GWR crane livery

[Silver Sidelines]

I wonder if it is BR choc and cream?

That was my first thought - fits in with the way I remember things.

 

Ray

[Mikkel]

I just had a look at the "Station Colours" website. I personally find some of the statements a bit too categorical (white windows throughout is the best example) and there is a clear bias towards the post WW1 period (except for signal boxes, the scanned documents at the bottom of the page are fascinating!). But it also has some interesting observations:

 

"The list of official GWR paints for buildings was: 1.Stone colour  2.Stone colour  3.Stone colour  4.Chocolate brown.  5.Bridge green  6.Steel grey  7.Signal red."

 

I wonder if "steel grey" was also used on cranes? Unfortunately we are not told if this colour scheme was restricted to a certain period. 

 

Then there's this:

 

"In 1931 the next change was made to the livery when a maroon was introduced for guttering, downpipes and hardwearing areas like steps on footbridges. Everything else remained as it had always been; I do wonder if they had a lot of 'Coach Lake' left at Swindon works, and had to find some use for it!" 

 

Could that maroon be the colour on the crane in Ray's photo? Not sure, looks very freshly painted to me.

[Mikkel]

Edwardian Enterprise page 166? Though I have a vague memory of another print of this photo where the support column on the left is more visible.

 

Nick

Ah yes, that's the other photo. The one I was looking at just now is in GW Goods Sheds Vol 2b (p23).

 

Lots of inspiration for goods items to model in both photos! 

[Silver Sidelines]

I just had a look at the "Station Colours" website.

 

Could that maroon be the colour on the crane in Ray's photo? Not sure, looks very freshly painted to me.

Hello Mikkel

 

BR(W) era - so why not chocolate?

 

Regards

 

Ray

[Mikkel]

Only because I thought the base of the columns might be chocolate, and the crane looks darker by comparison? But the column colour may just be more worn of course.

 

I don't know BR era liveries very well I'm afraid. 

[buffalo]

It's only a gut reaction, but I don't see maroon as a crane colour.

 

Looking at Adrian Vaughan's 1974 Newbury photos, the light coloured paint is very worn and much has flaked off. I wouldn't be surprised if it hadn't been painted for twenty or thirty years at least. It could still be cream, given that the choc/cream building style started post-war but only got going in BR days. On balance, though, I think it is more likely to be white, even though the timbers look slightly darker than the brick walls, which I'm fairly sure are whitewashed here as in the early photo. Most of the apparent colour of the timbers is from whatever is underneath the flaked paint. Where there are patches of paint remaining they appear to be the same as on the boarded end wall, and that is hardly any darker than the whitewashed brickwork.

 

Where the paint has flaked off the timbers, it's difficult to tell what the slightly darker layer underneath is, maybe an undercoat, maybe  light stone, or just plain exposed wood. The darker paint at the bottom of the columns is also very worn, faded and heavily abraded. It could still be dark stone, but heavily faded choclolate is also possible.

 

The crane is very dark and may well have been painted quite recently as the colour is quite uniform. Both the wood and steel parts have been painted the same colour. It could be chocolate as Ray suggests but, again, that seems to me a strange colour for a crane. If not dark grey, how about black?

 

Nick