Dirty Beattie

Beattie Well Tank No. 30587 trundles through the open crossing at Polbrook with a freight from Wenfordbridge to Wadebridge on a sultry summer day in 1957.

111204_polbrock_IMG_2088_WEB, a photo by nevardmedia on Flickr.

"She smells a bit but has a heart of gold", as coined by John Cleese when introducing his slightly less than fresh wife at a drinks party on a well known Monty Python sketch.

Here though I'm writing about Kernow Model Rail Centre's recently released Beattie Well Tank. The model supplied is quite delightful in pristine shiny black, any weathering being left to the modeller. Locos in service were generally a little grubby and had an acrid smell of hot oil, steam and soot - this aroma being perfume to steam fanciers

My method is to brush on a sludge of water based black acrylic and weathering powders, then wipe most of it of. These locos were generally quite well kept, so to reflect much use of an oily rag to give a nice sheen, Humbrol Metalcote was drybrushed on here and there to give a metallic oily look. To complete the effect, three link couplings have also been added, though I have still to remove the socket under the buffer beam used for the supplied tension lock couplings. I have also added one of the supplied distinctive Southern Railway route disks that sits just in front of the chimney.

• Bigger version of the above photo HERE!