Stanstead - Painting GTR Passenger Cars

This project is moving alone nicely even though I was naive enough to believe it would take 2 evenings to complete! It's nice to be optimistic.

Underframes and roofs have been painted dark grey instead of black. I even did some post-shading with the airbrush. I'm looking forward to weather the hell out of these roofs so they show their age. At this point in their life, they have been downgraded to branchline service and GTR is starting to be strapped for cash.

Trucks have also been painted dark grey and heavily weathered. I drybrushed highlights on them to add more relief to MDC trucks. Some washes and powders will complete the job.

As for car shells, they have been painted in a faded shade of Pullman Green. When looking at picture of wooden clerestory cars, they are heavily varnished, but after a while they fade and varnish starts to peel off. They aren't dilapidated, but simply not pristine. Sure, a 1910s car would have been kept in great condition, but under layout lighting, it looks fake. It lacks relief. For this reason, I drybrushed completely the details on the car with a lighter shade of Pullman Green. It brings the details forward by adding highlights, but also, it replicate some wear and tear of the varnish. That said, it's artistic license and I won't argue about that. But at least, it doesn't look like a toy.

Finally, I applied Black Cat GTR passenger car decals... It's a mixed bag. The instruction mentions decals that aren't included in the set (data, etc.), and the film was so brittle every Grand Trunk name on the letterboard cracked into multiple pieces. I don't know if it's a defect. It's the first time I have that problem with their decals. Weirdly enough, my sets have been acquired from different vendors, so I can't blame storage for the degradation. At least, they are salvagable.

With that said, I still have a lot of work to do on these cars. Final weathering, clear coat, windows, couplers, etc. But at least, they have reach a decent level of completion and I'm looking forward to put them in action soon.

I have a lot of rolling stock and motive power to complete on the benchwork, but I'll try to spend the last few days before Christmas on completing the layout itself as work will soon resume on Monk.