Castle Aching

[Nearholmer]

However you paint a MR, it still looks utilitarian!

[RedGemAlchemist]

However you paint a MR, it still looks utilitarian!

Agreed. All work no flair.

[Edwardian]

May I suggest a new theme song https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EsCyC1dZiN8

 

It may well do equally for this thread or the new emergent Enda Sand party something I thought of back when this was first released.

 

Don

 

I tend to think in terms of https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lc7dmu4G8oc

 

 

Definitely pre-grouping, as the Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway had one in 1920, as per this view

ly-no-1-14-5-1920-in-full-livery.jpg

The photo comes from the Chasewater Railway, where I believe it survives.

 

I love the application of lining to such a modern and utilitarian object.

 

This dieselisation of Castle Aching has forced me to consult the nether regions of my RCTS GW loco volumes, Part 11. 

 

It turns out that the GWR had 5 of these wee beasties, acquired new between 1923 and 1926.  The first, No.15, was entirely opened sided, like the L&Y example.  The others  have doors and partly sheeted sides. 

 

They are said to be petrol and described as shunting locomotives, and were sent to Stafford Road, Bridgewater shed, Taunton Engineer's Dept, Didcot Provender Stores and Reading Signal Works.

 

The RCTS volume was published in the '50s, so the descriptions of these vehicles is in the present tense.  A scale drawing is included!

[Regularity]

The Bauhaus loco of the railway world?

[Donw]

This relates to a particular brief moment in the long and baffling history of the 517 Class.

 

Frankly, I cannot keep a grip on the subject and have had to produce my own aide memoire in an attempt to do so!

 

During the period 1895-1905 a number of class members repaired or rebuilt at Wolverhampton were given extended smoke boxes with wing plates.

 

These were subsequently removed, presumably on the next re-boilering, if not before, save in the case of 567, which was sold to the Bishop's Castle railway in 1905, and hence remained unmodified in that regard.

 

No.555 makes an interesting study. The picture is reproduced in Russell and dated to 1902 (RCTS has a profile view in the same condition).  She is ex-works at Wolverhampton, having been fitted an R2/3u boiler (don't ask!) with the extended smoke box in April 1902.  555 did not receive another boiler until she was fitted with a belpaire type in 1921.  When, I wonder, were the wing plates removed?  Might they have lasted until 1921 in this case?

 

555 was built as a saddle tank in 1868, with a short wheel-base of 13’7” (7’4” + 6’3”) and with inside bearings to the trailing wheels.  Wolverhampton rebuilt her as a side tank in August 1886, at the same time extending the wheel-base to 15’ (7’4” + 7’8”), which conformed to the wheel-base of class members built 1873-1885. The bunker shown is a type fitted by Wolverhampton in the 1880s (as opposed to the tall straight-back contemporary Swindon bunkers), and has acquired rails. According to RCTS, when rebuilt again in April 1902, she received the 15'6" wheel-base and outside bearings to the trailing wheels.

 

It is interesting to see the livery that Wolverhampton was applying at the time (1902).

 

On rebuilding to side tanks, in 1886 in the case of 555, I would have expected the blue-green Wolverhampton Green to have been applied and for the side tanks to have been lined out in two panels; Swindon lined the 517 side tanks with a single panel.  The Wolverhampton lining in the 1880s was black edged white.  The picture of the model below represents this style (quite why it has wing plates, as it does not feature an extended smoke box .... !).

 

Wolverhampton's independent livery is said to have been abandoned in 1894.  Thus, 555 should be in Swindon's "mid-chrome green" of 1894, with the frames and the prominent splasher in Indian Red.  The lining should be in the familiar black edged chrome orange and follows the Swindon practice of a single panel on the tank side.  However, as has been pointed out, the lining features in-curves to the corners (I love in-curves on lining), which is not standard.  Also non-standard is the border, also with an incurve.  Neither Swindon nor the abandoned Wolverhampton livery seems to have featured incurves, so this is a fascinating example.

 

The colour of 835 looks rather too blue to me. Not that I have seen any real ones in Wolverhampton livery. I have seen it described as Holly green and the models I have seen in that livery have been done by people noted for getting things right. It could be the photographic reproduction or my memory of course.

 

Don

[Compound2632]

I think you can discount Wolverhampton livery here.  These are Dean/Swindon locomotives.  Only a very few from the first Lot were reboilered before the Wolverhampton livery was discontinued, and in any case I assume this was done at Swindon; I have come across no reference to a Dean Goods ever wearing Wolverhampton livery.

 

2399 went from an S2 to an S4 boiler in 1899 and did not acquire a B4 (belpaire) until 1910.  Around 1904 (IIRC) the livery was simplified and green splashers were adopted.  She would have presumably still have been in the full 1894 livery, including Indian Red splashers, in your chosen period of representation.

