Malachite Green livery question

[clarkeeboy56]

I'm re-building/detailing an old, a very old(!) Tri-ang L1. It's been a long drawn out project, but I'm planning the paint scheme. I've opted for the Malachite Green colour scheme - it will add a splash of colour to my predominantly black fleet! My layout is broadly speaking, set somewhere on the Kent/East Sussex border -somewhere- in the mid-late 1950's. Now I know that one or two L1's retained The green scheme until 1953- a little bit early for my time span, but hey-Ho! I have the relevant HMRS transfer sheet, with "British Railway" titles, and my question is about the lining used.

My belief was that this scheme had black and white lining, boiler bands , tender etc., BUT looking at the scheme on "Cheltenham" for example has yellow and black lining. EDIT: Just noted that photo's of "Cheltenham" show both schemes....b/w and b/y. Later & earlier schemes?

So what's correct for the early 1950's?

Thanks in advance....

Edited November 2, 2017 by clarkeeboy56

[clarkeeboy56]

I'm still struggling to find an answer...the truth must be out there! I think yellow and black lining would be most appropriate, on the belief that lining was changed from b/w to b/y post war. Can anyone confirm that. I've searched on line and through the books I have, and just can't find anything.....thanks

Edit: Just found details that I think confirm yellow. I'll go with that, unless anything new comes to light...

 

Thanks for looking

[chris45lsw]

I'm still struggling to find an answer...the truth must be out there! I think yellow and black lining would be most appropriate, on the belief that lining was changed from b/w to b/y post war. Can anyone confirm that. I've searched on line and through the books I have, and just can't find anything.....thanks

Edit: Just found details that I think confirm yellow. I'll go with that, unless anything new comes to light...

 

Thanks for looking

I can confirm that the lining should be yellow.  All the L1s were painted malachite between May 1946 and Sep 1948 except 1753 & 1782.  As you say the last one to lose the malachite was in June 1953 (31756).

 

Chris KT

[clarkeeboy56]

I can confirm that the lining should be yellow.  All the L1s were painted malachite between May 1946 and Sep 1948 except 1753 & 1782.  As you say the last one to lose the malachite was in June 1953 (31756).

 

Chris KT

Excellent! Many thanks Chris- I'm quite pleased about that, it's a colourful scheme....

[Jack P]

Hey hey, just thought i'd show you this comparison

 

Pre-war malachite green (black and white lining)

 

 

and post war (yellow and black lining)

 

 

of particular note is, the lining and painting of the steps and cylinders, smoke deflectors (not applicable to your L1 though   ) and the difference in the painting/ lining of the wheels. Also AFAIK post war all cab fronts were painted black and the style of lettering changed slightly. Quick disclaimer, not my pictures - copied from google.

Edited November 9, 2017 by Jack P

[Jack P]

.

Edited April 13, 2018 by Jack P

[Wickham Green]

Hey hey, just thought i'd show you this comparison

 

Pre-war malachite green (black and white lining)

 

 

and post war (yellow and black lining)

 

 

of particular note is, the lining and painting of the steps and cylinders, smoke deflectors (not applicable to your L1 though   ) and the difference in the painting/ lining of the wheels. Also AFAIK post war all cab fronts were painted black and the style of lettering changed slightly. Quick disclaimer, not my pictures - copied from google.

Note how blue the malachite paint should be - NOT like the yellowy stuff the model trade try to flog us !

[Forester]

Note how blue the malachite paint should be - NOT like the yellowy stuff the model trade try to flog us !

 

I know they are rarer than a malachite mouse but that's a Blue Sky having that effect. 

[Jack P]

I thought I'd ask here,

 

Has anyone mixed their own malachite from widely available paints? (Tamiya, Vallejo etc?)

[Wickham Green]

I know they are rarer than a malachite mouse but that's a Blue Sky having that effect. 

........ odd that there always seems to a blue-sky effect hanging over the malachite sample on my workbench  -  yet the assorted commercial cans & jars of so called 'malachite' alongside seem to be influenced by the sort of bilious yellow sky that hangs over a Chinese steelworks !

 

[ Malachite - the mineral - is a very blue shade of green though a lot lighter than the colour adapted by the Southern ............... the colour presented by the trade appears to originate from a sample printed in the HMRS Livery Register of 1970 - BUT the addendum published 20 years later points out that the source of that was wrongly identified : the forthcoming update should clarify matters with better samples - and with a bit of luck the trade will take note.]

[Graham_Muz]

[ Malachite - the mineral - is a very blue shade of green though a lot lighter than the colour adapted by the Southern ............... the colour presented by the trade appears to originate from a sample printed in the HMRS Livery Register of 1970 - BUT the addendum published 20 years later points out that the source of that was wrongly identified : the forthcoming update should clarify matters with better samples - and with a bit of luck the trade will take note.]

 

And there are a number of people whom potentially disagree with the potential author of the new HMRS register (having also seen seen samples of actual malachite applied) so one interpretation of one reference is not always the be all and end all!

[Nearholmer]

There are contemporary colour photos of the scheme, both pre and post war, which ‘sort of’ help, to the extent that the vagaries of photographic emulsions, changes over time, and the means of reproduction permit. There are also contemporary colour renderings, notably on meccano magazine covers, but in a few other places too. And a ‘strip back’ was done on the cab of a 4-SUB unit built in I think 1946, to get to original paint, in c1977 (I saw it done).

 

A purely subjective view, but I think that a huge amount depends on the lighting conditions, and I at least half-believe that the very early green was of a bluer shade than that applied from the wartime green painting(s) of merchant navies onwards.

 

And, none of the colours looked very like mineral malachite, even allowing for the fact that the mineral varies in hue, sometimes even being mottled.

 

One absolute certainty is that it didn’t look fully uniform in service (did any of the pre-modern paints?), with differences in shade visible in the same photo, under the same lighting.

 

Conclusions? A bit of latitude is authentic, and one can get too tense about the un-provable.

Edited April 19, 2018 by Nearholmer