Why is this so rarely modelled?

[rockershovel]

I always found the blue and grey livery quite attractive, not least because it meant the approaching train wasn’t composed of the detested, life-expired LHCS ... the equally unpopular WAGN cattle-cars were dark blue, almost purple, so that was a later distinction. 

 

The all-blue, with or without the huge “barbed-wire” logo, was downright unsightly. The earlier, lighter blue with white roof applied to the electric locos was rather stylish, but the all-blue.... nope. 

[rockershovel]

Reverting to the OP, I think that most rail enthusiasts (modellers or not) have, to varying extents a sense of the “rightness of things”, and dirty, neglected locos being flogged through their last months of service just don’t meet that. Nor do occasional, random combinations of equally-neglected carriage stock. 

 

It’s not as though they were narrow gauge. NG modellers often seem to have an exaggerated view of filthy, decrepit (often late Victorian) locos running two “mixed goods” a week, at single-figure traffic speeds, along rusted, misaligned p-way and standing grass up to the smokebox darts. This really only applies to a few Welsh lines in the 1930s and 1940s, but thanks particularly to a certain Mr Rolt it seems to have become the general perception.

[Pacific231G]

I agree about the blue and grey. It was an attractive colour scheme and not actually that different from the colours used by CIWL for most of their Pullmans in Europe. All blue was horrible and seemed to be saying to their users that they were an unwanted burden compared with the far more desirable InterCity passengers.

 

It's interesting that logos clearly inspired by the BR double arrow have been used by a number of national railways  especially NS and SBB/CFF, and BR's concept of a corporate identity was picked up by many other national railways as of course was the Inter-City name (Intercité in France and IC in Germany etc).

Before that (and often since) European railways had been very fond of just turning their initials- SNCF, DB. FS etc- into logos by choice of typeface. (though it was very mean of me to decide that SNCB's B in an oval logo stood for boring)

 

I found this quote from Gerry Barney the double arrow logo's designer

 

I was a lettering artist, I wasn't a designer. The designers at DRU were given the brief and, to my knowledge, it didn’t satisfy Milner Gray [the studio's co-founder]. So he threw it open to the rest of the studio, six or seven people. I just happened to think of this symbol. I first sketched the idea on the back of an envelope while taking the Tube to work. When I got to the office I drew it up. It was exactly how I drew it the first time, with straighter lines. I just had to formalise it.

It worked because it was obvious. When you think of railways, you think of parallel lines — up this way, down that way. There was a certain amount of logic I could use to explain the way it looked, then it was a question of stylisation. I'm proud that it has lasted so long, more than anything. And I've never thought, I wish I could do it again because I'd do it better. I actually wouldn't know what to do.

 

Barney's logo has to be seen as a design classic, it has inspired others and has survived the demise of the railway that created it. 

 

Edited November 6, 2020 by Pacific231G

[Pacific231G]

16 minutes ago, rockershovel said:

Reverting to the OP, I think that most rail enthusiasts (modellers or not) have, to varying extents a sense of the “rightness of things”, and dirty, neglected locos being flogged through their last months of service just don’t meet that. Nor do occasional, random combinations of equally-neglected carriage stock. 

 

It’s not as though they were narrow gauge. NG modellers often seem to have an exaggerated view of filthy, decrepit (often late Victorian) locos running two “mixed goods” a week, at single-figure traffic speeds, along rusted, misaligned p-way and standing grass up to the smokebox darts. This really only applies to a few Welsh lines in the 1930s and 1940s, but thanks particularly to a certain Mr Rolt it seems to have become the general perception.

I seem to be agreeing with you  a lot today but you're quite right.

 

From what I've seen in photos, the Irish and Manx three foot railways remained smart and well kept until the end of regular services as did railways like the Lynton and Barnstaple. Those that remained for a while as occasional goods-only lines, perhaps with just a weekly cattle train on market day,  probably did become a bit weedy but, for as long as they were fully manned, they were well kept. What I saw in person, apart from a lot of steam sheds with long scrap lines, were the IofW railways. They were incredibly well kept until the very end and, despite jokey postcards about passengers getting of trains to pick the flowers, ran a pretty intense service in summer getting holidaymakers to their holidays . Apart from the diminutive locos, Ryde Pierhead on a summer Saturday could seem more like a busy outer suburban commuter station than a bucolic branch line.  

 

Tom Rolt was obviously describing the Tallylyn but that had been living on borrowed time with a skeleton staff for years before he and other set up the TRPS.  In the mid 1960s when I was spending a lot of time and pocket money experiencing as much steam as possible while I still could, I was aware of a loss of morale amongst BR staff but railways were then seen as yesterday's technology. Also, and peculiarly in Britain, the end of steam coincided with the end of a great deal of railway activity from branch lines to local goods yards so railways not only got less interesting but seemed to be in terminal decline and most of our nostalgia is for railways before then.

