Cordon livery ?

[Adrian Stevenson]

Hi Guys,  I am currently building an O gauge Cordon diagram DD4. The instructions recommend a livery of overall black.

 

But looking at period photos I am starting to think grey was used?

 

Does anyone know what the regulations state? I am modelling late 1930’s.

 

Sorry if this is shades of the loco coal wagon livery debate!

 

Thanks!

 

Cheers, Ade.

[57xx]

[33C]

I suggest Humbrol 85 Coal black, over a base of matt black and a very, light dry-brush of Humbrol 98 chocolate for brake dust. Pass the worm fork.....

[Miss Prism]

Black. In a weathered state, it will look dark grubby grey. The choice is yours.

 

 

[Adrian Stevenson]

Thanks Guys!

[The Johnster]

On 18/04/2021 at 21:11, 57xx said:

‘Nobody likes me everybody ‘ates me

just ‘cos I eat worms’...

[hmrspaul]

Vallejo smoke black. 

 

Paul

[M.I.B]

For those of you watching in black and white, the grey is behind the black..........

[Michael Hodgson]

The colour you're looking for is black cat in the coal-cellar at midnight.  That's when it's fresh out of the paint shop. 

After a few months service it begins to look darker and dirtier.

[Crichel Down]

The same query relates to all GWR service vehicles.  BR(WR) seem to have painted these wagons black, but the general consensus seems to be that the GWR painted them freight stock grey.

 

However, I did an experiment a good few years ago, in which I painted one GW LOCO coal wagon black, and another grey but heavily weathered.  The resulting appearance of both wagons, when weathered, was identical, and it was impossible to say which had been painted grey and which had been painted black.  I suspect that this is the practical answer to this question.   

[bécasse]

Many years ago, certainly over sixty, I asked Sid Hunt, who was The Model Railway Club's Great Western group steward why his O gauge model of a GWR loco coal wagon was black when the other revenue-earning GWR wagons were dark grey (albeit tending black) and his answer was that that was how the GWR painted them. Sid was a meticulous modeller, if you ignored the fact that his locos were clockwork powered (he wasn't known as 'keyhole' Hunt for nothing), and would have known the real GWR well, so he wouldn't have got it wrong.

 

Unfortunately I don't remember him having a model of a Cordon but my suspicions are that, as a non revenue-earner, it too would have been black. The GWR was known to be a significant user of black bituminised paint on its corrugated-iron structures (even being featured in trade advertisements for the paint) and I have often wondered whether that was what was actually used on its steel-structured service rolling stock as well.