First locomotive painted or lettered for British Railways in 1948?

[TravisM]

Just thought I’d open a discussion with a question from a friend of mine in the US.  Does anyone know there was a “first” loco to be painted or more probably lettered British Railways upon nationalisation in 1948?
 

Were several held back in the works and released into traffic on the 1st January or few days later?  I was told years ago that Swindon was very slow in doing away with the GWR crest on loco’s and it took several letters from Marylebone to get a move on.

 

Just interested to know if anything really changed apart from the name change in 1948.

[Michael Hodgson]

Wasn't there a contemporary black & white newsreel film of them spray-painting out a GWR crest? 

[BR60103]

We were in U.K. for the 50th anniversary of nationalisation (not actually for it) and there was old newsreel footage of the repainting of an LMS 0-6-0. I have a picture of, I think, the same operation in a book (LMS Reflections?) but the loco number is obscured by somebody.

 

[Steamport Southport]

They were still being turned out in pre 1948 liveries but without any logo or lettering until well into 1948.

 

Then they started getting the BRITISH RAILWAYS in the style of the companies. 

 

GWR in Egyptian

SR in Sunshine

LMS in LMS Block style and Gill Sans

LNER in Gill Sans

 

Eventually they adopted the Gill Sans style. Which was also short lived being replaced by the Unicycling Lion in 1949.

 

Some details here.

 

https://www.bloodandcustard.org/

 

http://www.gwr.org.uk/liveriesloco1948.html

 

Last GWR locomotive to be turned out in genuine GWR livery? I think it was 7007 Great Western in January 1948. Renamed from Ogmore Castle. I believe it got a full repaint and had G crest W on the tender.

 

But that didn't last long as it soon received BRITISH RAILWAYS lettering. Slight mistake on the caption in that it was the last express locomotive built by the GWR, not the last built at Swindon as they were still building Castles at the time and other locomotives were built such as Westerns and Warships.

 

https://www.warwickshirerailways.com/gwr/gwrls147.htm

 

 

Jason

[4069]

According to the RCTS, 4946 Moseley Hall was the first ex-GW locomotive to be lettered "BRITISH RAILWAYS", on 16 January 1948.

 

Mind you, 6990 Witherslack Hall, built in April 1948, was paired with a tender lettered G (crest) W when it went to the GC section for the locomotive exchanges in June that year

 

https://www.rail-online.co.uk/p937318270/hDADD8D32#hdadd8d28 

 

[Wickham Green too]

According to John Harvey's 'Southern Style' - and talking about Southern locos with 's' prefix + 'BRTISH RAILWAYS' - "The first locomotive to appear in this style was Battle of Britain s21C158 (15/1/48) , repainted at Brighton, and the first at Eastleigh was probably WC s21C106 ( 19/1/48)" .... looks like Ashford didn't get into the act 'til February.

[lanchester]

15 hours ago, Michael Hodgson said:

Wasn't there a contemporary black & white newsreel film of them spray-painting out a GWR crest? 

By strange co-incidence there is a 'colourised' version of what I take to be the pic you are thinking of in today's 'Daily Mail Online'.

 

Which raises a completely different topic - since 'colourising' seems to be all the rage, are we in danger in future years of having our livery researches skewed by bogus colourisations?

[Michael Hodgson]

13 hours ago, BR60103 said:

We were in U.K. for the 50th anniversary of nationalisation (not actually for it) and there was old newsreel footage of the repainting of an LMS 0-6-0. I have a picture of, I think, the same operation in a book (LMS Reflections?) but the loco number is obscured by somebody.

 

Yes, may well have been LMS - I think you are right that the number wasn't shown, it was just the change of ownership.  I think there was a slogan "It's ours now" when the pits and the railways were nationalised by the post war Labour Government.

[DavidR]

Just noticed this topic. There were some weird renumberings in 1948.   

H.C.Cassrley in 'Locomotive Cavalcade 1920-1951', pictures LMS Scot renumbered M46169,  going through Rickmansworth.

Edited June 30, 2021 by DavidR
too many 'pictures'