Continuing the theme of a little pre work weathering, here is the current state of 60026.  Class 60s are a bit of an oddity with my modelling, a class that I have always really liked, yet one on which I have not yet done a great deal with the models.  In fact while my Class 37 fleet only has one loco with its RTR identity (the ltd 37670) and my Class 47 fleet has none, I have never renumbered a Class 60.  It helped that of the 3 models I have, one is the GWR 150 60081 (which will eventually be hauling the track cleaner on Brent), the Loadhaul 60007 had a photo of the loco working on China Clay on the box, and finally 60026 in EW&S I don’t think I ever got round to finishing.  In the end I decided that one un named 60 is as good as another and left it alone.   As an aside I think I will be taking things a little further with my final 60 should I ever find a triple grey example at a decent price, to model 60090 in Coal Sector following some photos of the loco on Engineers in Dawlish c1999.

Anyway back to 60026,

So far the work on the model has included: P4 conversion with Branchlines wheels, fitting of the end details (obstical deflector, airpipes) and fitting with Dingham couplings (not the easiest job in the world with the cast metal chassis / very small hole)  From memory I think I modified a hook to reduce the part that goes into the headstock to 1mm in height, then soldered on a 2nd piece of brass to beef it up a little before gluing in place.

The weathering for this will follow 2 stages.  The first step (today) was to dirty up the roof using a mix of 3 parts black, 1 part sea grey and 1 drop of oily steel.  It followed the same method as with 37521, painting about an inch at a time and then wiping off.  After the application of 3 or 4 coats it starts to look the part.  This was then followed by adding some streaks down the bodyside aligned with the channels on the roof.

Looking at period photos of 60026, it was very dirty at the silencer end of the roof, but pretty clean at the other end.  The sides were on the whole pretty clean, while the underframe was the usual mess of brown  The latter will be a job for lunchtime…

edit: speaking of which, it’s now my lunch break and 60026 now has a weathered chassis (a mix of 3 browns, grey and black).

Advice on further improvements is of course always welcome.