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For completeness (and then I really need to drop this issue), David Gould lists the following liveries in his book Bogies Carriages of the South  Eastern and Chatham Railway.

  • SER up to amalgamation: crimson lake.
  • SECR 1899 to 1901: crimson lake lower panels and mouldings, faux teak upper panels.
  • SECR 1901 to c.1910: 'rich purple lake fine-lined in gold'. That is in quotation marks in Gould,  but he doesn't say whom he's quoting. Mr. Gould goes on to say that the 'rich purple lake' appears to be the same as the SER lake.
  • SECR c.1910 to 1916: a light maroon or red-brown shade with gold lining.
  • SECR 1916 onward: umber brown, said to be indistinguishable from that used by the LB&SCR.

So I now suspect that the colour I've used is the 1910-1916 shade, This is really, really annoying, enough so that I might just nudge the layout period by one year so that I can claim the new livery. Or I can just weep.

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12 minutes ago, Regularity said:

Whereas I fear that you are using “evidence” like a drunk using a lamppost: for support, not illumination.

I was simply offering a word of caution: we need to be circumspect about unreliable witnesses. You should be able to appreciate that.

 

OK, Simon.

 

I have mainly framed this as an enquiry. I don't know the answer. Neither do you.

 

Weighing up the evidence, it seems to me that we have (i) a popular representation/perception of crimson lake, with all its flaws as a source, but conforming to the period of interest, (ii) a painting instruction from the start of the period that has brown lake followed by 2 coats of crimson lake, and (ii) a rather more brown lake paint sample that may not date to the same period as (i) and (ii).

 

On the evidence so far, I'm mot sure either school of thought would discharge the burden of proof on the balance of probabilities, but I suspect crimson lake gets closer. 

 

So, no, I'm not using evidence like a drunk using a f-king lamp post, so back off

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I'm finding this discussion of reddish brown fascinating, not because I intend modelling the SER or SECR (my LNWR stuff is getting PP Lake and it will have to like it), but because I am foolishly about to start making some coaches for another railway in a difficult to achieve scheme and want to be happy with the colour I end up with.  The relevance to this discussion is that the scheme ran in (just about) living memory, and was illustrated in photography and art, and the main colour was variously described as "redder than it was later". The colour is used by  Pennsylvania Railroad and officially described as Light Tuscan, or Tuscan Red, or Light Tuscan Red and manufactured with relatively modern paint technology  (1935-52). Here are four images. The scheme of the locos in the first two are the same which places them in a close date range. the painting is I believe official publicity, and the carriage at the bottom is on show when new at a state fair, and the baggage car to the left is from the same railroad and should be the same body colour. In my view your hopes of resolving the SER/SECR issue are not good but I wish you all well.

 

tuscan 4.jpg

tuscan 2.jpg

tuscan 6.jpg

tuscan 7.jpg

Edited by webbcompound
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  • 2 weeks later...

IMG_8195.JPG.08231fee7ef2c5135d8ed40dfc38334c.JPG

Further up the train, redness has been achieved. Two of these coaches are my juvenalia and two are rehomed from eBay.

 

From left to right, SER 5-compartment third of 1897, bought on eBay two years back and now lightly refurbished. It wears a printed roof, which seems to be the way to go with these short coaches. They take 9.5 hours each to print, but adzing them out of raw materials takes a few hours each of labour and doesn't produce as neat a result.

 

Second, another 3rd, model built by me in 1988, the first etched coach I ever built. Its roof is in the printer as I write.

 

Third, an SER 4-compartment first or second of 1897 (same structure for the two classes, but different interior), also from eBay. This needed slightly more refurbishment as it came to me with damage to a body panel. "That'll buff out" said the redneck, and he's not wrong, but it took a few doses of filler and primer. 

 

Finally, an SE&CR, 2-compartment 3rd-brake of 1901. This is the updated diagram of the SER brake-3rd previously shown in this thread. It has a luggage compartment in place of one passenger compartment, and was lit electrically. It also has Spencer's patent, secondary suspension pads on J-hangers, which I printed as the kit didn't provide much. I built this model in 1990, and made enough of a hash of it that it was laid aside and used over the years for painting experiments. As of last night, it's been carved back into a useable state (you would wince at the brutality needed to square up the birdcage) and can be finished.

 

All these will be painted to match the previous brake-3rd, despite the question mark over that livery. It's a formal set, full-sized coaches presumed to be painted at the same time, so they need to be the same colour. I'll attempt greater crimsonicity in the main-line stock to follow.

 

The train needs at least one more 4-compartment coach, so that it can have all three classes; I have no kits for the  27' composites as Branchlines never made them. This is under construction. There should probably be three more of the 4-compartment coaches so that there are two coaches of each class plus the brakes, but that can wait while I built something else.

