NER coach livery in LNER ownership

[Nutford]

I'm modelling an NER setting at around 1929, and the coach livery is puzzling me.

 

My understanding is that at grouping, NER coaches were painted red - well not just 'red' , NER crimson or whatever lol, but you know what I mean. In which case, again by my understanding, the LNER would have painted them brown.

 

What is confusing me is I have seen a number of very well made models, some of which are indeed just painted brown, but many of which appear to have been finished in 'teak'. I can't believe several people, clearly skilled and making high quality models, have got the scheme wrong. Which means either I'm wrong in the first place; or the LNER stripped off the paint and varnished them; or the LNER actually painted them in 'fake teak', which I know they did later on but didn't think they did at that time; or not all NER coaches were in crimson at grouping. Can anybody set me straight?

 

Also while on the subject - how long did it take to repaint all the coaches at grouping? Yes silly question because I realise nobody knows, but I guess what I really mean is was it likely there would still have been coaches in NER crimson around in 1929?

 

And info welcome before I go and paint the things the wrong colour!!

[Wickham Green]

I'm modelling an NER setting at around 1929, and the coach livery is puzzling me.

 

My understanding is that at grouping, NER coaches were painted red - well not just 'red' , NER crimson or whatever lol, but you know what I mean. In which case, again by my understanding, the LNER would have painted them brown.

 

What is confusing me is I have seen a number of very well made models, some of which are indeed just painted brown, but many of which appear to have been finished in 'teak'. I can't believe several people, clearly skilled and making high quality models, have got the scheme wrong. Which means either I'm wrong in the first place; or the LNER stripped off the paint and varnished them; or the LNER actually painted them in 'fake teak', which I know they did later on but didn't think they did at that time; or not all NER coaches were in crimson at grouping. Can anybody set me straight?

 

Also while on the subject - how long did it take to repaint all the coaches at grouping? Yes silly question because I realise nobody knows, but I guess what I really mean is was it likely there would still have been coaches in NER crimson around in 1929?

 

And info welcome before I go and paint the things the wrong colour!!

From what I know of carriages this side of the Thames, I'd guess there might have been one or two survivors in N.E.R. red / crimson / lake / whatever still around in 1929 - but they would have received L.N.E.R. insignia long before then ....... as I understand it, the better pre-group coaches would have been scumbled to a 'fake teak' finish ( is that right, Mr.Trump ? ) or stripped and varnished IF, and only IF, they were actually teak panelled. Anything that wasn't expected to last very long would have had a simple 'teak brown' finish - the paint they used for steel solebars, presumably - and many better vehicles got this sort of a quick finish during the war ( Including hired-in Pullman Cars ).

[jwealleans]

Carriages were supposed to be shopped at no more than 5 year intervals, so any survivors in maroon by 1929 would be rare.

 

Like you, I thought all NER carriages were painted Lake and therefore became brown under the LNER. However there is an article in the British Railway Journal (sorry, don't have it to hand so can't say which one) which includes illustrations of NER carriages in either a varnished teak or scumbled finish just before the Grouping. It may have been an experiment with a view to the impending merger or simply as a potential change - after all, York built varnished teak stock for the ECJS. It's a number of year since I read the article in question, but it may shed more light.

[DOCJACOB]

Whickham Green is pretty much right.

 

If too far gone got teak brown paint. Full LNER scumble “faux” finish was applied on steel and the better coaches, some images need careful examination to confirm scumble finish steel.

 

There were bits of M+NB coach rescued from Hull in 80’s and the layers of crimson lake were covered with brown paint. The remnants of this coach are in storage at Butterly I think.

[Nutford]

 IF, and only IF, they were actually teak panelled. '

Rather a good point! My understanding is that coaches intended to be painted were generally mahogany, otherwise teak. Since post 1885 NER coaches were painted, presumably the vast bulk - if not all - inherited by the LNER were Mahogany. So.... would have been painted brown. I find it hard to believe that, at grouping, with so many carriages to deal with, they would have bothered to do the 'fake teak' thing.

 

Yet I'm still struggling as to why quite so many (very good) models of ex-NER coaches get finished in 'teak'! The above comment (re pic of pre-grouping coaches) is perhaps a justification, but still feel I'm missing something. I get they maybe look nicer especially in combined rakes of teak stock, but I'm talking about detailed, well-built items not just somebody's quick 'that will look good' effort.......

But unless somebody comes up with something else, I'll just have to paint mine in - hehe, so much easier! - brown :-))))

[jwealleans]

Were there any steel NER carriages?

[Nutford]

Were there any steel NER carriages?

Yes. The kitchen cars built in 1914 for 'the Flying Scotsman' were all-steel. But apart from those, I believe the answer is 'no'.

[jwealleans]

It would be highly nitpicking to say that they were ECJS (and I can't be completely sure as I don't have any books to hand). I will try to see whether my small collection of BRJ includes that carriage article tonight, if I think on.

 

Have you tried the NERA? They probably have a better handle on this.

