Blimey, it's been a long time.

Progress has been slower than ever. I ordered a few things from Gaugemaster: solder, flux, more track work, and an extra wagon (GVT mineral wagon). I discovered I can't have Railmatch paints or poly cement sent to Italy, so I've used Humbrol enamels as I can get them locally.

The rolling stock all went together well, and I decided to attempt weathering.

As you can see, the wagons are rather heavily weathered, while the brake van in just a bit dirty.

As I was looking up photos of wagons to use as reference, I discovered that that the Parkside Dundas "freelance" mineral wagon is actually a pretty good model of the ex-Plynlimon & Hafan Tramway wagons that ended up on the Vale of Rheidol Railway. Another unexpected thing I discovered is that the wood that shows under the peeling paint on many wagons is various shades of grey, rather than brown or thereabouts, as as I was expecting. I presume it is due either to the accumulated grime or some sort of treatment it is given (unfortunately I only realised after I had already painted the inside wood colour). Anyway, I kept this in mind as I was painting the wagons. Both of them have peeling paint and unpainted replacement planks, as well as rusty metal parts.

On the ex-Hafan wagon and the brake van, I airbrushed the basic dark grey coat, black underframe, roof (for the van) and interior (for the wagon) with enamels. The GVT wagon I painted with a brush.

Then I painted the details (peeling paint, ironwork, replaced planks), still with enamels and drybrushed the lower part of the wagons with a light beige colour,

I then moved on to washes, made with Games Workshop acrylics. I started with a weak white wash all over the wood parts, to simulate paint fading, and a dark grey one over the light grey planks, because in the photos I was using you could see that the wood was not a uniform shade of grey.

I then carefully painted on the lettering (which is fairly awful, I need to perfect the technique), and then applied a rusty wash to the metal parts, first a dark one, followed by a much lighter and oranger one (Scorched Brown first, then Bestial Brown). When all that was dry, I applied a Graveyard Earth wash all over the wagon to simulate general grime, and streaked it vertically with a paintbrush as it was drying.

The inside of the wagon got two coats of black wash.

On the brake van I only applied the final general grime wash, but I think I will give the roof a grey or black one as well.

I solved the weight problem by superglueing some a steel nut to the floor of the brake van and one under the coal load of each wagon. That seems to give good performance.

On the loco front, I finished assembly using proper 100° solder, which was an incredible improvement. I fashioned a new cab front and sides with plasticard, with offcuts from electrical resistor leads as beading around the door.

For now I have primed it and given it a black basecoat. The final livery is going to be black skirts, tank tops and boiler front, blue tank sides and cab (and maybe boiler barrel), white cab roof. If I can pull it off, it will also have black and white lining around the tanks. I also plan to give it some light weathering.

Here are some photos of the loco before priming. As you can see, I added what I think are whistle, regulator and sand box control rods coming out of the cab front.