Model Railway Forum

I have a Dapol water tank.

What colour should it be?

The body of the tank is currently hull red with the legs unpainted.

Up to you, rust, black, brown. Here’s mine, slightly modified.

Any colour you like provided you add lots of weathering.

Water towers usually got painted to (a) match the buildings colour scheme if close to areas visible to the public (b) follow corporate colour policy. For example on the Southern Railway the steel tank side and end was usually painted grey, the edge of the roof would be green, the top of the roof, if made of wood, black bitumen, if made of steel then grey, the supporting legs, ladder and feed pipe casing also would be green, or could be grey.

On other railways they would use the corporate colours, the LMS would use dark brown / maroon where the Southern used green, the Great Western dark stone and light stone, sometimes painting the tank light stone with dark stone edges, the LNER used a variety of colours including green and cream / light stone, or blue and cream. For tanks away from public areas grey would probably been used for the whole thing.

Under BR the overall colour of the tank would be grey.

Mine has just been repainted. You can see a workman applying the final touch.

I was admiring your one Brian and I think it looks better freshly painted. Save on weathering as well......

Thank you John.

Your tank looks good walkingthedog, I like your colours and good mods.

Thank you LC&DR, that is exactly the information I was after. This will be a factory owned tank so I can go any colour I like, but the blending to the surrounding area is a good tip. Considering this is on the edge of a residential area, the local council may have had a say in this as well.

My plan will be to paint the tank to hide in as much as possible.

How’s this for a water tower AusLMs.

I chose greeny grey for my Dapol water tower.