It's interesting that the favourite era for our counterparts in France, and probably elsewhere in Europe, is the period of the 1970s and 80s after almost all steam had gone but before things like pick up goods and many of the remaining local services (though there had been huge culls in 1938-39  and more in the late 1960s) went into gradual decline so there was still plenty going on. Visiting France's classic  network (i.e. non TGV) now can be as gloomy as immediate post Beeching BR with bricked up stations with just a ticket machine if you're lucky,  closed lines littering the countryside and most of the wagonload and local goods turfed off the rails and onto the roads.

[rockershovel]

The Southwold Railway, or at least a local postcard artist, certainly made much use of the joke in the 1930s but photos show a well-kept Line with all new equipment. I don’t suppose it was particularly fast or frequent, it certainly wasn’t profitable but it doesn’t seem to have lived up (down?) to its image. The archetype was probably the WHR, which seems to have gone straight down from the off, and dragged everything associated with it to the same level. 

 

The Ashover and Snailbeach lines seem to have been worked to death and closed when beyond further use, but the writing was on the wall for them, long before. 

 

 

[Andy Kirkham]

In The Weston Clevedon & Portishead Railway - A Pictorial Record, the author Peter Strange (who knew the line) says "Although regarded by many as something of a local joke, the railways was, in fact, efficiently run by an enthusiastic and friendly staff."

[rockershovel]

Yesterdays’ technology or not, the end of Steam meant that a lot of railwaymen saw their hard-earned skills and seniority scrapped. No organisation can go through that without severe loss of morale, accompanied by a general changing of personnel - which was exactly what the then-nationalised system, or its political masters, didn’t intend to do.  

 

Regarding logos, I seem to recall that the CIE “winged roundel” (something between BR, and the LU roundel and bar) was known as the “Flying Snail”. Dutch railways have a sort of double-ended arrow, and a blue and yellow livery. 

 

I quite like Dutch railways. Like a lot of oilfield tramps, my view of Holland is that it is what stops you from catching your chopper offshore at Schiphol, like you do at Aberdeen or Norwich. So, I know the rail links to places like Den Helder and Eemshaven. The trains are cheap and punctual, reasonably clean and offer a surprisingly comprehensive coverage of places like Roodeschool (6km from Eemshaven, don’t catch this one!). There are a couple of things you need to know, though;

1) no journey can be completed without at least one change of train, invariably inconveniently short and usually involving stairs. 

2) in U.K., an InterCity is an express which makes stops every 100 to 150 miles, between major cities. In Holland, Inter City denotes a stopping train which leaves one city and eventually arrives at another one, although probably not the one you are trying to reach. 

Edited November 7, 2020 by rockershovel

[Colin_McLeod]

2 hours ago, rockershovel said:

Regarding logos, I seem to recall that the CIE “winged roundel” (something between BR, and the LU roundel and bar) was known as the “Flying Snail”

 

The flying snail pre dated the BR double arrow having been introduced in the 1950s

[rockershovel]

8 hours ago, Colin_McLeod said:

 

The flying snail pre dated the BR double arrow having been introduced in the 1950s

 

So it does. The iconic London Underground roundel dates from 1919, and its simple but effective design has been widely copied. The “Flying Snail” is an early attempt to actually incorporate a message, like the quaintly obsolete-as-designed BR “lion on a bike” - it points the way to the subsequent “double arrow” designs used in a number of countries but doesn’t quite work. 

[Grizz]

14 hours ago, Pacific231G said:

It's interesting that logos clearly inspired by the BR double arrow have been used by a number of national railways  especially NS and SBB/CFF, and BR's concept of a corporate identity was picked up by many other national railways as of course was the Inter-City name (Intercité in France and IC in Germany etc).

 

 

 

I have always thought that Israel had nearest to the BR double arrow for its railways.

[rockershovel]

1 hour ago, Grizz said:

I have always thought that Israel had nearest to the BR double arrow for its railways.

 

Netherlands 

 

 

Switzerland 

 

 

Ontario 

 

 

Spain

 

 

 

 

 

Edited November 7, 2020 by rockershovel

[Colin_McLeod]

18 hours ago, Pacific231G said:

Before that (and often since) European railways had been very fond of just turning their initials- SNCF, DB. FS etc- into logos by choice of typeface.

 

IMHO the best combination of a railway theme and using initials was Irish Rail's   "points" logo of a few years back.

 

 

[APOLLO]

Even British Rail got it wrong occasionally !! North Midlands shed bash trip 19th April 1969. Allocated to the Sea-Link pool !!