[Nutford]

It would be highly nitpicking to say that they were ECJS (and I can't be completely sure as I don't have any books to hand)..

 

Have you tried the NERA? They probably have a better handle on this.

Nitpicking? No, I realised as soon as I posted it, but the book I was looking at called them 'NER coaches' and I wasn't thinking!

 

I've got the NERA diagram books, but no use on liveries of course. But TBH it's not so much the info isn't out there, it is, and widely says 'painted brown', which indeed is how many people have modelled them. I just wondered why quite a few people had gone down the 'teak/fake teak whatever' route instead, and if I'd somehow got wrong end of stick (as I often occasionally do)    

[jwealleans]

Been down exactly that route myself: a friend acquired these carriages (and the loco as it happens) from a chap who had scratchbuilt them. Everything else he'd built that we knew of had been accurate to the last degree, so that teak finish jarred with me.

 

 

That was what set me off reading round and eventually I came across the piece in BRJ.

Edited May 4, 2018 by jwealleans

[Nutford]

That was what set me off reading round and eventually I came across the piece in BRJ.

 

Yep, exactly the kind of thing that was puzzling me - in fact I think EXACTLY as in 'that was one of the pics that puzzled me lol! Guess the BRJ article could justify it, but doesn't really make sense. 

Apparently teak was best varnished, mahogany best painted, so if coaches were made to be painted - they stayed painted. So early NER coaches might stay/be stripped to teak, but that's pre-1885.

Is it possible the coaches in the article were ex-ECJS transferred to the NER? That WOULD make sense.... but not of your coaches above....

[asmay2002]

I've got the NERA diagram books, but no use on liveries of course. But TBH it's not so much the info isn't out there, it is, and widely says 'painted brown', which indeed is how many people have modelled them. I just wondered why quite a few people had gone down the 'teak/fake teak whatever' route instead, and if I'd somehow got wrong end of stick (as I often occasionally do)    

Because people make mistakes.  Never, ever copy someone elses model.  Always go with data about the real thing.

[Nutford]

Because people make mistakes.  Never, ever copy someone elses model.  Always go with data about the real thing.

Indeed so. Thing is most people know more than me about these things, and most people who make really good models know a LOT more than me about them, so couldn't quite get my head round the idea that for once they just could be wrong, and I just could be right lol!

[Steamport Southport]

Photographic evidence here. Actually in colour. Look at the photo of B12 number 8549 and click on for a bigger version. Almost certainly teak (or similar) varnished wood or scrumbled teak effect paint.

 

 

http://www.steve-banks.org/prototype-and-traffic/133-teak-coaches

 

 

 

 

Jason

[Compound2632]

Photographic evidence here. Actually in colour. Look at the photo of B12 number 8549 and click on for a bigger version. Almost certainly teak (or similar) varnished wood or scrumbled teak effect paint.

 

 

http://www.steve-banks.org/prototype-and-traffic/133-teak-coaches

 

 

 

 

Jason

 

Highly informative as Steve Banks' article is, I'm not convinced it tells us much about the livery of the ordinary run of non-teak pre-grouping carriages, except for that very grey-looking GER 6-wheel full brake. As far as I can see, most of those photos are from well after the OP's 1929 date (as one might expect, being in colour). 

 

The OP's best way forward might be to go move back a few years - even before 1922 - and paint his carriages red with a clear conscience. Red is, after all, the right and proper colour for railway carriages.

[wagonman]

Highly informative as Steve Banks' article is, I'm not convinced it tells us much about the livery of the ordinary run of non-teak pre-grouping carriages, except for that very grey-looking GER 6-wheel full brake. As far as I can see, most of those photos are from well after the OP's 1929 date (as one might expect, being in colour). 

 

The OP's best way forward might be to go move back a few years - even before 1922 - and paint his carriages red with a clear conscience. Red is, after all, the right and proper colour for railway carriages.

 

 

You mean Red like the GWR used from 1912 (or whenever)? I would suggest where the LNER is concerned – "if in doubt paint it brown". I fell into the same trap about 35 years ago when I built an exH&B coach supposedly in 1930 condition...and gave it a teak finish! I think I suspected at the time that it was probably wrong, but it looked nice and matched the Gresley suburbans it ran with.

 

Perhaps my modeller's licence should be revoked?

[Nutford]

You mean Red like the GWR used from 1912 (or whenever)? I would suggest where the LNER is concerned – "if in doubt paint it brown". I fell into the same trap about 35 years ago when I built an exH&B coach supposedly in 1930 condition...and gave it a teak finish! I think I suspected at the time that it was probably wrong, but it looked nice and matched the Gresley suburbans it ran with.

 

Perhaps my modeller's licence should be revoked?

 

Life ban I'm afraid..... ;-)

 

And I suspect you may have hit the nail on the head - people have painted their superb models teak because it matched their other stock, and they figured that what with some element of  paint stripping and/ or fake teak, both of which the LNER did, it was probably OK. On the basis of the evidence, well it might indeed be OK, but for painted NER stock, I'm thinking it probably isn't, at least not the norm - though there's still the article mentioned above, if they are not re-allocated ECJS coaches.

