The Wagon and Carriage shop: red wagons
I blame Gareth.
It all started with an innocent remark that I thought just betrayed our Yankee friend's touching ignorance of real railways: 'Aren't you going to paint your pre-1904 wagons red?
'Of course not,' I replied brimming with confidence 'Red was only in use until the mid 1890s so I don't need to.'
'Are you sure? I thought the Great Western Way said the balance of probabilities was on Red until 1904...'
'Nonsense. See.' I showed him the pages from the bible.
'Not that edition, the new one.'
Ah.
On reading the new edition it seemed that humble pie was in order. Gareth was quite right - the bible did now suggest that Red wagons were to be preferred on God's Wonderful Railway until the 1904 livery which saw the 24" high G W letters come into use and of course would still be seen for a few years after that date.
Like the bad loser Gentleman I am to took this badly well and sulked offered him my congratulations on his new found expertise.
Now I just had to repaint a load of bloody wagons...
The first problem is that unaccountably no one does GWR freight stock red paint. Second, no one has a clear idea of what shade of red it actually was. Most helpful.
In the end I decided to aim for a shade that was close to the lovely 7mm wagons on the GWR modelling website by mixing precision paints red oxide and GW signal red until it looked about right when compared to the web image. After I cleaned the paint off my tablet I thinned down the mixture with, er, thinners liberally dosed with bad language.
And this is the result.
Here they are on the drduncan patent portable workbench. The rake consists of 3 x O4 5 plank wagons, 1 4 plank (undiagrammed as it hasn't got DC1 brakes), and an Iron Mink. In the paint shops awaiting top coats and a visit from the signwriter are a couple of V5s, another Iron Mink, and some 3 and 4 plank opens.
Here are a couple of close ups. First the 4 plank open:
This one has been modified (quite a bit actually) from the Coopercraft original - lowered floor, square headstocks, compenstated and Thomas patent brake gear.
The Iron Mink was also been modified - grease axleboxes being the main change from the kit. It has also been more heavily weathered and the livery faded.
And here is the lot with a brake van on the South Hants MRC's Hope-under-Dinmore layout.
The wagons still need more work on dirtying the brake gear and underframes - even for the ones that are supposed to be newly built - and chalk marks added before a final coat of matt varnish.
- 9
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