Great Western locomotive weathering.

[Blackthorn]

Apologies if this has been asked before. How weathered would Great Western passenger locomotives have been in service?  I imagine branchline locomotives quite not so much, but those on more suburban routes.  I'm sure the GWR had an appearance to keep up. I have up some locomotives I would like to improve and get rid of the out of the box trainset look. 

 

Thanks.

 

Mark.

[Michael Hodgson]

Oooh!   You just identified a new niche for marketing weathering materials such as

GWR Muddy Chocolate,

GWR Mouldy Cream,  

Swindon Grime

Tarnished brass

Unpolished copper ...

[rab]

1 minute ago, Michael Hodgson said:

Oooh!   You just identified a new niche for marketing weathering materials such as

GWR Muddy Chocolate,

GWR Mouldy Cream,  

Swindon Grime

Tarnished brass

Unpolished copper ...

None of which would be prototypical of course.

[sandra]

If your referring to the before the First World War then photographic evidence seems to show that all locomotives were kept very clean, even spotless.

 

However it changed after WW1 as labour became more expensive and hours worked were shorter. Photographs seem to show that express locomotives and passenger locos generally were generally kept pretty clean but standards had fallen for lessor engines such as freight locos or shunters and these could be quite dirty. However overall locos were kept cleaner than in BR steam days and never reached the terrible state some locos reached towards the end of BR steam.

 

Of course everything changed during the war when everything was painted black and very little if any cleaning was done.

 

In BR steam days at Chester I remember that the passenger locos were kept reasonably clean but the few freights I saw were hauled by absolutely filthy 28XX 2-8-0s.

I know this is irrelevant but this is the state some locos got into at he end of BR steam. This is a photo of a 57XX pannier tank I took at Croes Newydd in 1965. The GWR would never have let an engine get into this condition before WW2.

[Blackthorn]

Thanks for all the information.  I think I'll try my hand at some sympathetic weathering...

[Hal Nail]

On 12/07/2021 at 02:24, Blackthorn said:

Thanks for all the information.  I think I'll try my hand at some sympathetic weathering...

Plenty of photos online with GWR era covered. Try websites like rail online and the transport library.