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SECR O1 in Austerity Grey


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I'm working on a pair of O1s which will be painted in SECR grey, the date being around 1920. Is there any record of what SECR grey was? Was the locomotive grey the same as the wagon grey?
 
There seems to be a lot of variation in descriptions of this colour, anything from battleship grey to dark lead grey, almost black. I suspect it actually did vary quite a bit, probably mixed in a bucket to a vague recipe but I wonder if anything goes?
 
Here are the O1s as they are so far, in Halfords plastic primer grey, which looks quite nice:
 

L1030956

 

L1030954

 

 

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Hello Simon

Bradley desrcibes the wartime livery as 'zinc based slate grey' and many people regard him as the foremost authority.

What kits are you building and to what gauge?

I have built a Jidenco kit in EM gauge and painted and lined it in South eastern Railway livery of 1880.

I also have anothe one waiting to be built. Makes up into a nice locomotive as long as you use the Jidenco kit as an aid to scratch building!!!

Michael dJS

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They are the 4mm Golden Arrow resin kits. Fairly easy to do, but this is my first go at building locomotives.

 

L1030889

L1030927

L1030928

 
The idea is that they are specific engines:
 
SECR No.377
Built as O-Class - Sep 1891 by Sharp, Stewart & Co.
Converted to O1-Class - Mar 1906
Withdrawn 1950
 
variant details:
- sandboxes under footplate
- slightly raised chimney rim
 
SECR No.258
Built as O-Class - May 1894 at Ashford
Converted to O1-Class - May 1914
Withdrawn 1961
 
variant details:
- sandboxes above footplate (inherited from O-Class?)
- column on tender side (possibly a late addition, No.65 has this?)
- wooden boards behind tender toolbox
 
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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 2 weeks later...

Almost there. I used Humbrol Dark Sea Grey overall and for the black parts I used my usual Humbrol Tank Grey, adjusted here and there with actual matt black.

 

post-22510-0-75119100-1411656232_thumb.jpg
 
post-22510-0-73944800-1411656260_thumb.jpg
 
I've learnt a lot building these, I spent a lot of time making mistakes and redoing things. I know resin kits can be criticised but if all you have ever built are plastic kits then the jump to soldering brass is quite a big one. Resin kits provide a useful bridge, I never would have attempted a locomotive otherwise.
 
I ended up scratch building some parts like the tender springs, safety valves and the steam reversers, other parts were ready made like the buffers, hoses and clack valves. Not sure how I'm going to add the SE&CR plate to the cab sides.
 
When these are done I'm going to be building a lot of wagons. The wagons I have are all predicated on the idea that it's about 1938!
 
Simon
 
ps. I'm learning how to add photos properly, sorry the last ones were so poor.
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  • 3 weeks later...

Mostly I like to use HMRS methfix for transfers but they don't do SECR numerals in the right size, so I used waterside; Fox transfers sheet FRH4474.

 

transfers: http://fox-transfers.co.uk/transfers/secr-locos-1915-1923

 

These are accurate and go down well with a bit of decal fix.

 

If you are going to build the O1, I learnt a few things along the way:

 

The cabs on the casting are a little high, the clue is that in the prototype the distance from the top of the windows to the cab roof is approximately the same as the distance from the side of the windows to the cab sides, I filed down the cab tops by about 1mm to fix this and it looks much more like the photos. It's an important dimension, like the eyes on someone's face we can read very small displacements in their symmetry.

 

I also made new cab roofs out of styrene sheet, much more to scale, finer looking, and very easy to make.

 

The instructions say to use 14mm wheels under the tender - this is almost certainly wrong. I have seen photos of these models with the tender riding a bit low - the top of the footplate on the loco should be at the same level as the tender, the answer is to use 16mm wheels. You might want to google 'Romford JR8' to find suitable wheels.

 

The steps under the cab are too far forward, I noticed this too late and have it wrong but it would be easy to fix if you are starting from scratch, just file back the beam across the back of the cab and mount the steps further back.

 

I wasn't very happy with the tender springs as provided, resin has its limitations and perhaps is not so good at fine detail like this. I made the springs using some whitemetal castings and bent some staples to form the supporting yokes. A very fiddly job but worth it for something so prominent.

 

I added many of the missing rivets using a sheet of basic Archers rivets (sheet AR88001) and once painted they look good but a bit small to represent the huge Victorian fixings on an O1. If starting again I would use bigger ones, perhaps from sheet AR88009.

 

O1s had tapered buffers! Easy to find, even if it says GWR on the packet.

 

I took lots of photos along the way, I can dig out any that might be useful.

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Many thanks Simon. Somehow I missed those Fox transfers, I'm sure I searched their site for some. They should look better than my cut-out versions, as used on my repainted C.

I started my 01 some time ago, but didn't finish it. I should still be able to use your information to produce a better model. It was going to be SR or BR black, but I seem to be going all SECR grey now.

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  • 11 months later...

I'm about to attempt paint a WW1 era SECR O loco.  Dark grey I can handle but are there any photos (or a book) showing what lettering appeared on these locos at that time. Is the lettering on the models in this thread WW1 vintage or later?

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Hi, I just came across your thread. I hadn't been aware of the SECR livery before, and I'm interested because about 1916 the Great Southern and Western Railway (Ireland) started to use all over grey in a similar way, with red buffer beams. This was perpetuated by the Great Southern Railways and then CIE until the end of steam in 1963. (CIE painted large yellow numbers on the tender, like the white SECR ones, whereas the GSWR and GSR used numberplates.) The Railway Preservation Society of Ireland have preserved No. 186 in the grey livery, and there are a fair number of colour photos of the last days of steam on CIE which show the grey livery in use. They might be of interest to you if you're using the livery again, though it seems to have been a bit darker than your interpretation of the SECR livery. The SECR may well have used a different shade from the GSWR, but because Maunsell was the CME of the GSWR before he moved to the SECR in 1913, and because his influence seems to have shown up as late as 1939 in the design of the GSR 800 class, there's a fair chance that there was at least some communication between Inchicore and Ashford on the subject.

 

Best wishes,

Alan

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  • 1 month later...

It's a long time since I've visited this thread. I've been working on another model to join the O1s. It's an old Wills kit for a Wainwright D Class which I obtained half built. It's got a strange homemade brass chassis that works well enough. I've put a Mashima 1426 motor in it with a High Level Road Runner+ gear box. So far it's coming along well but there is still a long way to go, I have yet to work out the pick ups for example.

 

I love British 4-4-0s and I do think it's a very good looking locomotive, every bit as fine as the LSWR T9 for example. Not surprisingly, there is a strong family resemblance to the O1, like a big sister;

 

post-22510-0-46590100-1448475901_thumb.jpg

 

post-22510-0-59715900-1448475904_thumb.jpg

 

 

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Hi, I just came across your thread. I hadn't been aware of the SECR livery before, and I'm interested because about 1916 the Great Southern and Western Railway (Ireland) started to use all over grey in a similar way, with red buffer beams. […]

 

Alan

 

 I looked up the GSWR livery and I think you may well be right. My interpretation would be at the light end of what's plausible.

 

Simon

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