 

 

Brit15

[rockershovel]

1 hour ago, Colin_McLeod said:

 

IMHO the best combination of a railway theme and using initials was Irish Rail's   "points" logo of a few years back.

 

 

 

Belarus 

 

[Pacific231G]

1 hour ago, APOLLO said:

Even British Rail got it wrong occasionally !! North Midlands shed bash trip 19th April 1969. Allocated to the Sea-Link pool !!

 

 

Brit15

Updated after an online search for images of Sealink vessels

ISTR that Sealink originally mirrored the logo so that the arrows passed on the right which is of course the right of way for ships (and opposite to that for British and British inspired railways) so the logo on D8048  might have deliberately stencilled that way been to reflect the allocation. Sealink do though seem to have also adopted the practice of painting it on their funnels so that the upper arrow faced forward which is also sort of how it was on this loco if you regard the cab as being the front end. 

 

Were there any examples of the double arrow being used as an open three dimensional sculptural symbol that would have been seen from both sides? (a bit like the famous rotating Mercedes symbol in Berlin as seen in "Funeral in Berlin")  I'd have thought that in stainless steel that would have been quite effective.  

 

Interesting that the NS design has the arrows passing for left hand running suggesting that the designers were inspired by the BR design but failed to notice that Dutch trains pass to the right. The SBB design seems based on most Swissh railways being single track!

Edited November 7, 2020 by Pacific231G

[rockershovel]

8 minutes ago, Pacific231G said:

ISTR that Sealink mirrored the logo so that the arrows passed on the right which is of course the right of way for ships so that might have deliberately stencilled that way been to reflect the allocation. I also seem to remember that they weren't always consistent about that and sometimes used opposite arrows on each side of the funnel of their ships. 

 

Were there any examples of the double arrow being used as an open three dimensional sculptural symbol that would have been seen from both sides? (a bit like the famous rotating Mercedes symbol in Berlin as seen in "Funeral in Berlin")  I'd have thought that in stainless steel that would have been quite effective.  

 

British thinking doesn’t quite work that way. BR was generally seen as something of an embarrassment, with a (by no means always justified) reputation for union militancy, poor timekeeping and stale cheese sandwiches. 

 

The British, and especially the English aren’t generally, much impressed by cries of triumphalism from their leaders. The nearest equivalent would be the model Concorde on the roundabout at LHR T2, although THAT was something of a lame duck in truth - no one except its instigators ever bought one, after all. 

 

However there were 3D versions of the logo incorporated in various statin facades, which became something of an elephant in the room as privatisation unleashed a cavalcade of instantly forgettable brands and liveries - except Western Region / whatever they are now called, which still uses Brunswick Green, or the recent revival of the LNER name, if not livery on ECML. 

 

The last British design to really capture the imagination was probably the Harrier. 

 

Edited November 7, 2020 by rockershovel

[Pacific231G]

21 minutes ago, rockershovel said:

 

British thinking doesn’t quite work that way. BR was generally seen as something of an embarrassment, with a (by no means always justified) reputation for union militancy, poor timekeeping and stale cheese sandwiches. 

 

The funny thing was that, comparing rail travel in Britain with the rest of Europe, BR's timekeeping was, with embarassing exceptions like the Pines Express when it went via Oxford, comparatively good. The real joke was DB whose longer distance trains invariably departed from their stations of origin on time to the second but could easily be an hour late by the time they reached their destination.

BR's 2nd class carriages were also generally more comfortable. You could get a decent meal in a BR dining car without the second mortgage required for a Voiture Restaurant and, despite the well known French obsession with proper meals, BR's diners lasted until privatisation, far later than SNCF's offerings- possibly because their diners were so outrageously expensive that everyone brought their own food instead (and often shared it)  

 

I've actually encountered far more strike stoppages, often local, in France and Italy*  than ever I have in Britain. 

 

*On one memorable occasion I was leaving Venice for Innsbruck and the train home when I saw that my train wasn't and was told by the information office that there was a 48 hour strike in Verona so my journey was impossible. I then noticed on the map a long straggling single track branch line running through the hills from Venice to Trento that avoided Verona and asked about that. "Oh yes", they said, "you could go that way" so much for FS information! It was a far more scenic journey on a DMU full of rural locals and ,though I had to spend a night in Trento followed by a replacement bus to the Austrian border, I was still a day up on the deal.   

[Three Cocks Junction]

On 24/02/2012 at 14:12, jonny777 said:

I agree with this, and on certain platform ends there was outright hostility to anyone who noted down diesel numbers, let alone photographed them. It was a very depressing time for steam enthusiasts, thousands of whom gave up trainspotting in August 1968 and concentrated on the eras when steam was thriving.

 

Looks like "No Platform For Diesels!"

