" will anything stick to this plastic? "

Probably won't be a problem. you might want to scrub it with soap and water to get any built up oils or crud off it(then let it dry well before painting) Do you have any experience with spray paint? Painting a train car is about the same as painting a model car or airplane. Do you have a source of spray paint? The smaller cans designed for models are usually easier to control but cost more. The other way is to brush paint it but that takes a lot of patience and a learning curve. Give us more info about your experience and your work plan for the caboose and some one will be able to offer better advice. Painting and decaling is definitely worth the time to learn as you can create stuff you might never get  any other way.....DaveB 

Experience??

Well, as I said this is a practice car (and I've got about 4 more if I need them)  

I have not painted a model in 30ish years.   I built mostly WWII planes and warships when I was a teenager, but was never really very good at the painting all the little pieces...  I'm hoping with age also came a little more patience in that area.... 

My plan was spray primer (white?), spray silver for roof.  mask off the roof.  spray green for the sides (and inside to darken) and then brush the yellow for the ends and add white accents to match a picture I found of an Athern or Atlas BN cupola caboose.

The steps, break wheel and end railings are part of the underbody mold, so I have unfettered access to the ends of the caboose for painting and can get all the railings and such from easy angles.

I've seen BN decals various places, so I'm certainly not going to try and paint those...

Spray Matte finish over everything when complete.

-Stephen

" My plan "

Sounds like a well thought out plan. Now you just have to decide what kind of spray paint to use.Hobby shop spray cans, hardware store spray cans, or learn to use an airbrush?  Each has it's positives and it's negatives. Which way are you thinking of trying?  .DaveB

I was planning on going the

I was planning on going the hobby shop route for spray cans...  I will eventually look at an airbrush system, but I'm not ready to spend the money on that just yet...

I assumed that the hobby shop would have a thinner primer that wouldn't cover up some of the details, and that I could also better match BN green....

-Stephen

Strip it

"I assumed that the hobby shop would have a thinner primer"

That's a good route to take especially if your hobby shop guy has painting experience and can help you with paint selection. Hardware store cans are often tricky to use without lots of experience painting models. If do you find you like painting and decaling your models then an airbrush is the next step and makes it a lot easier. You'll save the cost of an airbrush in a fairly short time as it allows you to paint cheaper than spray cans. A Paasche VL set with three tips costs about $73 from Dixiearts dotcom and will let you paint just about anything, I've used mine on things as small as N scale cars and as big as  bifold closet doors for my house......DaveB

Thin clear primer specifically designed for plastic & fiberglass

"House of Color" an automotive paint specialty manufacturer, produces a special clear adhesion primer: "Adherto Adhesion Promotor" "AP-01"  This product is marketed for the custom auto & modeler artists for creating airbrush art on plastics, FG, chrome and other finished metals without having to do any sanding, stripping etc. (so as not to ruin or mar the finished coat or polished chrome plating they are painting the details or art work onto).

This coating comes in small (1/2-pint ) containers up to gallon quantities.  A little goes a long way.  I use it with an airbrush, however, I know other modelers who have applied with a fine bristled fan brush and it worked fine.  The idea is to apply it, let it set only until it is "tacky" (back of a post-it note tacky) then put on your finish coat. 

Any automotive supply or body shop supply will carry this, or if you are living in a big enough town or city, you probably have an actual automotive/commercial paint supply store right in town.

If not, you can order this on Amazon or at "Coast Airbrush" (www.coastairbrush.com) they are really great folks to deal with.  You may also enjoy their library of airbrush educational videos and product demos.

Stripping and painting plastic shells

Someone gave our club a box of old plastic freight cars (Life Like, Model Power, even Ulrich and Penn Line!) which I have been repainting over the past several months.  Here's how I have approached it:

Take the car apart and soak the plastic body in a mixture of 80% brake fluid and 20% alcohol.  Don't worry, this stuff is cheap and you can make and reuse the mixture repeatedly.

Since I had an old aluminum cake pan handy, I use that, although it is shallow and therefore I can only soak and strip the paint off of half of the car body!  A deeper pan will cut the time to strip the paint in half.

Soak the car body in the stripping solution for about three hours and then use dish detergent and an old tooth brush to wash off the solution and paint.  Repeat as necessary to remove all of the paint.  After stripping the paint, wash the plastic shell thoroughly with dish detergent and put aside to air dry. 

Prime using inexpensive gray or red oxide primer from a can.  For light colored cars, gray is a better choice; for freight cars that will be painted box car red or shades of red use the red primer.  Let it cure at least 24 hours so that when you mask the shell, the primer won't lift.  I have also used the more expensive dark gray auto-primer, however this takes several days to cure.

For the most part I have been using off the shelf spray cans from Lowes, Wal-Mart, etc. to get colors that are near but not an exact match to a specific railroad color.

I lightly weather by dry bushing acrylic craft paints, and washes of Rust-All and a thin black wash.

For the underbody and trucks, I remove the wheels, wash the parts, and prime using red oxide.  I then lightly mist the parts with flat black or flat dark brown.  This gives the parts a slightly rusted appearance.

I have been using the old trucks, replacing the plastic or delrin wheels with steel wheels and of course replacing the old horn-hook couplers with knuckle couplers.  Everything then gets a misting of Dull Coat.  So far I have been pleased with the results.