After carving off the side ladders I used the back of a #11 Xacto blade to score the wood grain where the 'shadow' of the ladder was. Then went over the area with a scratch brush with metal bristles to help blend.
The top bracket for the brake staff was an extra casting leftover from a Westerfield GN eight truss-rod boxcar. Before finding it in my parts box I had planned to use a bottom brake bracket from a Tichy brake set.
