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Southern Style After Nationalisation 1948 -1964 by John Harvey


Robin Brasher
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Having failed to order this book from my nearest book shop and model railway shop I have ordered it directly from the Historical Model Railway Society for £35 plus £4.50 shipping. If it is anything like the review on page 78 of the Hornby Magazine it should be well worth the price.

 

In the description from the HMRS I have already learned why the Southern Region were reluctant to apply the new crimson and cream liveries to their coaches and had doubts about whether the British Railways liveries and totems would suit the Southern locomotives which tended to be smaller than the London Midland Region locomotives.

 

I welcome the specimen SR and BR colour swatches to compare with my Hornby, Bachmann and Kernow SR coaches.

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I have received my book now together with a pleasant note thanking me for my order for the enclosed HMRS publication. She goes on to say "We appreciate your order very much, and hope you enjoy the book. With kind regards."

 

I have had a quick look at the book with the separate colour chart. It looks like Bachmann have got the colour right for BR coaches with Coach Green No 11a and Hornby have got the colour right for their latest SR post war malachite green coaches

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Sorry Robin, you may be right but equally you may not. You are still relying on the colour reproduction in the book being a perfect match to the official paint swatch (or whatever it’s called), and if correct that still doesn’t take into account the need for colour to be scaled on models compared to the full size originals. This has been discussed many times in the past in other threads.

 

Bachmann’s BR(S) Green may well be a perfect match when a coach is placed next to the book, but many people have said that Hornby’s version looks closer to what they remember. Bachmann’s latest BR(S) green on its PMV is certainly better than previous versions.

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Before the 1960s paint was hand mixed in paint shops so slight differences could occur on that basis along with factors such as  how much a coach has been in service since being painted and when it was last washed.

Precisely! This book is about the repainting of stock, little of it would have been new for painting. #i believe that the big workshops received pre mixed paint, but the workshop paint mixes all give ranges of quantities of each of the components of the mix, so are a hand mix to the paint foremans standard.

 

It is sad we have to repeat this so often!

 

Paul

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John Harvey, the author, explains in sections 4 and 5 how he derived the colour swatches, which are from specially mixed paint rather then being printed. Wherever possible he used either actual samples of unused BR SR paint or fragments of paint from vehicles, and then wherever possible from areas of the vehicles where the paint would have been protected from degradation.

One illustration is of part of a specification for paint. However, I believe that this was intended for use by paint manufacturers rather than in the works. Certainly in earlier days much paint was mixed on site but not by nationalisation. Indeed several paint manufacturers are mentioned in the book.

It needs to be remembered that it is not only those building small scale models who make use of HMRS publications. Many railway preservation organisations make use of HMRS information, as do model engineers. It is therefore appropriate that the colours given are for full sized vehicles and do not take account of lightening which may be needed for small scale models.

It also needs to be remembered that there are also other significant influences on how we see colour. One is colour temperature – colours will look significantly different under daylight on a sunny day, under daylight on an overcast day and under artificial lighting. The latter, indeed, may have a colour temperature anywhere between 3000 and 6000 kelvin or more. But also significant is the colour spectrum of the light and whether it is continuous. Daylight and incandescent lamps have continuous spectra but they are completely different. Discharge lamps – fluorescent, compact fluorescent, LED etc – mostly have discontinuous spectra. This means that certain wavelengths may be missing. One effect of this can be that two colour samples which appear the same under one light source can appear different under another.

The moral of course is that when comparing the colours of two items it is necessary to make sure that they are viewed under the same light source. If this cannot be done – for example because one is comparing one’s memory of a colour on a full sized vehicle with that on a model on one’s layout – then colour “matching” becomes extremely subjective – and that is before we even start looking at the effect of the differences between individuals’ colour vision.

Jonathan David

HMRS Books Editor

But also former Secretary of the Society of Light and Lighting

PS John over the years has assisted numerous model manufacturers with colour information.