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The "new" coaches have taken the purple. It will look better (and redder) with some varnish on it, but I need to line first.

 

The roofs are nearly done, but the one on the right hasn't quite finished curing and that on the brake-3rd doesn't fit around the birdcage.

 

Apparently, one can't just cut a rectangular notch out of the semi-elliptical roof and expect it to fit. The section along the side of the birdcage is lower than that. Lowering the section is easy, but achieving a neat transition to the main roof is not. This went slightly wrong on the timber/paper/plastic roof I made for the other brake-3rd and now I can see why. Since I don't have constructional sections for this bit of the roof, nor photos, and since the profile of the brass may not be absolutely accurate to the drawings anyway, I shall just have to muddle around in CAD until I get something that looks OK. It may be that there's a slight step, of perhaps an inch or so, level with the front of the birdcage.

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6 hours ago, AVS1998 said:

O. S. Nock,  p. 133: - "the carriage livery was a rich dark lake, as near as makes no matter to the colour used by the Great Western between the two" chocolate and cream" periods.

 

Surely further evidence that there was never a GWR "brown" period only "rich dark lake".

 

"Dark Lake as before but was not varnished so thoroughly and has been quoted as 'brown', possibly due to weathering. "  And again evidence that lake weathered to brown with poor varnishing

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8 hours ago, AVS1998 said:

 

O. S. Nock,  p. 133: - "the carriage livery was a rich dark lake, as near as makes no matter to the colour used by the Great Western between the two" chocolate and cream" periods. When new the SECR coach roofs were white, and the striking affect was enhanced by use of scarlet roof boards on all the principal expresses. ".  I've ordered a tin of Phoenix GWR 1912 to compare it to their own Chatham - I expect it might be close. After all, lining, light and scale do much to alter a perception of colour. 

 

 

 

93_after.jpg.8937ecb17e12273739f6a28921a6572b.jpg

 

 

134299310_GWR_Steam_Railmotor_No_93_At_the_Didcot_Railway_Centre_cropped.jpg.f7c62d50e89c143529e1a63cfcf85994.jpg

 

1526650459_maxresdefault(1).jpg.69518695346e34f5c7c67770235165ef.jpg

 

GWR_Steam_Railmotor_93_(7882261160).jpg.ef2a63053db27f0831e803fc91393a1f.jpg

 

57763d57b09f36b7b70588d882e06a3a.jpg.4f449557b64efe099bed4e7ad5f48182.jpg

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Something to be aware of is that early refereces to "chocolate" as a colour are clearly linked to "purple". Earlier still statues of emperors in Rome were made in a stone called "porphyry" (meaning purple) because purple was  the colour associated with the emperor, but if you look at them (the statrue of the tetrarchs looted from Constantinople and now in St Mark's Venice is a good example) you would have to say that many are a decidely "brown" shade, rather than a bluish shade, of red.

 

The other issue is that lake is not a soluble pigment, but is a powder held in suspension in a medium. Clearly (!) the type of medium, proprtion of pigment, fine-ness of particles, and underlying colour all impact on it. In comparing two versions all these factors would need to be known at the same level of detail and accuracy. To provide a consistent colour they would also have to be provided at a consistent level. Within one workshop, under the control of a single overseer this might be true (dependent on supply), but across several workshops it is unlikely. Even sending out colour swatches to match does not help because of the range of variants involved, and matching to a swatch (as anyone who has used a munsell chart is aware) is dependent on a very wide variety of variables.

 

So would colours turn out similar? Yes. Would they be exactly the same? Extremely unlikely. As for descripitions of colours using language we only have to look at Improved Engine Green, or (perhaps) less controversially Invisible Green, or Dark Green Locomotive Enamel  to know that this is a minefield.

 

So unless you work for the company and an inspector checks and approves your work in the end the only question is "Does it like good to me?". and unless you are in an intimate relationship with them an opinion from someone else can be taken with a pinch of finely ground lake pigment.

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I feel I want to see a photo of the railmotor standing next to a restored or preserved Midland carriage. My impression is that it's a duller red than the Midland colour but that may partly be down to the beading being painted red rather than black. I certainly don't think I have seen any photo of the railmotor where the colour could be said to approach the plum colour of a carriage preserved or restored in LNWR livery. I have not seen the railmotor in the flesh, myself.

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To my eyes the railmotor appears to occupy a red-to-purple lake spectrum depending on the light. Darker and more purple than my perception of Midland lake. What it does not look, to me, is brown.  Nor does it appear as dark as, say, the Bachmann birdcages.

 

Unsatisfactory, perhaps, to rely on O S Nock's colour memory, but I can really see this shade working for SE&CR coaches.  I will be very interested to see Alex's comparison in due course. 

