Still Tanked Up

I've made a start on those tatty looking tankers I bought off of eBay for my model railway.  I've so far focused on the four worst painted wagons, with interesting results:

The oven cleaner I use as a paint stripper is generally very effective at taking anything it is used on back down to the bare plastic, (or metal), ready for repainting.  In the case of these four wagons, instead of having a paint finish, they were made using coloured plastic, so the paint stripping has taken them back to their original finish. (I'm not sure exactly what the previous owner of these wagons used to paint them with, but even the oven cleaner had a job removing all of it).  My original intent was to repaint the three TTA tankers in either black or grey, (the authentic liveries for heavy or light oil products respectively), but I've found myself somewhat enamoured by my yellow Shell wagon and my two Texaco red wagons.  I know that these were never real life tanker liveries, but they have a certain nostalgia for me, as I remember seeing them in Triang Hornby and Hornby catalogues when I was a kid.  

Obviously, as can be seen, while the tankers have been returned to their original factory covers, some of the decals have suffered damage in the paint stripping.  While I could have passed that off as 'weathering', I've instead purchased some reproduction decals for them.  The 'Texaco' decals are actually for the later 100 ton bogie tanker that Hornby produced and are slightly larger than those originally used on the TTAs, but they'll do the job just as well.  The fourth wagon seen here isn't, of course, a tanker wagon, but rather a cement wagon.  Or, at least, what Triang originally produced as cement wagon.  This one has been revealed, after stripping, as the later grey version, which was marketed as an ICI fertiliser wagon.  (I've since established that there was also a grey version of the Blue Circle Cement wagon).  Coincidentally, another badly repainted cement wagon I purchased separately has also been revealed as having originally been this grey type.  I've decided, however, to refinish both of them as the more common yellow cement wagons, as these are more appropriate for a layout based on BR Southern Region, (bulk cement trains carrying Portland cement for various suppliers were a common sight.on the region).  As can be seen, among the reproduction decals are some for the yellow Blue Circle Cement version of this wagon.  Consequently, the two cement wagons will be resprayed bright yellow before applying these.  

So, there you are - I've surprised myself by actually making a flying start on this project.  There's still work to be done, obviously.  Not only do new decals have to be applied to these and some of the other wagons in this batch, but a couple of them also need new couplings.  But, hey, I'm getting there.