Railfreight vans for Paxton Road...

This pair of Farish models are just very straight forward weathering jobs and show the real promise of such a compact scale...

The size of 'modern' freight stock soon mounts up in OO where you find even a small layout quickly expands if you're using these air braked vehicles. In N however, there is plenty of space to breathe and despite the age of the tooling (the VBA especially) these pair brush up quite nicely. 

The VBA has had it's buffers thinned (see the 5 minute makeover recently) and DG couplings to replace the chunky originals. This is a late 'Chinese' version of the tooling and the printing of the markings is much nicer, as are the wheels which have had their axles and faces painted brown. The weathering follows the prototype - first of all I toned down the red stripe and ends with a more orangey red - once dry the roof was given a wash and removed to leave streaks. The edges were then painted in the same shade but neat and left to dry - this matches the appearance of these vans in the late 1980s. Once hardened the bodyside and chassis were weathered with washes in my usual manner.

The VGA was a Railfreight Speedlink liveried model with the fairly shortlived 'placards'. I have a pair so whilst one retains that livery and is quite clean I chose to remove the placards, fill the holes and represent a dirtier 'later period' example. Sometimes the placards left behind a darker panel, I'm not sure why as I thought these were aluminium un painted sides, but I've replicated this by masking off the panel area sand spraying grey primer before weathering. The sides were then airbrushed with a grime - the colour carefully mixed to match the strange shade these vehicles seem to go in service. Once touch dry the data panel was cleaned off - and the following day a very pale wash was added to the sides to highlight the panel edges. The usual methods were used on the roof and chassis.

The result is a pair of distinctive vehicles for a few hours work - the perfect project for me to undertake in evenings 'after work' and following my mantra of N gauge for the ready to run models! Until next time, more soon...

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