 

EDIT: Apropos Stephen's final comment, I have seen No.93 in the flesh, bit my 'phone battery died before I could snap it. My colour memory is that it is darker and more purple than Midland crimson.  The first photograph is about how I recall it.

 

To me it seems a happy medium between older interpretations of SE&CR lake (too light and too red) and the current vogue (too dark and too brown), and has the essentially purple quality for "rich purple lake".

 

Given (a) the uncertainty and (b) the various things that affect colour perception, not least lighting conditions and scale, I'm wondering if the GW lake might be as close as I need to get.  The proof is very much in the plum pudding, however. Let's see how it looks on a model.  

Edited by Edwardian
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It's worth noting that the subject of the Bachmann coaches, the Trio-C sets, arrived c.1911 and wear the presumed, later livery that is thought to be darker and browner. The ex-LCDR coaches on the Bluebell Railway might also be considered to reflect this period. It's my 27' stock that's probably wrong for 1909. Given that I've messed around with history just to create the railway they run on, I feel comfortable with bringing the introduction of the livery forward by a year or so. By extension, the 27' coaches must be presumed to be recently painted and their roofs not yet greatly greyed.

 

For later models after the 27' coaches I intend to seek a more crimson shade. The Grand Vitesse van shown here recently is most of the way there. When I have more time, I may try Precision GWR lake and see how that comes out; but it's a time-consuming experiment, as the subject has to be lined and varnished to get a proper assessment.

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2 hours ago, webbcompound said:

Something to be aware of is that early refereces to "chocolate" as a colour are clearly linked to "purple". Earlier still statues of emperors in Rome were made in a stone called "porphyry" (meaning purple) because purple was  the colour associated with the emperor, but if you look at them (the statrue of the tetrarchs looted from Constantinople and now in St Mark's Venice is a good example) you would have to say that many are a decidely "brown" shade, rather than a bluish shade, of red.

 

The other issue is that lake is not a soluble pigment, but is a powder held in suspension in a medium. Clearly (!) the type of medium, proprtion of pigment, fine-ness of particles, and underlying colour all impact on it. In comparing two versions all these factors would need to be known at the same level of detail and accuracy. To provide a consistent colour they would also have to be provided at a consistent level. Within one workshop, under the control of a single overseer this might be true (dependent on supply), but across several workshops it is unlikely. Even sending out colour swatches to match does not help because of the range of variants involved, and matching to a swatch (as anyone who has used a munsell chart is aware) is dependent on a very wide variety of variables.

 

So would colours turn out similar? Yes. Would they be exactly the same? Extremely unlikely. As for descripitions of colours using language we only have to look at Improved Engine Green, or (perhaps) less controversially Invisible Green, or Dark Green Locomotive Enamel  to know that this is a minefield.

 

So unless you work for the company and an inspector checks and approves your work in the end the only question is "Does it like good to me?". and unless you are in an intimate relationship with them an opinion from someone else can be taken with a pinch of finely ground lake pigment.

 

I am a little unsure about the relevance of your comment about lake pigments being a suspension.  AFAIK virtually all paint and lake systems involved suspending the pigment in a medium, so the comment applies to every single sample of paint or colouring used.  I do however agree with your conclusions.

 

One point not mentioned is whether the size of the pigment particles had an impact on the shade produced.  I rather suspect it did but can offer no proof.

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9 minutes ago, Andy Hayter said:

 

I am a little unsure about the relevance of your comment about lake pigments being a suspension.  AFAIK virtually all paint and lake systems involved suspending the pigment in a medium, so the comment applies to every single sample of paint or colouring used.  I do however agree with your conclusions.

 

One point not mentioned is whether the size of the pigment particles had an impact on the shade produced.  I rather suspect it did but can offer no proof.

The point about the lake colours is that their pigments are precipitated dyes rather than than ground powders. The pigment particles in lakes are larger and sparser, giving the effect of tinted varnish rather than conventional paint.

 

The reason for using lake colours is to get access to the cheaper and versatile aniline dyes, which are normally soluble dyestuffs.

Edited by Guy Rixon
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5 minutes ago, Guy Rixon said:

The point about the lake colours is that their pigments are precipitated dyes rather than than ground powders. The pigment particles in lakes are larger and sparser, giving the effect of tinted varnish rather than conventional paint.

That, I think, gives a significant help to understanding why the colour of LMS locos varied so much according to the undercoat (black/grey at Crewe, brown at Derby).

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2 hours ago, Guy Rixon said:

It's worth noting that the subject of the Bachmann coaches, the Trio-C sets, arrived c.1911 and wear the presumed, later livery that is thought to be darker and browner. The ex-LCDR coaches on the Bluebell Railway might also be considered to reflect this period. It's my 27' stock that's probably wrong for 1909. Given that I've messed around with history just to create the railway they run on, I feel comfortable with bringing the introduction of the livery forward by a year or so. By extension, the 27' coaches must be presumed to be recently painted and their roofs not yet greatly greyed.

