The Farthing layouts

Just found this postcard on a site that BG John pointed out. It has previously been captioned as dated 1909 on a Wiltshire local studies website. The wagon colours may of course be fanciful - but I'm posting the link here for future reference.

 

 

 

EDIT:

 

A few notes from a discussion abouth this with Miss P and Nick:

 

* The wagons appear to be 2-plankers, and the front one has dumb buffers. They don't seem to be GWR engineering wagons, as these appear dark/black in contemporary photos.

 

* The wagons may not be GWR. They could well be contractor's wagons or - even more likely - Bath stone wagons (common in that area). The dumb buffers also suggest this. This website has photos of stone wagons from neaby Middlehill station that appear to be very similar/identical: http://www.choghole.co.uk/PHOTOGRAPHSOLD.htm (see "Wharfs").

 

* The colouring of the wagons in the postcard may be false. The colourist may have got it wrong, or the colour rendering from scanning/digitally enhancing the photo may have changed the original shade. However, the colours of the lineside structures appear plausible for the GWR.

 

* If the wagons are GWR and the colour and 1909 date is correct, it suggests that GWR red on wagons could still be seen in 1909. If GWR red ended in 1904, it is not unlikely some would still exist in that colour. Or the colour might even still be painted at that date. See: http://www.gwr.org.uk/liverieswagonred.html

 

The next step would be to examine whether there were red PO stone wagons in the area.

 

But so far it does look more likely that they are stone wagons, not GWR. 

 

Thanks to Nick and Miss P for their insights!

Edited August 20, 2019 by Mikkel

On 02/03/2011 at 15:03, SteveBedding said:

.....they also reverted to a 'reddish-brown' in 1942 as an austerity measure.

 

Dear All,

 

Just been re-reading this particular blog entry (whilst reclining on a sun lounger in Malta and enjoying a pint of Cisk ), and picked up on this comment from SteveBedding - I'd never heard of this wartime austerity red, and would be fascinated to know more.

 

Has it been discussed here on RMWeb? I've not managed to find anything (yet).

 

All the best,

 

Mark

 

Edit - I've found brief mention of this livery on GWR.org, which was probably the same shade as contemporary coach repaints.....which was what?

Edited August 20, 2019 by 2996 Victor

Hi Mark, in case you missed it, there's a link on gwr.org to this coach in reddish brown:  https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:GWR_Collett_60_Composite_Corridor_No.7313_(6888000293).jpg

 

Like you I'd be interested to know more about this livery.

 

PS: Musing over GWR liveries with a pint of cisk in Malta? You know how to live the good life!

Hi Mikkel,

 

I had missed the link, so a big thank you for including it!

The colour of the coach is a somewhat muddy lake, isn't it? One might almost say it's "red oxide primer with a coat of varnish".

 

It's interesting from my perspective as a couple of wagons finished thus would make for intriguing variety on my planned counterpoint 1950s layout.

 

Pondering the ins and outs of such a thorny issue over a cool beer is what life should be all about, in my humble opinion! Now, where's the waiter.....

 

All the best,

 

Mark

I was going to say that it isn't far off from BR Maroon, but actually the difference is fairly clear:

 

Photo: Hugh Llewelyn, source: Wikipedia creative commons.

 

Photo: David Ingham, source: Wikipedia creative commons.

 

Edited August 21, 2019 by Mikkel

Two more pics (the first of which was my original gwr.org reference before discovering the above wiki pic):

 

 

 

 

A deep red oxide with a slap of varnish describes it very well. (There is negligible blue in the colour, cf maroon, which has a significant blue content.) 

 

Edit: I've subsequently re-instated/added the urls for the above pics in the gwr.org livery page.

 

Edited August 22, 2019 by Miss Prism

Any chance of restoring the blog content pics, Mikkel?

(The awful new software can't hack it.)

 

Edit: Should be fixed now. 

 

Edited August 21, 2019 by Mikkel

Thanks.

 

On 21/08/2019 at 17:26, Miss Prism said:

Two more pics (the first of which was my original gwr.org reference before discovering the above wiki pic):

 

 

 

 

A deep red oxide with a slap of varnish describes it very well. (There is negligible blue in the colour, cf maroon, which has a significant blue content.) 

 

Edit: I've subsequently re-instated/added the urls for the above pics in the gwr.org livery page.

 

 

Thanks for adding these - they definitely show it as being a different shade to previous GWR and subsequent BR colours.

 

Apropos wagons, the passage on GWR.org says that open wagons built at that time were "unpainted", which presumably refers only to the wagons' sheets. So equally presumably, ironwork was (all?) painted in austerity red.

