Another stoopid paint question

Unpainted I believe, this was standard for all companies. Humbrol dark earth is about right. For BR era it needs to be silvery grey due to aluminium based paint.

The unpainted interior would vary in colour depending upon what the wagon actually carried. A coal wagon would be approaching black, whereas one carrying something like *china clay* would be a very light grey/almost white.

A brand new, unpainted wagon interior would take the colour of whatever wood preservative was used - probably creosote in those days.

John.

Thank you both, I had a flash of insight whilst waiting to see if anyone could help and painted them "Light Oak" to serve as a base - on the principle that any paint that rubbed off would show the wood underneath.

I'll crack on and start weathering.

As john commented a lot depends upon the cargo, coal wagons would be pretty blackened for example. Also cargo such as bagged lamp black (basically soot) would stain everything black. You often see staining around the doors on vans as well, for example when they have carried bagged fertilisers (white or black depending upon type). Some metal bodies hopper wagons were painted black inside (a bituminous paint to protect from rust) and there were some wagons that had a lining added, the 'china clay' wagons had a three piece zinc sheet floor and the wooden bodied hoppers built for the Manchester Ship Canal had the sloped areas covered with sheet steel (at least in the 1950's).

As always Mike thanks very much for the input. What you and John mention clearly makes sense but I was more concerned with what to use as the base colour.