Well after a final push ive managed to get these wagons finished! The blog entries show that this has taken a considerable length of time, but this shouldn't be confused with this being a difficult project, more that i take an age to complete anything.

Obligatory shot of them on my loft layout.

This is one of the end wagons which have recieved heavier weathering, due to ( i think ) brake dust from the loco, apart from that there is not a massive amount of weathering/dirt from coal, in all pics of these from their use on the fiddlers ferry LBT coal circuit the wagons stay pretty clean, just the actual paint finish has faded quite a lot, which i acheived by painting using a faded version of the np blue colour.

This is an inner wagon, the coal load was created using a mixture of crushed coal, and some charcoal dust, when adding it to the wagons they did start to resemble wagons loaded by a loading shovel, i.e loads of coal down the side! once most of this was brushed off it gave a decent weathering impression, charcoal seems a pretty good material to create a subtle effect.

A shot of the loaded wagon

I'm pretty pleased with how these wagons have turned out, they can now be put to use as 1 of a variety of rakes for mgr workings, i wanted to build a layout that was heavy on coal operations and as i used to see these wagons either in stafford heading for ironbridge p.s or occasionally rugeley p.s, when away from their more normal duties i thought they had to be modelled. One thing i particularly like is EWS's minimal intervention, some of the wagons still showing defunct national power logos, and generally an air of neglect.

The other major appeal is that because of the nature of their merseyside operation they generally feature a tug up front, as can be seen, 60007 features in all my pics. i've got a few 60's i want to do and this is where i plan to focus now i've finished these wagons, i've managed to get half a dozen of them off ebay without paying more than £60 which, although they're a great model, seems about the right amount to pay.

Being a bit haphazard i've had this 56 sitting about for a while so i intend to get this finished first.

This started life as hornbys 56032 in metals sector livery, it also had a giant nameplate, which turned out to be a bit of a pain to remove, on both sides slight marks were left, not very noticeable but i didn't want to get to the transfer stage and be unhappy with it so i repainted the rail grey on the lower bodyside. I intend to model this loco 2001-2004, so i thought this could cope witha slight fading, i added a small amount of white to the mix and also a drop of british steel blue (ithink you're not actually supposed to see this, it just adds a slight different hue - saw it on someones blog and i think although subtle, is effective.) This loco will become 56054 British Steel Llanwern,just a bog standard grid, though one that managed to linger on almost to the end of the grids, iirc. This 56 has had the roof fan grilles changed - this is the biggest letdown on this model and although an easy fix is 1 reason why i'll not be paying to whack for these models. Ive also added revised cantrail grilles, as per loadhaul/ews mods. Both of these come from shawplan.

I hope to get this loco finished pretty soon, just an application of weathering now really, then i've got a few 60's to work on.

cheers

Chris