The Farthing layouts

Looks like some good progress is being made there Mikkel. It's looking very atmospheric even now.

You cannot do any worse than buying a pack of those battery tealights and start experimenting.

Hi Missy, now that looks very tempting. Thanks!

 

Of course, this raises the issue of whether the lamps should be oil or gas, and whether they flickered or not. There's a comment by DCC Concepts in this MRF thread which suggests that flickering railway lamps are a myth: http://www.modelrail...?showtopic=8696

 

Must investigate!

Pages 185-6 of Great Western Enterprise show the shed at Canon's Marsh, Bristol and the interior shots look to have been taken shortly before it opened in October 1906. In the outer part with metal-framed roof, the columns are all one dark colour, perhaps brown or black? Inside the two storey ferro-concrete section they are dark up to about six feet from the ground, but everything else is white. Upstairs in the warehouse/storage area, everything is white.

 

Fantastic Nick, many thanks for checking your references on this. I had forgotten about the Cannon's Marsh photos. It's interesting with the variation in the colour of columns as you mention. In the three photos on page 185 of Edw. Elegance, there are actually three different schemes as you say - all white, white/dark and if I look closely the bottom one seems in fact to be two darker colour (the stone colours?).

 

Paddington Goods columns seem to be a light colour, except for the bottom but I can't make out if that's just dirt!

Looks like some good progress is being made there Mikkel. It's looking very atmospheric even now.

Thanks R. Progress is a bit on/off though, and suffered a set-back recently when a pile of old junk fell onto the foamboard walls - which shows here and there, but thankfully it will all be covered in Plastikard!

... if I look closely the bottom one seems in fact to be two darker colour (the stone colours?).

You're right Early morning light in this room is none too good -- at least, that's my excuse -- but it is much clearer now. I still doubt that they are the stone colours, though, as they look too dark to me, even allowing for the large amount of white in the photo.

 

Paddington Goods columns seem to be a light colour, except for the bottom but I can't make out if that's just dirt!

Is this the photo on p.168? It's very difficult to tell, isn't it? The exposure of that plate is so skilfully crafted to bring out the detail in a very wide range of light levels. The columns could be lightish, but compare their tone with that of the adjacent goods wagons and they could equally well be quite dark in colour

Is this the photo on p.168?

Yes, that and several others in GW Goods Sheds Vol2A. Looking again I think they are just a singular light colour?

 

In extension of this, I dug out Slinn's "GW Way", where he writes on goods sheds: "Ironwork and girders were reportedly black but examples in light stone have been known. Interior walls and roof were whitewashed, which quickly discoloured to almost black..."

 

By contrast, GWRJ No. 17 (1996) has some shots of Hockley depot in the early 40s, where cast iron pillars very clearly have a two-tone livery, with a rather dark colour below and lighter (stone?) above. The dark colour looks similar to the dark brown applied in some engine sheds as mentioned above.

 

So maybe pillars would have been light stone in some cases, to which the dark brown would sometimes have been added as a means of covering lower parts of the pillars that would quickly become dirty?

 

What I wouldn't give for a time machine that could give us just an hour in a GW yard in the 1900s!

I'm sure there must have been sheds that match Slinn's description, and black ironwork was probably common for general fittings, roofing etc. I think he probably exaggerates about the white walls becoming almost black. I can believe a general grey/brown dusty appearance as they aged, after all whitewash is not really permanent. In your case, I would think the steel roof trusses suggest a fairly recent build, so the walls could still be mostly white.

 

Most of the photos I've seen would support some variation on the two-tone columns and dark brown with light stone above sounds as reasonable as any suggestion.

Yes I was also wondering about the"black" walls, that isn't really evident from photos I've seen. I suppose it is a case of exaggerting to make a point.

 

Ok, so I suppose we have some sort of conclusion on this (until someone else comes along with a different view of course, wouldn't it be boring if we had all the answers cast in stone beforehand ).

 

There's still the issue of whether the dark chocolate colour was bound by a certain time period, but perhaps the article and evidence referred to in this thread can cast some light on that in due course: http://www.rmweb.co....ght-dark-stone/

In my opinion and definitely only an opinion I would expect whitewash to be used internally. The reason is simply that these were places where people worked and all available external light would be used. The reflective nature of whitewash would be much greater than the GWR "stone" or any other colour.

 

However we also have to remember that whitewash deteriorates rapidly and especially in smoked or busy use. The white would probably exhibit a distinct fade to grey depending on period since last wash.

 

The ironwork is a different matter. Here the two tone black/dark stone lower and white/light stone upper or even simply grey may have all been possible.

Without colour photos it is all going to be speculative. We always have to remember that there was little in the way of "fast" colours available pre-1960's - and pre-grouping most paint mixes were prepared locally to local instructions and poor charts. There will have been plenty of variation. At least with white and black there is clarity. Unfortunately both of these colours "scale" very badly and look stark and unreal anywhere on a layout.

I agree about whitewash for the walls, and it's a good point that it should not be too bright but possibly more grey. I'll try and experiment with that. Making the profile of individual bricks partly "stand out" behind the whitewash also seems to be important, judging by photos.

 

Since the pillars on this particular layout are iron, I suspect they would not have been white. My main concern with giving them a two-tone livery is that all of the photos that show two tones on pillars are later than my period - with the possible exception of Canon's Marsh. So I'm leaning towards a single light colour, either light stone or light grey.

This is a really great layout and concept. Looks like I can find a use for my Hornby GWR 4 wheel coaches. I especially like the figures. IMO most figures on most layouts look like Soviet workmen and women (the feet and hands look like Herman Munster's). The heads look like they are about one quarter of the body size. They look all disproportionate.

I think you said they are OO white metal. Where did you get them?