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Dawlish Warren paint scheme


Chris M
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Just wondering if anyone has information regarding Dawlish Warren station paint scheme during the sixties and seventies. From photos it seems to have been somewhat different to what I expected. Monochrome photos taken in the fifties and sixties suggest that the buildings were not the standard chocolate & cream. The main body was just one colour, probably cream or maybe light beige, but no photos show the expected chocolate lower part of the timber building. Even the doors don't seem very dark colour. Colour photos from the late seventies show the station doors to be a light, faded, blue colour - was this the standard corporate colour for doors by then? Any help would be appreciated. I know the whole building became white by the time it was a museum in the eighties.

 

Also, I know the camping coaches became chocolate & cream at some point in this era. Does anyone know roughly when and what was the colour before that? The previous colour seems to be an unusual one.

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The camping coaches were faded light blue and yellow in the early 70's - seriously!  I think they were replaced late70's/early 80's. I think there was a photo in one of the railway mags of them being taken away by a 31 before the yard connection was taken out.  

 

Regards

 

Matt W 

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I don't think I could bring myself to paint coaches light blue and yellow even if that is accurate. I have got a colour photo from the late sixities/early seventies where they appear to be white. They could possibly be a very very light blue but there is no yellow on them. I must say that I think chocolate & cream, which was used later in the later seventies (and is slightly after the era for my project) is more appealing.

 

I have quite a lot of information for this N gauge project which I have not yet started. I have made a track plan though. It could be nice, all I have to do is make a good job of it.....

DW2.jpg

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I'd love to see those but no link - may have stumbled on them on Flickr as I found some good photos of a peak and a 50 (Hood) passing the Dawlish Warren in 1979 - and which shows a light blue coach in the background.   

Don't know if anyone else remembers, but there used to be remnants of light bullhead rail next to the footpath from the brick footbridge at Dawlish Warren as far as the plate layers hut which used to be by the Langstone Rock.  Always wondered if it dated from the 30s when the GWR laid in a temporary siding as far as where Red Rock cafe is now, to lay down the stone and boulders protecting the railway back to the warren - picture of it in one of my books.

 

Matt W

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On 2 October 2019 at 07:05, Chris M said:

Just wondering if anyone has information regarding Dawlish Warren station paint scheme during the sixties and seventies. From photos it seems to have been somewhat different to what I expected. Monochrome photos taken in the fifties and sixties suggest that the buildings were not the standard chocolate & cream. The main body was just one colour, probably cream or maybe light beige, but no photos show the expected chocolate lower part of the timber building. Even the doors don't seem very dark colour. Colour photos from the late seventies show the station doors to be a light, faded, blue colour - was this the standard corporate colour for doors by then? Any help would be appreciated. I know the whole building became white by the time it was a museum in the eighties.

 

Also, I know the camping coaches became chocolate & cream at some point in this era. Does anyone know roughly when and what was the colour before that? The previous colour seems to be an unusual one.

 

Station colour schemes and signing I think was part of the British Rail design image from the mid 60s along with the vehicle liveries, staff uniforms and all. Rather like TOCs do today. 

 

I recall my local (LMR) station being repainted around 1966 - it went externally from maroon detailing and doors and cream main wooden panels, to a sort of light stone colour for the main wooden panels, black for window cills, pipes and other detail, white window frames and a sort of darkish olive green for the doors. At the same time all the signs were changed to the corporate black lower and upper case on white background. I think the lamp posts weren't painted so a grey steel colour. The platform canopy front was pre coloured glass fibre material and remained cream. 

 

Regarding camping coaches, on holidays in Devon and Cornwall in the 60s, I remember them being chololate and cream (St Erth and I think Dawlish Warren and others). 

 

There are books which covers British Railways by design - the station colour schemes are likely to be included in the British Rail Corpoate Identity Manual, from the July 1965. I have not found reference to the station colour schemes - the books tend to focus on larger architectural statements like new major stations but the level of detail from the manual is staggering - from fonts and colours of timetables, station signing, uniforms, ship livery, every conceivable type of vehicle (rail and road) - it was a very major task. There is a reference to colours of pre-fabricated buildings - it is as described for my then local station, above with the exception doors were black and the walls could be grey or cream , naturally coloured materials as provided (I suspect grey = the light stone colour I described). Whether Dawlish Warren was repainted like this I don't know but the image seems to have been rolled out country-wide, so probably would have been. 

Edited by MidlandRed
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I have no provenance for this photo, and therefore apologies if I am breaching any copyright, and I will remove the photo. 

 

It is one which I 'saved' from an old hard drive with commercial software many years ago after my computer refused to work properly. It shows D819 passing the station in April 1970. 

 

However, it may answer the question. 

 

 

 

 

D819_Dawlish_Warren_4:70.jpg

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As for the camping coaches, this 1969 photo of D7000 passing gives an idea of the colours at that time.  (Once again I have no copyright/ownership info for this image). 

 

 

D7000_Dawlish_Warren_05:69.jpg.15c9d3fcbce64cd7ae453c6cba0d141b.jpg

 

 

 

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Just looking in Strathwoods 70s Spotting Days Round The West Country, there’s an image on page 17 of Western Pathfinder at the Warren, dated August 74 - and the coaches were an awful sky blue and pale yellow by then.  Consistent with the decade style forgot !  I’d go for earlier or later and run 42/43 Warships, or named 50s post 78 when taste prevailed.  (or just use rule 1).  Looks a good track plan by the way.