 

EDIT: You mentioned 2390 as your chosen identity. This was also built with an S2, though in her case she retained it until an S4 was fitted in November 1903.  IIRC, you are depicting a S2 engine, so that's fine and what I say regarding livery for 2399 shouldalso apply to your example.

 

As for saddle tanks, I suppose the question is whether any of the Wolverhampton-built classes would have retained Wolverhampton livery for long enough.  I doubt it, given that the livery was apparently abandoned in 1894, so that would result in a minimum of 9 years without a repaint. That's a long time for a locomotive in those days. Repaints were more like every 3 years. For instance, IIRC, on the Brighton there were only one or two exceptional survivors in IEG by 1914, a livery discontinued in 1905, so you are on the outer fringes of the possible here. 

 

The 2021 class date from after 1894, so you would need to go back to numerous 850 class.  Early ones, built in the 1870s, included a handful re-boilered before 1894, so could have been re-painted right at the end of the Wolverhampton livery, as up to 1894 Wolverhampton boilers were used and most of the work on the class was done there. The later ones were built up to 1895, so an example from, say, 1893 would, presumably, be one of the last to be out-shopped in the Wolverhampton scheme.  I just doubt that it would not have been repainted in the intervening 9-10 years.

 

Many thanks for that - confirming my assumptions. Look for progress at half term!

[Hroth]

I tend to think in terms of https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lc7dmu4G8oc

 

 

 

Though referring to a time a couple of years earlier than the milieu of CA

 

 

would get you in the right frame of mind too!

[Edwardian]

The colour of 835 looks rather too blue to me. Not that I have seen any real ones in Wolverhampton livery. I have seen it described as Holly green and the models I have seen in that livery have been done by people noted for getting things right. It could be the photographic reproduction or my memory of course.

 

Don

 

I would say that "holly green" describes a dark green rather than a blue-green.

 

"Holly Green" is how early Swindon green is described based upon a model of Iron Duke believed to date from 1846, according to RCTS vol. 1.  Armstrong livery, c.1866-1881, was a dark green that RCTS thinks is likely to have been the same holly-green.  A painting of a Metro tank in this livery is the frontispiece to RCTS vol.6.

 

Swindon green seems to have become yellower from 1881 and the familiar middle chrome green was adopted in 1894.

 

Wolverhampton green, on the other hand, seems to have been described as a blue green.  RCTS say that c.1866 Wolverhampton may have retained the Old Worse and Worse "deep blue-green", and by c.1880 the overall scheme was still "blue-green".  The HMRS Livery Register describes the West Midland Railway as painted in "a decidedly blue shade of green", again suggesting that a dark green similar to this was retained in 1866. 

 

Below is a picture taken by me at Swindon in 2014.  Beside it it is interesting to include a picture of No.517 in as-built condition with saddle tanks and the original short wheel-base. This picture has been coloured by Mike Oxon of this parish based on a discussion of Wolverhampton green here: http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/92818-gwr-wolverhampton-livery/

 

BTW "holly green" is also used to describe the dark green applied to LSW good locomotives under, I think, both Adams and Drummond.

Edited October 6, 2018 by Edwardian

[Nearholmer]

There’s the usual tall story about Stroudley being asked exactly what colour he had in mind for goods engines, and that he picked a holly leaf and said ‘this colour’. Tall as it probably is, it’s plausible that the colour he chose was so like a holly leaf that said leaf could provide a reference.

[Nick Holliday]

 

 

 

You might struggle to find a motor bogie with a 16mm wheel-base.  Spoked wheels only a tad larger than correct (10.5mm) can be found, but the w/bs are longer.

If you want an even greater challenge, motor bogie wise, these Fox Walker steam trams, courtesy of the excellent Industrial Railway Society web site's back numbers, are 0-4-2's with a 3' 6" wheelbase (14 mm) with 1' 9" trailing wheels.

Their histories aren't exactly clear, although they seem to have been destined for use in Paris, and are standard gauge.

[Compound2632]

There’s the usual tall story about Stroudley being asked exactly what colour he had in mind for goods engines, and that he picked a holly leaf and said ‘this colour’. Tall as it probably is, it’s plausible that the colour he chose was so like a holly leaf that said leaf could provide a reference.

 

My guess is that there was some slightly more expensive ingredient in IEG (chrome yellow?) that when left out gave the "holly green". 

[Nick Holliday]

There’s the usual tall story about Stroudley being asked exactly what colour he had in mind for goods engines, and that he picked a holly leaf and said ‘this colour’. Tall as it probably is, it’s plausible that the colour he chose was so like a holly leaf that said leaf could provide a reference.