 

For later models after the 27' coaches I intend to seek a more crimson shade. The Grand Vitesse van shown here recently is most of the way there. When I have more time, I may try Precision GWR lake and see how that comes out; but it's a time-consuming experiment, as the subject has to be lined and varnished to get a proper assessment.

 

Quite right. IIRC, these coaches were introduced in 1912 and that the Bachmann running numbers conform to 1912-built vehicles. 

 

 

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I had a mammoth lining session yesterday (mammoths are harder to fine-line than coaches). All four of the "new" coaches are now lined to the consistent, official standard of "meh, but I can't get it any better". I need to clean up some of the paintwork with a brush and can then varnish them tomorrow, at which point they should start to look presentable. What you see here so far matches the wartime livery of base coat and no lake coats, the debased form of the browner livery.

 

The brushwork for cleaning up is because these four coaches are all built per the kit design, with the bodies soldered to the chassis. They had to be masked to paint a lake body over a black chassis and it did not go as well as I would have liked. My later-built coaches are modified to separate body from chassis and I now feel very good about the extra work this involved. Also, lining around commode handles is an absolute pig, and I'm glad that I left off the handles on most of the coaches.

 

Better photos when there's next some sunlight on the bench. I wish my benighted iPhone camera worked better in dim light.

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Finally, we have something that approximates a train. Lots to finish, needs two or three more coaches, and the engine is still 00, but victory is finally in sight.

 

PS: the iPhone camera has a blue/purple cast and sucks the colour out of any subjects not under Californian sun. Sitting in the British sunshine today, these coaches look much redder.

Edited by Guy Rixon
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A photo of my girlfriend’s pussy:

EA5B6CA3-6053-43E4-B811-144AAFCFF9E9.jpeg.d5d1459846439a58c3a9e3e8582cb8e3.jpeg

 

Reminds of the old Mike Harding joke, about a dog noisily licking it’s b*ll*cks whilst he visited his girlfriend’s family for Sunday tea (whilst he was a teenager). In the awkward silence, he said, “I wish I could do that!” And the granny said, “Give ‘im a biscuit and he’ll let yer!”

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1 hour ago, Regularity said:

A photo of my girlfriend’s pussy:

 

Oh dear. You've reminded me of the Head of Year 9 who told an end-of-year assembly that she was looking forward to spending more time stroking her pussy. I was glad I was towards the back of the hall, out of sight of the Year 9s.

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Or the university professor who was upset by the lack of sharp attention during his early morning lecture. 

"The trouble with you lot is that you just fallout of bed and into the lecture theatre. 

You should be like me.  I get up early.  Go for a 5 mile run.  Then I feel rosy all over."

 

"Tell us more about Rosy!"  from somewhere toward the back.

 

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I'm considering who built which parts of the infrastructure on the CC&EJR. In particular, who's maintaining the track and providing the signals. It's conceivable, at least to my wandering, phantasy'd mind, that the SE&CR look after the track and the L&NWR do the signals; or it could be the other way round. Or they could have drawn a line on the map, somewhere around Oxford Street, and taken half each of each area of endeavour.

 

I'm assuming that the Met did the electrification and that the GWR are not involved in the civil engineering.

 

It's possible that the designation of company responsible slightly affects the track plan and signalling plan.

 

Opinions?

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14 minutes ago, Guy Rixon said:

I'm considering who built which parts of the infrastructure on the CC&EJR. In particular, who's maintaining the track and providing the signals. It's conceivable, at least to my wandering, phantasy'd mind, that the SE&CR look after the track and the L&NWR do the signals; or it could be the other way round. Or they could have drawn a line on the map, somewhere around Oxford Street, and taken half each of each area of endeavour.

 

I'm assuming that the Met did the electrification and that the GWR are not involved in the civil engineering.

 

It's possible that the designation of company responsible slightly affects the track plan and signalling plan.

 

Opinions?

 

Between Cheltenham Lansdown Junction and Gloucester Tramway Junction, maintenance was divided, with the Midland responsible for the 2 m 65 ch from Tramway Junction to a point 15 ch west of Churchdown station (marked by a Maintenance Board) and the Great Western for the remaining 3 m 12 ch. I wonder if the imbalance was because the Great Western didn't originally use the 55 ch of the B&G between Hatherley Junction and Lansdown Junction, only using that section following the opening of the Honeybourne line. 

 

On the other hand, on the Severn & Wye, also joint with the Great Western, responsibility was by "subject", e.g. the Midland was responsible for signalling.

 

So, choice.

Edited by Compound2632
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