Any tips on painting handrails/grab irons

anybody? Beuhler?

Protect the tender shell with sheet styrene (or low-tack painting tape) and remove/reduce the existing paint with a sanding stick using very fine sandpaper.

Using a good quality brush and quality paint => prime the handrail with gray then apply the yellow.

Best to practice on a piece of wire the identical diameter before working on the model.

If you provide the approximate length and diameter of the Lionel handrail, I could snail mail a piece to you for practice.  My email is in my OGR Profile.

Bueller

Thanks a bunch.  Any benefit to remove the handrails, painting them separately, and then trying to reinstall?

You may end up bending or destroying them and possibly marking the shell during removal.

You'll need to mount them on something for painting then attempt to reinstall the nicely painted handrails w/o mucking up your nice paint job and the shell.

You could try decal stripping material...but you'll need to locate the correct color film and applying it to wire may test your patience. 

Probably best to paint them on the shell...but I could be entirely wrong. 

...and always practice on test material before the model.