The Farthing layouts

Clearly I really do need to get my hands on Russell's Appendix, and the appendix to the rule book.

 

I recently acquired a very scruffy copy of the appendix to the rule book at a sensible price. This will be my new ignoring the television read once I have finished William Dean... I really do think that the freight wagons and loads book will be more interesting to you if you had to choose. From memory there is much more modern late stuff in the wagon appendix?

 

 

I suspect that if time travel does become possible folk will be more interested in going forward to see what next weeks lottery numbers will be than going back to the late 19th century to see what colour the GWR painted it's wagons

 

We might find out that they weren't red after all.

For example, if you have both volumes of the Russell loco books, try fig 230 in vol 1 (which also has red frames) and fig 572 in vol 2 (there are also a couple of post-WW2 photos in vol 1 that show the effect).

 

The real problem with any monochrome film is that two quite different colours could end up being printed with identical grey levels and so be indistinguishable. With wagons, I tend to the view that this is possible, but unlikely. Occam's razor, if you like, why argue for two colours when the single colour fits what you see? Of course, that approach can still be wrong...

 

What a good illustration of the point, Nick, the difference between the 1900s and 1940s film in those two photos is certainly very clear. I didn't realize that the real probelm was in the printing. What a source of confusion then because different printing qualities would show liveries differently even if they are from the same period.

 

As for plates on on red/grey bodywork (and black underframes, etc), I really think it's a case of "you pays your money and takes a chance" because at the end of the day until someone invents time travel we really will never know

 

I know exactly where I would go if we invented time travel. Good afternoon Mr Dean! Ah, I see you have Mr Churchward with you today... :-)

 

Seriously though, I wonder if IT advances might help us one day, eg running thousands of photos through computers to analyse and establish tiny differences in the colours or patterns of the, er, dots that make up old photos - thereby identifying differences and shades we did not think were there.

 

I really do think that the freight wagons and loads book will be more interesting to you if you had to choose. From memory there is much more modern late stuff in the wagon appendix?

 

[...]

 

We might find out that they weren't red after all.

 

Thanks Richard, I might get it all the same though as I have this 1947 thing going with "The sidings".

 

Not red at all? Impossible! I have already painted my wagons you see! :-)

Someone (I think it may have been Miss Prism) mentioned, en passant, the painting of service vehicles (e.g. cranes, loco coal wagons, etc.) in black livery.  I certainly used to think that such vehicles were painted black, but I have come round to the view that this was only done by BR(WR), and that in GWR says they were Freight Stock Grey.  (I won

That sounds like an interesting experiment you have done with the loco coal wagons. For my planned 1947  layout I'll be needing some loco coal wagons, so I'll be confronted with that issue as well. I noticed at Didcot that they had two P15 PW wagons, one in black and one in grey livery. That's playing it safe :-) 

 

As for red wagons in the 1920s, I understand that one or two sources suggest that the GWR had red wagons as late as 1914. If they are right (though it sounds pretty late to me!) there might still have been one or two red wagons somewhere in a corner of the system in 1921. But it's a bit far-fetched maybe :-)

What a can of worms you have opened. Seing as I saw a tender with GWR clearly on it in 63 I cannot see how anyone can be sure no red wagons lasted through WW1. One trouble is a lot of official photos were done specially so it is really in service photos that are the best guide. To me red solebars with black underframes seems most likely and fits with how other railways painted their stuff (although the GWR never followed other railways!). It does seem to me to b bery difficult to be certain that the underframes were painted grey with the body initially, it could be that the grey was introduced  and the red painted over whilst the underframe was still black but later the all over grey became the norm.

Don

Someone (I think it may have been Miss Prism) mentioned, en passant, the painting of service vehicles (e.g. cranes, loco coal wagons, etc.) in black livery.  I certainly used to think that such vehicles were painted black, but I have come round to the view that this was only done by BR(WR), and that in GWR says they were Freight Stock Grey...

I think that's right. Whilst there are some early examples that might be black (though I suspect under-exposed film or, at least, not sufficiently over-exposed), It's difficult to interpret most photos of PW, loco coal, match wagons, etc. as anything other than the normal grey. When you get your copy of Russell's Appendix, You'll see the difference between these and the black vehicles of BR days is quite clear. What I'm not certain of is whether this change is strictly BR or post-war GWR, though I suspect it was BR.

 

Nick

Here are some additional notes on cast no. plates + underframe colours.