 

Please forgive me, as I don't currently have access to Atkins et al, but we're there any covered vans built concurrently, and if so what was painted and what wasn't?

 

I begin to think this needs it's own thread?

 

All the best,

 

Mark

6 minutes ago, 2996 Victor said:

Apropos wagons, the passage on GWR.org says that open wagons built at that time were "unpainted", which presumably refers only to the wagons' sheets. So equally presumably, ironwork was (all?) painted in austerity red.

 

It says new opens probably only received patches of red-brown for markings. Not sure about ironwork - black would be the most obvious, but I've never seen a pic of the treatment given to wagons built between 1942-5, and remember that only new-build was affected (so O30 and O38 and V34 and V35, for opens and Minks), and there is nothing to say that grey was discontinued. It's probably a case of whatever pot of paint was handy.

 

I think it very unlikely existing wagons were repainted in WWII.

 

On 22/08/2019 at 22:52, Miss Prism said:

 

It says new opens probably only received patches of red-brown for markings. Not sure about ironwork - black would be the most obvious, but I've never seen a pic of the treatment given to wagons built between 1942-5, and remember that only new-build was affected (so O30 and O38 and V34 and V35, for opens and Minks), and there is nothing to say that grey was discontinued. It's probably a case of whatever pot of paint was handy.

 

I think it very unlikely existing wagons were repainted in WWII.

 

 

Many thanks - agreed about new-build vehicles only being likely candidates. Was not O30 the all-steel diagram?

 

If you'll forgive me for quoting the GWR.org passage verbatim, it says in full:

 

"In the latter part of WWII, new goods vehicles are reported to have been painted in a reddish-brown colour, probably the same colour as that being applied for coach repaints from 1942-5, with open wagons being mostly bare wood with reddish-brown patches for markings. It is likely this livery applied only to new vehicles – repainting of older stock was most improbable. The normal grey livery was resumed after the war."

 

which implies (to me, at least) that while the woodwork was left unpainted (apart from the patches mentioned for serial number etc), the ironwork and underframe would have been painted. The ironwork would have been far more valuable than the woodwork, and surely some degree of preservative paint would have been applied? Which, given British Railways' treatment of newly-built stock in the early '50s, seems not unreasonable.

 

I would have though that black instead of grey would have been unlikely - presumably stocks of white were available to mix grey, in which case why the red - but as you say, it was probably a case of whatever colour was available.

 

Cheers,

 

Mark

7 minutes ago, 2996 Victor said:

Was not O30 the all-steel diagram?

 

Sorry, my typo. 'O30' should have read '037'.

 

11 minutes ago, 2996 Victor said:

which implies (to me, at least) that while the woodwork was left unpainted (apart from the patches mentioned for serial number etc), the ironwork and underframe would have been painted.

 

I agree. And it seem illogical for a body to be painted in one colour and the chassis in another.

 

To be honest, I can't get too excited about reports of adhoc non-official liveries - they're prone to error and exaggeration, and can become lodged in folklore,

 

If it were me, I'd shlapp grey over everything, like wot they always did.

 

10 minutes ago, Miss Prism said:

 

 

If it were me, I'd shlapp grey over everything, like wot they always did.

 

 

Do you think that might have included the roofs of iron bodied (and roofed) vans prior to the1935? change?

50 minutes ago, richbrummitt said:

Do you think that might have included the roofs of iron bodied (and roofed) vans prior to the1935? change?

 

No. The context of the discussion in the last few posts is what might have been happening in the war. The GWR had already adopted grey for roofs from 1939 as part of the official livery. There were no new iron-roofed vans built in the war, and no (or scant) effort would have been expended on repainting existing roofs, the majority of which were looking like filthy grey anyway.

 

 

Edited August 23, 2019 by Miss Prism

On 22/08/2019 at 22:52, Miss Prism said:

I've never seen a pic of the treatment given to wagons built between 1942-5

 

Couldn't resist that challenge so looked in all my books, but alas no result. I suppose the last thing anyone would think of during a war was to photograph a plain goods wagon, especially if it was unpainted.

I imagine being seen photographing anything remotely strategic, during a war, might have led to a rather interesting, informative and one-sided discussion with someone in plain clothes.  If you were lucky.

 

Let alone the issues of cost and availability of photographic materials, which themselves were likely to be viewed as strategic too.

 

i used to work for a company who had a factory in France that had previously been involved in manufacture of film, the Allies had reputedly bombed it...

 

Atb

Simon

 

Yes, good point. I had a look to see if anyone had tried to collect what is available, and there's a CRECY book on 'Wartime GWR' that I hadn't heard of, using photos from the STEAM archive: http://www.crecy.co.uk/wartime-gwr