Colourful wagons

I've three exhibitions coming up this Autumn and with little modelling done over the summer, I've several jobs ongoing to finish some projects before the exhibitions. Most of these are focused on Hexworthy, but first up three wagons have been completed for Loctern Quay. These had just been awaiting weathering which was done with an acrylic wash followed by a dusting of the underframe with the airbrush. 

The Royal Daylight tank has also had a dark wash around the filler caps and streaked down the sides, I used water soluble oils for this which allowed a damp brush to remove paint until a subtle rain-streaked look was achieved. Whether this is spillage during loading, or just soot, is open to conjecture...

As well as weathering the weedkiller wagon, I decided the valves and spraying gear were not visible enough. I touched in the valve handles in red, and also put red ends to the "spraying" bar - since it is low to the ground and protrudes beyond the sides of the wagon, this seems a plausible measure. Although intended for Loctern Quay, this wagon could also be used in works trains to Hexworthy.

The Peco banana van has had the roof painted grey and the couplings removed to be replaced with Microtrains ready for shunting at Loctern Quay. The wash was applied then dabbed off with a damp kitchen towel until it settled in the planking and crevices, without looking overly dirty. The airbrush applied a little track dirt along the lower sides and underframe, and a little soot over the roof and upper ends. It now looks more at home at Loctern Quay - OK, it's unlikely to be actually carrying bananas, but could have been painted as a joke or advertising stunt perhaps?

Three more wagons that are colourful and distinctive, so should work well in the shunting puzzle at Loctern Quay and add interest to viewers. Now I just need to make photo cards for the puzzle, and run some tests to thoroughly check coupling reliability.