As mentioned earlier, I went through my books to look for wagons in the cast numberplate livery. I have now gone over those photos again, looking at differences between body and underframe shades. FWIW, below are my notes in the (unlikely!) event that someone else will find them of use.

* The most useful photos for identifying differences (or not) btw body and underframe are perhaps those in new condition, as the body and underframe might weather differently. And I must admit that in several cases the body and underframe colour do seem to be the same. However as others have mentioned there is the risk that wagons in official photos were done up in ways that most wagons were not.

* I was particularly interested in two photos (Atkins et al p 276 and Norris et al p32, because they show identicial wagons in different liveries next to each other with the same lighting (though not in as built condiiton). Both photos seem to suggest that the body colour of each wagon is the same as its underframe.

But this kind of subjective exercise is of course fraught with errors and bias, and note: These photos are only wagons with cast number plates!

PHOTOS OF WAGONS WITH CAST NUMBER PLATES:

ATKINS ET AL, GWR GOODS WAGON (1998 EDITION)
54: 4-planker, built 1900, photo 1900, oil boxes, experimental brakes, underframe clearly diff. colour (darker)
P54: 4-planker, photo 1900, oil boxes, underframe clearly diff. colour (darker)
P 94: Crocodile, built 1898, photo 1898, oil boxes
P 136: Coral A built 1898, photo 1898, oil boxes, colour of side/

It's difficult to interpret most photos of PW, loco coal, match wagons, etc. as anything other than the normal grey.

 

I agree. The only reference to black in the Atkins et al bible for engineering wagons seems to be for the Cordon gas tanks.

 

(Am currently re-reading the AA chapter to see if there is any reference to black for ballast brake vans.)

What a can of worms you have opened. Seing as I saw a tender with GWR clearly on it in 63 I cannot see how anyone can be sure no red wagons lasted through WW1. One trouble is a lot of official photos were done specially so it is really in service photos that are the best guide. To me red solebars with black underframes seems most likely and fits with how other railways painted their stuff (although the GWR never followed other railways!). It does seem to me to b bery difficult to be certain that the underframes were painted grey with the body initially, it could be that the grey was introduced  and the red painted over whilst the underframe was still black but later the all over grey became the norm.

Don

 

Don, that's an interesting point about official photos. It's easy to imagine that a wagon would have been painted all over red for photo purposes just to look nicer.

 

I don't know if wagons were only partially repainted (on eg bodies) during livery changes? Wouldn't the most economical approach be to let wagons run their cycle in whatever livery they carried, and then repaint all of the wagon in the new livery when they were due in for service and repaint?

Can anyone remember the forum thread when we last discussed the colour of 'engineering' wagons?

I really like the fading you've achieved on the mink.

 

This elusive red is something I've been thinking about for some time as I have a number of wagons to be painted, but I keep going back to Sidney Stone's contemporary articles on wagon and carriage construction (he worked for the GER, LSWR, Met. RC&W Co., Ashbury RC&I Co and eventually was Asst. Loco Works Manager for the GCR).  In his writings he describes the properties of the various contemporary pigments, how they were collected, ground, mixed, etc, and he also comments on their various lightfast properties. I quote some pertinent passages below:

 

Red lead (also known as minum)  was composed of two oxides of lead, roughly 65% protoxide and 35% binoxide....it...mixes well with oil and has good covering power, dries quickly and is permanent (ie, is lightfast) except in the presence of sulphur or sulphide.

 

That last bit is an important point. Interestingly, he goes on to say that:
 

...when mixed with white lead it becomes very fugitive, the only pigments it can be safely mixed with , in regards to colour, are the ochres, earths and blacks in general.

 

Used alone it is very durable.

 

With regard to other reds available for industrial use he notes that:

 

Reds and red-browns, prepared from antimony sulphide are fine powders requiring no grinding, and mixing readily with oil. The reds have great covering powers, and if unadulterated will not change in strong light or impure air. Many reds are made from ferric oxide and from waste liquors and bye [sic] products obtained in copper refining, etc. All oxide reds are durable and have good covering power.

 

Carmine is the most brilliant red pigment, it is obtained from the dried bodies of females of the Coccus Cacti, an insect which is native to Central America. it is too expensive for ordinary use, and is not durable, but sometimes used for internal decorations [in carriages].

