Weathering British Rail coaches

Since "The Great British Train Show" in Toronto has unfortunately but necessarily been cancelled, I am posting about a replacement British-themed project I was working recently. At the December "Great Train Extravaganza" show in Albany I picked up four British Railway OO gauge coaches for $6 each. They are old Lima brand models and the detailing is a bit dated. I remember seeing Lima advertisements in Model Railroader in the late 1980s and early 1990s for their British and especially African Railway trains. Even though the coaches' detailing is a bit crude, I had some money in my pocket to burn and so these four cars came home with me.

After doing a little digging online, I found out that they were models of cars that were from the late 1960s and early 1970s in Britain. Having only a few other British models in my collection, and with nothing that matched, I was essentially starting from scratch. I took them apart (not very easy as they had lots of internal tabs... which I cut or ground away to prevent future problems) and then surveyed what I had. They came with basic interior moldings, and the roof also contains clear glass sides which slip into the car's four walls to provide the window glass. I marked the inside of each car, its matching roof, and interior to allow me to get them back together in their proper configuration later.

The wheels were metal, which was nice, but the flanges were huge. I turned down one set on my belt sander and decided it was too much work to do the rest. Intermountain 36" metal wheels were too small for these cars (which are 1:76 scale, and the prototype wheels are larger than 36" anyway, meaning I needed much larger wheelsets). I planned to get them at the G.B.T.S. but its cancellation forced me to Plan B which was a company in the U.K. called Peter's Spares, who also have a handy EBay store. They fit perfectly in three sets of trucks, but in one set they were tight. Dimension wise they checked out okay, so two of my trucks must be slightly warped.

The car trucks were sprayed flat black and then drybrushed with brown acrylic paint. This goes on bright but it dries to a nice dull color that looks like both dirt and rust. The wheelsets were also given this same color on all surfaces. Then, I removed the roof/window pieces and lightly drybrushed the sides of the coaches with the same color brown. The black ends were given a heavier treatment, especially around the diaphragm and buffers. After that, I applied a black oil paint wash to the sides. The roofs on all the coaches were spray painted with a dark gray color and then given an alcohol & ink wash. Then, everything was Dullcoted.

The interiors need to be repainted too, as that yellow is really garish. The white bathroom windows (I think?) are scratched up and also could use a repaint. Then, I will add some figures and that will be that. Now, I just need a diesel to pull them.