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Interesting, Paul. The paint specifications tended to be based on British Standard colours, often BS 381C: “Colours for ready mixed paints”, and I am surprised if an instruction to paint to BS xxx could have been used in the workshops to mix paint. For the record the four paint manufacturers mentioned in the book are Hadfields, Dockers, Kearsleys and Williamsons.

At one point John states  - section 1.2.1 - "During the 1950s various comparisons were carried out on certain paints, and this was recorded on the engine by adding a suffix letter after the paint dates. This date might be inside the cab or later in the 1950s on the tender running plate valance (RHS) from Eastleigh. The following letters were used: D for Dockers; K for Kearsleys (both paint manufacturers); Q for the air-drying enamel from various manufacturers. Also there was a test varnish when the name HADFIELD'S (in full) was added to the paint date." also; "For synthetic paints the warning was given that "all paints and varnish must be obtained from one and the same source".

Were things perhaps different for goods stock?

I must admit that the book does not specifically state that paint was supplied ready mixed by manufacturers, but some evidently was.

I am reminded re-reading that section of the effect of varnish on paint colour, something which modellers may find difficult to simulate as we use different materials.

Jonathan

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Interesting, Paul. The paint specifications tended to be based on British Standard colours, often BS 381C: “Colours for ready mixed paints”, and I am surprised if an instruction to paint to BS xxx could have been used in the workshops to mix paint. For the record the four paint manufacturers mentioned in the book are Hadfields, Dockers, Kearsleys and Williamsons.

At one point John states  - section 1.2.1 - "During the 1950s various comparisons were carried out on certain paints, and this was recorded on the engine by adding a suffix letter after the paint dates. This date might be inside the cab or later in the 1950s on the tender running plate valance (RHS) from Eastleigh. The following letters were used: D for Dockers; K for Kearsleys (both paint manufacturers); Q for the air-drying enamel from various manufacturers. Also there was a test varnish when the name HADFIELD'S (in full) was added to the paint date." also; "For synthetic paints the warning was given that "all paints and varnish must be obtained from one and the same source".

Were things perhaps different for goods stock?

I must admit that the book does not specifically state that paint was supplied ready mixed by manufacturers, but some evidently was.

I am reminded re-reading that section of the effect of varnish on paint colour, something which modellers may find difficult to simulate as we use different materials.

Jonathan

I agree I haven't seen instructions for non freight and related rolling stock. And I did say earlier that premixed paint would have been normal at main workshops. The reproduction is very difficult. I dislike how dark the Crimson is that is sold by a well known company for models but John's matched colour also appears much darker (under my lounge lighting) than in the various excellent colour photos of coaches in this colour which show up on SR branch line stock. All very difficult to discuss, agree or reproduce, as you suggest.

 

Paul

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It is probably not wise to continue this discussion too long or we shall simply convince modellers that they can never know the correct colour for their models!

However, BR crimson should be easy; The chosen colour was BS No 540 in the 1948 British Standard 381C Colours For Ready Mixed Paints.

This was replaced by BS 2660 in 1955. I have a copy with the colour samples, which has been kept in the dark. The equivalent colour is 1-025 which is darker than seen in many photos, though it is a matt sample - something like, I suspect, the colour Paul is referring to.

But to demonstrate just how much the colour could vary, take a look at the second and third vehicles from the camera in photo J665 in post 1447 here; http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/85326-dave-fs-photos-ongoing-more-added-16th-december/page-579

We can't blame the difference on lighting or the film used. So which one is "correct"?

Happy Christmas to all.

Jonathan

PS Apologies for the switch to italic which I don't seem to be able to change.

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The Southern volume is in preparation and should be published in 2020. The BR volume was published first because it was ready, though there was some discussion about numbering the volumes, as it was felt that not publishing them in date order could cause confusion. And there will not be an SECR volume because the SECR Society is publishing everything that is known about liveries of the SER, LCDR and SECR in its own publications. Though there is not a lot about the very early days.

So start saving, and if you want the SECR info join the Society.

Jonathan

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