 

Vermilion, known in its natural state as Cinnabar is a sulphide of mercury. The finest is the Chinese, but the Dutch has a good name and that prepared with sulphide of potassium excels for beauty of colour. If genuine, vermilion is very durable, but is sometimes adulterated with red lea, brick dust, oxide of iron, etc, and when so adulterated , it does not stand the weather.

 

Pause for thought I think...

Can anyone remember the forum thread when we last discussed the colour of 'engineering' wagons?

I've been searching for it but couldn't find it either.

Adrian, extremely interesting quotes there. So if I understand correctly, it is probable that the GWR used plain Red Lead, and if they did it could have lasted on wagons for quite a long time - which in turn means that contemporary sources in the 1890s and 1900s might have been commenting on wagons that were painted quite some time before...

 

BTW, if red was so good, then why change to grey? Availability, as per Miss P's earlier comment? If GJC had anything to do with it, I'm sure it wasn't just for the looks!

Fascinating stuff, BJ. We'll need our electron microscopes next!

 

That last bit is an important point.

 

Indeed. Coal smoke has a fair bit of sulphur in it, and lead sulphide is black, so if wagons were painted with red lead, they wouldn't be red for very long.

 

With increasing industrialisation, maybe the GWR saw what was happening to their wagons, and thought, well, if they all look grey after a while, why don't we paint them grey in the first place?

A couple of thoughts

 

- if locos and their wheels were (Indian) red, it seems reasonable to expect wagons to have red undergear as well.

 

- the red oxide may well have degraded in service and prompted a change to grey, since older wagons probably were heading that way, anyway.

Ah, I missed the main point in Buckjumper's post - that the red might have turned grey. That's very intriguing and would answer the important "why" question: Why did the GWR change from red to grey?

 

In terms of timing, this kind of rational/functional decision seems just like Churchward, doesn't it? Having tolerated Dean's aesthetic slant for years, he gets to be CME in 1902 and after a while decides to do away with that silly red colour which turns grey anyway. Ok so now I'm speculating wildly :-)

 

I wonder if this is also why brakevans were painted grey early on: did they spend more time running than the average wagon, and so also turned grey sooner, prompting the GWR to paint them grey early on...?

 

On the issue of red loco frames, that's an interesting parallel! But if there was a logical connection, shouldn't carriages also have had red underframes then?

On the issue of red loco frames, that's an interesting parallel! But if there was a logical connection, shouldn't carriages also have had red underframes then?

 

In my original comment, I didn't intend to imply a direct logical connection but just to indicate that applying colour to underframes should not be ruled out.  19th century railways often used colours in ways that seem surprising to us (e.g. Stroudley's improved engine green)

 

I do like your idea of Churchward asserting his new aesthetic and he did get rid of a lot of previous 'fussy' colour schemes - including even the 'hallowed' chocolate and cream!

 

Mike

Hi Mike, I see, and yes that does make sense.

 

It's frustrasting (but also a bit magical) that regardless of how much we stare and stare at these photos they simply refuse to reveal something as simple as the colour of a wagon!

Hello Mikkel.  An excellent article on a topic very close to my heart.  I have one point to make, and one question to ask...

 

Firstly, as others have mentioned, I really don't like the look of the red wagon with grey plates.  The cast plates were painted body colour on grey wagons, so are there any grounds to assume they weren't painted body colour on red wagons?

 

And then, just to throw another spanner in the works...  If 1904 is to be taken as the changeover date from red to grey livery (which is a very reasonable conclusion to reach) then in the case of "transitional" liveries where wagons carry cast plates but are painted with the 25" "GW", is there any evidence or suggestion that the large "GW" was ever applied to a red wagon?  Were all the wagons painted with transitional liveries new builds, and hence grey, or were wagons ever taken out of traffic (and might therefore have been red) for the new-fangled lettering to be applied?

Hello Steve, good point about the wagon plates. It seems logical that they should be red. I have a number of adjustments to do to these wagons so that must go on the list.

 

Regarding your other question, I went back for another look at the three photos in Atkins, Beard & Tourret that show the transition livery (below). Logically, I would have thought that the introduction of the new large GW numbers also led to a repaint. But the iron mink on p369 is very interesting: It has the large "GW" and the cast numberplates, with the small "GWR" cast plate removed. However, where the latter used to be there is a fairly clear shadow, suggesting that the van has not been repainted since the plate was removed. So this could mean that the van is still red! Or less excitingly, that the "GWR" cast plates were only removed *after* the van has been painted grey. However it seems to make most sense that the "GWR" plates would have been removed when the large letters were added, so to me it seems it might well be red.