[Johann Marsbar]

8 hours ago, rockershovel said:

 

- it points the way to the subsequent “double arrow” designs used in a number of countries but doesn’t quite work. 

 

Anyone for a Buenos Aires local bus operation......???

 

 

 

Edited November 7, 2020 by Johann Marsbar

[rockershovel]

1 hour ago, Pacific231G said:

The funny thing was that, comparing rail travel in Britain with the rest of Europe, BR's timekeeping was, with embarassing exceptions like the Pines Express when it went via Oxford, comparatively good. The real joke was DB whose longer distance trains invariably departed from their stations of origin on time to the second but could easily be an hour late by the time they reached their destination.

BR's 2nd class carriages were also generally more comfortable. You could get a decent meal in a BR dining car without the second mortgage required for a Voiture Restaurant and, despite the well known French obsession with proper meals, BR's diners lasted until privatisation, far later than SNCF's offerings- possibly because their diners were so outrageously expensive that everyone brought their own food instead (and often shared it)  

 

I've actually encountered far more strike stoppages, often local, in France and Italy*  than ever I have in Britain. 

 

*On one memorable occasion I was leaving Venice for Innsbruck and the train home when I saw that my train wasn't and was told by the information office that there was a 48 hour strike in Verona so my journey was impossible. I then noticed on the map a long straggling single track branch line running through the hills from Venice to Trento that avoided Verona and asked about that. "Oh yes", they said, "you could go that way" so much for FS information! It was a far more scenic journey on a DMU full of rural locals and ,though I had to spend a night in Trento followed by a replacement bus to the Austrian border, I was still a day up on the deal.   

 

I grew up travelling by train, until I could afford my own transport, and had various interludes of commuting into London and using the sleepers to Aberdeen. I never found timekeeping to be a serious problem, probably because traffic density was so high, distances mostly short and passenger loading so overcrowded that there wasn’t the capacity to accommodate significant delays.

 

The last days of LHCS on the London commuter lines were pretty dire, with breakdowns common. 

 

My recent experience  has been that privatised services can be pretty shocking. Cross Country were a disgrace, over the winter of 2918/19. Once things start to go wrong among the secondary services East of the ECML, they can quickly go very wrong indeed. 

 

Travelling on BR, where 100 miles was a long journey and all journeys were under the aegis of a single company, on a unified network, was usually a fairly simple affair. 

 

 

My main experience of SNCF was in the late 1970s and early 1980s, working on land rigs in North Africa. The job basically involved making the round trip travelling OUT in early March, a short break (usually in Malta or Greece) midway and back in late Oct. This involved travelling by train and changing in Paris, after divers misadventures and cultural misunderstandings it was felt that it would be much better all round, to charter a (Road) coach for us instead. 

 

I always found France to be expensive, and was much relieved to spared the notional responsibility of being the only member of the party who spoke French. 

Edited November 7, 2020 by rockershovel

[unravelled]

3d versions of the double arrow have been used at the rebuilt London Bridge station.

 

Dave

 

 

 

 

[unravelled]

But to get back to the topic, here is a grimy 9F hauling passenger stock. Ok it's possibly ecs, but suits the topic.

 

In my current collecting scheme, I decided not to buy any blue or blue/grey,  stock simply as a convenient cutoff point,

 

Dave

[Pandora]

On 13/01/2013 at 21:56, APOLLO said:

A photograph is better than a thousand words. Again a little out of era, 19 April 1969. Who dares model this ?

 

 

It gets more interesting by the day, - Don't know what I'll find next !!!!

 

Brit15

 

 

 

 

 

 

The date is April 1969  From Wikipedia,  during 1966, D8048 was painted in Rail Blue as an experiment,  do we have any photographs,  of D8048 in 1966 to 1968  after the 1966 repaint?

Edited March 4, 2021 by Pandora

[Halvarras]

On 04/03/2021 at 16:18, Pandora said:

The date is April 1969  From Wikipedia,  during 1966, D8048 was painted in Rail Blue as an experiment,  do we have any photographs,  of D8048 in 1966 to 1968  after the 1966 repaint?

 

David Percival photo of it ex-works blue in the 1969 Ian Allan combo with back-to-front logo, for one.

 

I believe D8049 was repainted around the same time as D8048, but with the BR logo the right way round when viewed this side. Frustratingly I cannot find any photos of either of these two showing their opposite sides, as I have often wondered whether they were repainted as a pair, and so when coupled nose-to-nose displayed the same kind of arrow confusion as the cab doors on the first Class 24 repaint, D5068! (Which reminds me, I must get my model of that one finished......just needs bits attaching and a spray of varnish. I must say that deliberately applying waterslide transfers upside down was a first for me!)

[rodent279]

D8048 is still with us in preservation. I don't think the owners have yet tried that livery, it would be good to see it like this.