Intermountain RTR grain car...

During my teens I built several Intermountain Canadian grain cars from their pre-coloured/decorated kits, however I remember my Dad and I picking up a ready to run example probably around 1997...

It was finished in the white CN 'environmental mode' livery, which always seemed very garish to me but my Dad wouldn't let me weather it! When the Canadian layout fell out of use just after the millennium it was relagated to a box in the wardrobe where it would stay until Mum moved house and I ended up with the Canadian collection... even then it's taken 4 years to find it's way to my workbench, and I thought it might make a good second project after the recent CP box car.

The finish you see here is a result of several washes applied over a period of weeks, not with any grand design but just at the natural slow modelling progress of a slightly left field personal project. This meant it has become a fairly subtle finish, well at least until the last stage where I added rust and streaking from the top foot board brackets. The pre-applied finish was distressed, as were the later washes, with a fibreglass pen, not the first time I've used one on a project, but not something you always reach for as it can be a little too harsh, but the pale colours involved and the tough factory paint finish meant it proved to be quite successful in softening the effect and better matching photos of prototype cars in the this colour scheme.

The two sides are fairly evenly matched, the colour were mixed from Humbrol enamels, mainly 33, 70 and 245 in varying degrees to get a warmer tone to the greyish tinge. I also chose to stipple some rust on the top of the car between the hatches. I have no photographs of this area on the prototype but I hope my approach and it's results are plausible. This was stippled on, then sponged off and re-applied. The final stage was a general dusting over the whole model with the airbrush to soften some of the transitions.

It was never a great livery, white or pale prototypes weather badly, and are difficult to recreate in miniature. I’m happy that my model is a reasonable representation and one day can earn its keep on the layout, as well as a nice reminder of the man who started it all. Until then, more soon...