Edwardian express

Posted byTrevorPosted in7mm GWR equipment, Great Western Railway in 7mm scale

I started 2025 with a challenge: Weathering my set of three clerestory coaches for my 7mm scale Great Western Railway layout.

By Jove – that’s one heck of a beautiful train, if I do say so myself.

These three models were exquisitely executed in brass by Lee Marsh Model Co., and they’re now hard to find. I was fortunate enough to acquire them from a second-hand dealer in 2023. And I’ve been working up the nerve to weather them ever since.

The problem was, the weathering needed to be very light: These were the pride of the line at one time, and the GWR of the Edwardian Era would’ve kept them well polished. But light weathering can be really difficult. It’s easy to overdo it, and almost impossible to recover from such a mistake. So I kept putting it off.

That said, these coaches desperately needed a bit of grime to lighten the bogies, tanks, and other details below the frames. They also needed a dusting of soot on the roofs to tone down the factory-fresh white paint.

Over the holidays, I felt it was time to tackle this job, so I hauled out the airbrush and my go-to weathering palette of Vallejo “Model Air” acrylics – and I’m glad I did.

Applications of light grey and tan below the car sides bring out the details so the coaches don’t look like they’re floating on a black blob.
Roofs are what we see most of on a layout, and the bright white roof panels made these cars look somewhat toy-like. A very light application of grey-black goes a long way to addressing this.

I think the weathering turned out well and the models all benefit from a touch of ballast dust and coal smoke to bring out the details.

This is an excellent start to 2025.

Published by Trevor

Lifelong model railway enthusiast and retired amateur shepherd who trained a border collie to work sheep. Professional writer and editor, with some podcasting and Internet TV presenting work thrown in for good measure.