Just added ballast to Grahams O Gauge Dogfish. I let some of the ballast dust fall over the ends to add a little realism for spills etc.

Here are four wagons, three made by Graham and one purchased by him. I have painted, transferred and weathered three of them, but just re-weathered his cement wagon purchase.

Both the Bogie Bolster and the Dogfish are Brass kits – the runner wagon is a re-worked Slaters kit.

Sadly the Dapol Collectors is no more, but thanks to my son John we took advantage of their last kind offers.

Firstly a pair of LOBITOS tank wagons. As these are both mine, I renumbered one. This is a medium weathering.

Next are the first of the Banana Vans, One for me and one for Graham. So no need to renumber. These are the FFYFES variety

The second batch of Banana Vans are the GEEST variety. Again one for me and one for Graham. Again no need to renumber .

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.

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.

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.

This is a small batch of wagons I have weathered for the mid 70’s era. The two Bauxite wagons are the ones made by Graham and the open is for our mate Colin.

Vanwide (VEV)

Lowmac

5 Plank open

Here are three Ministry tanks made by Dapol and weathered to various standards. Both Type A and Type B are represented. This is the third batch I have done and they will run in dedicated trains.

The TTA’s made by Graham and painted by myself are now weathered. These are Skytrex examples. They are light to medium weathered with heavy ‘spills’.

Here we have three Dapol Turbots in O Gauge that I have weathered for the Morlock Heath Layout.

I have weathered these wagons to a light – medium level. After a lot of research I realised just how bad these wagons had become when in service with BR. As well as being used as ballast carriers they also seemed to be widely used for spoils and any junk they could carry. Sides became deformed and very rusty with paintwork almost non existing. So these wagons I have done would probably be medium to heavy on any other wagon. These were vacuum braked wagons in an air braked world and were expendable before withdrawal.

Please note, I researched the interiors of these wagons as well as the outsides.