Weathering Oil Tanks
One of the notable freight services for Black Country Blues was the heavy oil tankers to Gulf’s oil terminal near Oldbury.
Andy York tackles the weathering of these wagons which can be translated into weathering heavy oil tanks across all eras.
Gulf’s Albion Oil Terminal was situated on the Wolverhampton to Birmingham New Street Stour Valley line seeing near daily deliveries of ‘heavy’ oil from Milford Haven and Lindsey, notable for bringing ‘foreign’ locos into the Black Country.
Bachmann’s 100T TEA wagon in a Gulf livery has only been produced as an exclusive edition for TMC and a short rake of six was acquired for BCB.

Paul Bartlett’s Photographs is one of the best internet resources for obtaining images of wagons as they appeared in and after service. A selection of suitable reference images for the project were purchased and downloaded. Printing the images out makes a handy reference point whilst working to replicate examples. Much of the livery detail and factory weathering is abraded away with a fibreglass brush after removing such separately fitted parts such as ladders, only ever working in a vertical direction to mimic the predominantly covered livery detail.

Light coats of acrylic paints were airbrushed on in vertical strokes to build up the streaking found on the real thing.
Lifecolor’s Rail Weathering Set of Acrylics is a good basis to work from and UA-723 Rail Weathered Black makes a good base layer to build up the density over obscured livery details. This has a slightly greenish tinge to the blackness which is a pleasing tone and is followed by further light applications of UA-720 Rail Track Dirt, UA-721 Rail
Sleeper Grime and UA-722 Rail Roof Dirt. I can’t help including one of my favourite weathering acrylics, Tamiya’s XF-84
Dark Iron.

I’ve taken to Pinnacle Modelling Supplies ‘pro effect’ weathering pigments over the last year or so, not just for their finish and adherence but for the fact that they come in a dumpy jar to minimise the risk of accidental spillage! Their
‘steel’ pigment gives a lustrous finish which is well suited to the oily sheen that developed across the wagons. Pinnacle’s dark mud, volcanic sand and dark brown earth are particularly useful for this project, again used to taste and swept in vertical strokes.

Oil spillages from the two outermost filler points are created with Winsor & Newton’s Black Indian Ink applied in careful vertical lines with a fine-pointed calligraphy pen. It’s near impossible to create the fine dribbles seen on the real thing but it gives a passable impression. A little texture or thickness can be added to the oil steaks by lightly brushing over the ink with black weathering powders. The centre point of the roof of the tanks is a sampling point and would rarely see the same level of oil spillage, there may be a little but observation of the pictures from Paul Bartlett’s site will give an idea of the levels which are occasionally seen.

After all the layers have been built up it’s important to clean back to some of the livery details which were required in general usage such as the white stars and the axlebox covers. Light vertical strokes with the fibreglass brush will remove the pigments and airbrushed weathering to reveal the factory applied details. Further pigments are applied to the bogie, wheels and springs to give the ‘in-service’ look.

The completed wagons now have the separate detail which has been similarly treated re-fixed. Ready for traffic on BCB these are normally seen behind a Class 47 but I can certainly remember the Milford Haven service yielding one or two
Class 37s in the early 1980s. The working came up via the Welsh Marches to Wolverhampton and reversed into the sidings at Albion which also avoided the loaded service running up Lickey Incline.