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GWR Coach Liveries.


Ken A.
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Seeing as Carters livery book was compiled around contemporary accounts, it might be the 'Railway Magazine' of the period reported on the livery change in 1912. It is certain Carter and his assistants obtained their info from somewhere. Russell made a lot of mistakes in his books so I personally would not place too much trust in this author's writings.

 

 There were funny goings on on the Midland after WW1 when for instance, it was reported the coaches were being lined out in yellow paint up until the Grouping of the railways. Therefore it beggars belief that the newly formed LMS then reverted to the very expensive process of lining in gold leaf with red lining on either side of it from 1923, but apparently they did. Were the last of the MR coach orders that were not completed until 1924 lined in yellow like their brothers or in gold?  Liveries are a fascinating topic.

Edited by coachmann
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  • 4 months later...

OK, this was the first illustration I could freely find on the internet but there are others showing similar livery.

 

Does anyone know of a contemporary illustration of an "all brown" carriage; I don't recall seeing one?

 

The only pre-1908 photograph of an “all brown” carriage that I’ve seen is in Peter Darke, Great Western Locomotives on the Main Line (Ian Allan, 2012) — an interesting little book of photos, mostly engines circa 1906-7, with some carriages and wagons in and around. At the top of page 82 is a picture taken at Torquay in 1906 showing saddle tank 1045 with a van third in tow (only the front part with the three sets of van doors is visible).

 

The number appears to be 3274, which was a D25 (Lot 870), though others might like to confirm this. The brown looks somewhat lighter in shade than the brown most of us are used to, which is also noticeable in some other pictures; in other words, the lighter pre-1904 shade Coachman mentioned.

 

I can’t see any monogram on the side of the carriage, but the number is in the eave panel, so the livery was probably identical to the standard chocolate & cream, but without the cream.

 

 

Does anybody know what stock received the experimental all brown livery in 1903? Was it a rake of coaches, or just a random selection?

Coach, the black ends were introduced with the 1908 "brown" livery change, according to Great Western Way, so would have applied to both schemes

 

I’ve isolated the picture Composite Brake Corridor No.7672 from Our Home Railways and added some sharpening to bring out a few details. What strikes me is that the actual body colour seems more brown than red, and that the red may just be an artefact of the lithography process or the PDF conversion. You will notice that the droplight sashes are varnished, which would be correct for the all brown scheme — droplight sashes on crimson lake coaches were painted the body colour.

 

Oddly, the initials “G.W.R” are not to be seen anywhere along the waist panel, so this may have been an error of omission on the part of the artist, or an early variant. Normally for the 1908 livery, “G.W.R” should appear over the London and Bristol crests.

 

The roof destination boards are red with gold lettering, which is correct for the pre-1912 era.

 

 

Dana

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While it may sound a bit hit & miss, I seem to recall I used the same Vauxhall dark maroon on Great Western coaches as I did on North Eastern coaches. Once all the lining out was added, it would take a wide variation in maroon for anyone to notice a change in the shade.

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