 

Then there is O2 on page 297, which has the plates although it wasn't introduced till 1906, suggesting it took over the number from another wagon? Very puzzling. 

 

P 297: 7 plank open dia O2, built 1906, photo no date, oil axleboxes, cast numberplates + large

Hello again Mikkel.

 

You have missed a couple of pictures of plated wagons, most notably in Atkins the TOTEMs on p.79 / 81 / 83 and the ballast hopper on p.310.

 

Also the tank wagon on p.504 is painted white as its service livery, not photographic grey.  Lettering is in red, so would the plates (which are painted with a white background) be highlighted in red as well?  Note that its solebars are painted body colour, not chassis colour, whereas the drinking water tank wagon on page 244 has its solebars painted underframe colour.  This may be due to the first vehicle being painted for Class A products though, but if the drinking water tank has its solebars painted chassis colour, might this not be taken as a guide for other wagons and colours?  The ballast wagon on page 315 was photographed in 1888 and is thus in red livery.  The underframe - including iron solebars - is most definitely darker and almost certainly black.  This is a shame, as I personally prefer the look of your wagons with the solebars in body colour.  As an aside, the ballast wagon also carries the central white stripe which, I thought, was supposed to denote either-side brakes (as does the coal wagon on page 234.)

 

Having thought a little longer on the subject of cast plates, do we actually know that they were painted grey at all?  If a wagon is dirty then it's going to be hard to tell from a photo, but the 4-plankers on page 54 (both nice and clean fresh out of the workshops and presumably in red livery) seem to be carrying plates which are distinctly darker than the body colour.  Perhaps the plates were black.  The more modern plate illustrated on page 66 certainly seems to be painted black, so was there a changeover at some time from grey plates to black, or were they perhaps painted black from the outset?  Numbers need to be plainly visible, and white numbers on a black background are going to be the most visible combination, regardless of body colour.

 

One fly in the ointment is the 4-planker on page 276 which, being photographed in 1894, should be painted red. It seems to have plates which are distinctly lighter than the body, which itself seems to be very dark indeed.

Sorry for late reply Steve, haven't had time to sit down with the books.

 

This is very interesting, I like the idea of looking for clues on some of the lesser known wagons and special liveries. The tank on p.504 is particularly interesting, I think: As you say it shows the solebars with the body colour. One odd thing though is that the tank lettering looks worn/weathered, whereas that on the cast plates looks brand new. Could be a trick of the light, or maybe a demo photo to show livery experiments?

 

The water tank on page 244 might provide a clue to this - if indeed it shows the new 1904 livery then the 1916 photo might show livery experiments. Alternatively, the water tank may show a livery experiment that was never adopted!

 

I see what you mean about the cast plates looking very dark in some cases. But wouldn't it be more logical that they were the same colour as the body, as you stated above? Or was the whole idea with the cast plates maybe to provide a contrast  to the body colour (eg black), so that you could see the numbers etc more clearly and in the same colour across all wagons/livery styles? An intriguing thought.

 

Having said all this, my little photo experiment with my one-planker has really made me doubt that we can say much about the differences between red, grey and black on a wagon from black and white photos. That includes the ballast wagon on page 315, I think? It's an amazing photo by the way, it doesn't look like a photo from 1888, do you think the date is really correct? If so it is intriguing to see the red colour like this!

 

"I wonder if IT advances might help us one day, eg running thousands of photos through computers to analyse and establish tiny differences in the colours"

 

There's just an outside chance that something like this could become technically possible!  There was a photographic process called the Lippmann colour plate, which relied on standing wave patterns being set up in a very fine-grained emulsion.  The original colours could be seen by diffraction, when the plate was viewed in reflected light. 

 

Perhaps, the standing wave patterns in a normal plate could be enhanced in some way to give an indication of what colours were present.  I doubt, however, whether GWR wagons will provide enough financial incentive for the necessary research

 

Mike 

Hello Mike, that's an interesting thought! I just read the Wikipedia entry for Lippmann, I don't understand all of it but I got the basic principles I think. In the meantime, I can't help but wondering whether the famous missing painting instructions are still out there somewhere. Have all GWR documents/archives been explored, I wonder, or are there still places to look?

I know I'm late on this thread. But it all takes me back to the heated discussion on whether Afrika Tiger I tanks were pea green!

 

Interesting stuff though - something I'll incorporate in my rolling stock

 

Andy