 

Now I can't deny being pleased, as spraying them brown is going to be so very much easier, but I'll feel happier having tested it with them-wot-know first so I won't have to redo them later!

 

 

And yes, I'd seen the Steve Banks pic. But the problem with some of those old pics, especially of dirty old coaches, is 'what you see isn't necessarily what you got'. Yes the coach looks brown, but can we really say whether that is 'teak', or just dirty brown paint? Come to that could even be dirty crimson.. or dirty just about anything lol!

 

Oh - and Compound, you'll be pleased to know that my layout will include Ripon, through which a train of probably nice shiny new RED LMS coaches did indeed regularly go on their way from Liverpool to Newcastle. Behind a nice smart green loco, naturally......  ;-)

[coachmann]

There is plenty of info around that tells us that for pre-Grouping carriages, the cost of removing layers of various coloured paints was not considered worthwhile, and a brown paint scheme was applied to resemble the colour of teak. This colour varied but was probably milk chocolate in shade rather than dark chocolate as per GWR.

 

The impending Nationalization appeared to encourage some extravagance at some railway works after the war, and I have seen a photo of an ex.GNoSR coach in grained mock teak. Some LNER and constituent coaches even reverted to lining-out and white roofs, but that is something else.

Edited February 16, 2018 by coachmann

[PenrithBeacon]

IIRC NER coaches weren't painted but stained. If my memory is correct then stripping back to bare wood might be an issue. Perhaps this is why the LNER prefered to paint them.

[Andy Hayter]

Highly informative as Steve Banks' article is, I'm not convinced it tells us much about the livery of the ordinary run of non-teak pre-grouping carriages, except for that very grey-looking GER 6-wheel full brake. As far as I can see, most of those photos are from well after the OP's 1929 date (as one might expect, being in colour). 

 

The OP's best way forward might be to go move back a few years - even before 1922 - and paint his carriages red with a clear conscience. Red is, after all, the right and proper colour for railway carriages.

 

I am not even convinced that it tells us much about these specific coaches.  Steve refers to them as shades of brown, and although the page is referenced as teak coaches, teak is a colour as well as a (varnished) wood - just as orange is a colour and a fruit.  Given the obvious care worn state of these coaches I would not like to call it as to whether these are abused varnished teak or weathered teak coloured paint.  Maybe other people's screens are better than mine but for me the jury is out.

[Compound2632]

I was idly leafing through A.E. Glen, I.A. Glen and A.G. Dunbar, Great North of Scotland Railway Album (2e, Fraser Stewart, 1994) and though of this thread. There are several photos of GNoS carriages in LNER condition. While some could be in plain brown, the majority do appear to have a simulated teak finish. The GNoS carriage livery was lake and cream right up to grouping.

 

Of course there could be regional as well as date variations in the way pre-Grouping carriages were treated. Did ex-GNoS carriages continue to be painted at Inverurie?

[Compound2632]

The impending Nationalization appeared to encourage some extravagance at some railway works after the war, and I have seen a photo of an ex.GNoSR coach in grained mock teak. Some LNER and constituent coaches even reverted to lining-out and white roofs, but that is something else.

 

Sorry, missed Larry's comment. The teak finished GNoSR carriages I mentioned include some in photos taken at Boat of Garten, dated 1935. These bogie carriages and a 6-wheel third (built 1914) are lined out on the round-cornered panels.

[Wickham Green]

I was idly leafing through A.E. Glen, I.A. Glen and A.G. Dunbar, Great North of Scotland Railway Album (2e, Fraser Stewart, 1994) and though of this thread. There are several photos of GNoS carriages in LNER condition. While some could be in plain brown, the majority do appear to have a simulated teak finish. The GNoS carriage livery was lake and cream right up to grouping.

 

Of course there could be regional as well as date variations in the way pre-Grouping carriages were treated. Did ex-GNoS carriages continue to be painted at Inverurie?

Inverurie Works may well have had its own way of finishing coaches as it certainly had its own way of disposing of redundant ones ................ there was a deliberate policy of selling carriage ( & wagon ) bodies - probably from well before Grouping and into the 'sixties* so every farmyard in Buchan seemed to have a collection of such chicken sheds and every hilltop a summerhouse : not a lot of paint left on them by the time I came across them in the 'eighties though some had been well looked after by their new owners.

 

* by which time even early BR-built coaches were going - not just 'eastern' types either.

[scottiedog]

With regard to "JW's" post No 3, I think that the BRJ to which he refers was the special North Eastern Railway Edition. If memory serves me well there are three photographs of ex NER Low Arc Roofed coaches in "faux" grained teak livery, therein. Again from memory they were taken at York in the mid 1920s. 

[Paul Cram]

With regard to "JW's" post No 3, I think that the BRJ to which he refers was the special North Eastern Railway Edition. If memory serves me well there are three photographs of ex NER Low Arc Roofed coaches in "faux" grained teak livery, therein. Again from memory they were taken at York in the mid 1920s. 

You are correct