TOFX boxcar re-paint

I have seen a few of these TOFX boxcar prototypes, but not many.  I always thought that the two-tone grey paint made them somehow stand out from the crowd.  When I stumbled across this photo (below) online, taken by Stan Lytle, in Seattle, Washington in April 2012, I realized that maybe I had a similar car tucked away in my storage cupboard. 

The car I had, made by LBF Company, was painted brown and lettered for CP. I very rarely ever ran this boxcar on my layout, so the decision to re-paint it was an easy one.

The project looked like it was simple enough that it could be done in 2 or 3 days. I started out by removing the Canadian Pacific lettering and reporting marks.  I decided to spray the dark grey colour first, as I thought this would make the masking go just a little bit easier.  Here's the car with the dark grey already sprayed on and masked over, and after the light grey has also been sprayed.

This is the boxcar (actually the opposite side) after painting has been completed, and the masking tape has been removed.  The darker grey is a mixture of ModelFlex Primer and  ModelFlex SP Lark Dark Gray.  The lighter grey is ModelFlex Primer only.

Finally, after decaling and dullcote, here is the completed boxcar...

The lettering and numbers are from Microscale Railroad Gothic decal set 90102, and the white is Microscale White Trim Film TF-1 cut to fit between ribs.

The "Exceeds Plate F" decal is a bit of a compromise, as the only white one I found in my decal supply had the circle shape, whereas the prototype has the square one.  Now, I have to find the courage and the time to weather my boxcar to appear more like the prototype. I kind of like it "as-is" though, so it could remain this way for quite a while.