Marklin Re 6/6 - 2 - pantographs and weathering

Can the superb new Marklin Re 6/6 be improved? Of course! 

The chunky pantographs were quickly unscrewed and disposed of.

Looking at my pictures of Re 6/6s, the roof seems fairly silvery where it meets the red sides, and then usually dirties up on the top, especially around the pantographs. I assume they stay cleanish on the sides due to the train washing facilities. So the grey roof on the model was painted silver, except for the bits between the pantographs - because I knew I'd be making them dirty soon. 

Some brown Tamiya panel line accent was dabbed onto the roof's side grilles as I've seen a few pictures of these looking lightly rusty, and I thought that might be something different to do in terms of looks. In hindsight I'm not sure I'm crazy about this and will probably go back over them with black accent.

Various shades of grey, dark grey and black then found their way onto the roof. 

The aerials above the drivers cab (radio and GPS I assume) were painted very light grey. Nice that Marklin included these, and the UIC plug (?) between the front windows is already white. I put some Tamiya Smoke inside the side windows to darken them down a little.

You probably can't see it in the pictures, but I also added tiny red vertical strips between the main front silver window frames and the curved corner windows. I did the same on the Re 4/4.

As mentioned yesterday, the little side details between the bogies (air tanks and boxes) were very lightly glued in with come contact adhesive, as were the cowcatchers. I note that there is an ETCS shoe cast into one each of the side details between the bogies - attention to detail! The lower half of the bogies and those details were washed with a little brown. Most of the 4/4s and 6/6s seem to actually have grey weathering on the bogies - perhaps from use of sand on the way up and composite brake blocks that don't produce as much rusty-dust on the way down??

A little bit of this brown and grey ended up on the sides of the loco. As I have a second 6/6 on the way, I figure this one can be the 'second loco' behind an Re 4/4, and the other 6/6 will 'lead' a train with a 4/4 behind it. As such, I decided I would gunk this up a little more and add a little more detail (including a front cowcather/pilot) to the leader.

As with my 4/4s, it will be nigh impossible for me to change the side numbers and town lettering, but I could change the crest on the side. I was looking for a yellow one, but then found this number, ten less than 11666. Pic below from Christoph Herni on Flickr. I did attempt to change the numbers on one side with a blob of red to change the 6 into a 5. Not worth it! I painted blue inside the crest frame, and put three angled white lines across it.

After I'd done most of this, I added a set of etched pantographs.

So here is a closer pic:

And as it looked yesterday:

I'll probably revisit this again tomorrow and clean up a few areas. 

Other things I might add to the 'lead' 6/6, once it gets here, include side mirrors, maybe a front step, that door behind the cab on one side, the little white triangle on the cab side doors, maybe some sun shades ...and a driver!