 

regards

 

Matt W

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On 05/10/2019 at 10:31, D826 said:

Don't know if anyone else remembers, but there used to be remnants of light bullhead rail next to the footpath from the brick footbridge at Dawlish Warren as far as the plate layers hut which used to be by the Langstone Rock.  Always wondered if it dated from the 30s when the GWR laid in a temporary siding as far as where Red Rock cafe is now, to lay down the stone and boulders protecting the railway back to the warren - picture of it in one of my books.

 

Matt W

 

Matt

 

Was that the footpath next to the car park, towards Langstone Rock? If that's the case, I do remember it. What I can recall (c.1966) looked like the kind of buffers that were made of bent rail, and a few other scrap-looking pieces. But I had no idea what it was there for.

 

One other thing I do remember though, the man in the signal box was a Mr Morris, who was happy to show inquisitive children how his signal box worked.

 

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Exactly Keith. 

 

There was also a pile of it  just past the plate layers hut by Langstone rock where you drop down on to the beach from the sea wall.   Good to know my memory isn't playing tricks.

 

Used to love standing on the footbridge at Dawlish Warren station watching the procession of trains on the 4 track there. There's another picture showing the yellow and blue camping coaches, attributed to Ian Harrison in Strathwoods '70s Spotting Days on the Western Region' of an 08 held in the down platform waiting to scuttle to Newton Abbot.  Quite a regular occurrence.  All those lovely lower quadrants.

 

Cheers Keith.

 

Matt W

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On 5 October 2019 at 12:05, jonny777 said:

I have no provenance for this photo, and therefore apologies if I am breaching any copyright, and I will remove the photo. 

 

It is one which I 'saved' from an old hard drive with commercial software many years ago after my computer refused to work properly. It shows D819 passing the station in April 1970. 

 

However, it may answer the question. 

 

 

 

 

D819_Dawlish_Warren_4:70.jpg

 

The more I look at this photo, the more odd some of the station details appear. There's a lamp column showing just above the centre of the Warship's windscreen with what looks like a chocolate and cream BR totem sign - clearly Dawlish Warren wasn't high on the list for application of the mid 60s BR corporate image!! The BR logo on the open day poster on the end of the building doesn't look right either!! 

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But, isn't that how things were back in those days? The new corporate image sat side by side with much older relics of BR, Big Four and even pre-Grouping artefacts at many locations in the years immediately after BR blue was introduced. 

 

I can't blow up the double arrow symbol too much on the original because it is only a jpg downloaded from somewhere on the internet about 15 years ago, but it does seem to have a more orange colour to the left, as if the logo has been repeated in a lighter shade in an effort to make it look as if it is in motion? 

 

I do not recall the minutiae of BR posters from those days, but I suspect that the rigid corporate rules of the mid-70s were not completely in place by 1970. After all, it was only 2 years since the end of steam on BR. 

Edited by jonny777
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On 05/10/2019 at 12:05, jonny777 said:

I have no provenance for this photo, and therefore apologies if I am breaching any copyright, and I will remove the photo. 

 

It is one which I 'saved' from an old hard drive with commercial software many years ago after my computer refused to work properly. It shows D819 passing the station in April 1970. 

 

However, it may answer the question. 

 

 

 

 

D819_Dawlish_Warren_4:70.jpg

That's a really useful photo thanks. I think that is the colour scheme I will go for. 

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Maybe we were spoiled as my local station was on one of the WCML lines (albeit electrification not fully commissioned until 1967 - local train on first week being AM4 022 in....... lined green syp) but the station was definitely changed over to the corporate image not long after. Strangely major WMCL rebuilds Coventry and Stafford retained LMR maroon totems for quite a while - yet the powers that be seemed to stress over modern image stock - the AM4s transferred to the southern end WMCL services in lieu of late delivered AM10s were all repainted bsyp, whilst was it coincidental that blue from new 25s D7660-7671 were initially allocated to Willesden from new (I know some were heat fitted, permitting work on Olympia Motorail)  - even the EM2s running into Man Piccadilly got repainted blue early on..... 

 

The open day can just be made out on the poster as St Blazey - I wonder if E3044 and HS4000 (regular open day attendees around then) were there. Publicity material (including posters etc) was definitely included in the 1965 Corporate identity Manual. 

 

The lamp posts in the picture might be green (looks it in the picture but may be photo colour shift) at this station - and the 'Way out' notices etc predate British Railways (pre 1948). So you're right, a complete mixture. I would guess it's escaped the corporate gaze (or more likely, budget)! 

Edited by MidlandRed
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2 hours ago, jonny777 said:

But, isn't that how things were back in those days? The new corporate image sat side by side with much older relics of BR, Big Four and even pre-Grouping artefacts at many locations in the years immediately after BR blue was introduced.

 

Yes, travelling by train to-and-from Dawlish Warren, Dawlish and Teignmouth, the colours we were used to seeing were all fading GWR / BR WR. Anything that passed through in the new corporate blue stuck out like a sore thumb. Us Devon yokel kids weren't sure what to make of this new-fangled "city slickers" colour scheme.

 

By the way, what happened to the signal box?

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