment – a proper Coke challenge. Last time I met my friend Mike he presented me with two Private Owner Coke wagons from the late 1940’s. They were an eight plank SUNCOLE in the black house colours and a seven plank in CRANSLEY COKE in their very vivid reddy-pink livery.

My challenge was to bring them forward in time about twenty years. Mike wanted them in slightly different new liveries – he had already researched the prototype wagons and gave me some sample wagon numbers.

I attacked the eight plank first and started to remove the original SUNCOLE livery. However I wanted to leave enough original paint so that after repainting BR grey, it would show through to show its ancestry and the indifferent BR paint Job! I also chipped some paintwork to make it even more distressed.

I then started the CRANSLEY COKE the same way, only this time the coat on top of the wagon was ‘matting agent’, this gave the original paintwork a very faded look. I then started repainting several planks with Railmatch ‘new wood’ finish, I guess I must have done about 40% of the total planks, this hopefully shows the full twenty years without a repaint.

Well there you are, a challenge complete and although time consuming, I am very pleased with the final result.