 

The story that I had heard regarding Stroudley was of him picking bracken leaves, a dried, yellow, one for the Improved Engine Green, and a fresh dark green frond for goods green. Although there are odd references to holly green for LBSC liveries, I am inclined to discount them, since the colour is fairly well defined, thanks to nature, and the fact that LSWR green was generally described as holly, yet no-one had the temerity to say that the LBSC Goods (Olive) Green was the same shade as the LSWR livery.

[Nearholmer]

Modifying my earlier:

 

Tall as it probably is, it’s plausible that the colour he chose was so like a bracken leaf that said leaf could provide a reference.

 

Bracken is a much better story than holly, because it’s colour is so variable and inconstant, across such a very wide range, that it can mean almost all colours to all men!

[St Enodoc]

The story that I had heard regarding Stroudley was of him picking bracken leaves, a dried, yellow, one for the Improved Engine Green, and a fresh dark green frond for goods green. Although there are odd references to holly green for LBSC liveries, I am inclined to discount them, since the colour is fairly well defined, thanks to nature, and the fact that LSWR green was generally described as holly, yet no-one had the temerity to say that the LBSC Goods (Olive) Green was the same shade as the LSWR livery.

Did someone mention holly?

 

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7e/Audrey_Hepburn_Tiffany%27s.jpg

[Donw]

I would say that "holly green" describes a dark green rather than a blue-green.

 

"Holly Green" is how early Swindon green is described based upon a model of Iron Duke believed to date from 1846, according to RCTS vol. 1.  Armstrong livery, c.1866-1881, was a dark green that RCTS thinks is likely to have been the same holly-green.  A painting of a Metro tank in this livery is the frontispiece to RCTS vol.6.

 

Swindon green seems to have become yellower from 1881 and the familiar middle chrome green was adopted in 1894.

 

Wolverhampton green, on the other hand, seems to have been described as a blue green.  RCTS say that c.1866 Wolverhampton may have retained the Old Worse and Worse "deep blue-green", and by c.1880 the overall scheme was still "blue-green".  The HMRS Livery Register describes the West Midland Railway as painted in "a decidedly blue shade of green", again suggesting that a dark green similar to this was retained in 1866. 

 

Below is a picture taken by me at Swindon in 2014.  Beside it it is interesting to include a picture of No.517 in as-built condition with saddle tanks and the original short wheel-base. This picture has been coloured by Mike Oxon of this parish based on a discussion of Wolverhampton green here: http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/92818-gwr-wolverhampton-livery/

 

BTW "holly green" is also used to describe the dark green applied to LSW good locomotives under, I think, both Adams and Drummond.

 

Hollies are of course so variable as to be unreliable from quite yellowish to dark green with a blue tinge. However the models I have seen were a darker blue-green and more towards the green.  Colour though is very subjective I remember sitting with Ken Payne discussing the colour of two Great Western locos one painted by Alan Brackenborough the other by Guy Williams, both of us thought the colour Alan used was more correct than that used by Guy. The difference was quite notable. To me the colour used by Guy did not match the GW locos I used to regularly see. At the end of the day it is the colour that looks right to you that is best.

 

Don 

[Talltim]

Speaking of sheds on wheels, which we were, probably, a few pages/couple of hours ago, I just came across this

From Railroad Magazine April 1938

[Andy Kirkham]

 

 

Below is a picture taken by me at Swindon in 2014.  Beside it it is interesting to include a picture of No.517 in as-built condition with saddle tanks and the original short wheel-base. This picture has been coloured by Mike Oxon of this parish based on a discussion of Wolverhampton green here: http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/92818-gwr-wolverhampton-livery/

 

 

You don't happen to know who built that loco do you? I saw one very much like that last week when I visited the layout in Rev. Brian Arman's house and I wonder if it is the same one.

Edited October 6, 2018 by Andy Kirkham

[Edwardian]

Hollies are of course so variable as to be unreliable from quite yellowish to dark green with a blue tinge. However the models I have seen were a darker blue-green and more towards the green.  Colour though is very subjective I remember sitting with Ken Payne discussing the colour of two Great Western locos one painted by Alan Brackenborough the other by Guy Williams, both of us thought the colour Alan used was more correct than that used by Guy. The difference was quite notable. To me the colour used by Guy did not match the GW locos I used to regularly see. At the end of the day it is the colour that looks right to you that is best.

 

Don 

 

Other than maintaining that holly green probably represents something distinct from Wolverhampton blue-green, I'd tend to agree. 

 

If it were me, and in the absence of better information, I'd probably plump for something very slightly less blue and just a little darker than the appearance of that model, but I think that it's likely to be fairly close.  Did you look at Mike Oxon's topic?  I actually though the first sample he posted was the most convincing.  I might make it a shade darker, and I think that is what Buffalo is saying in the post below. 

 

The problem is, of course, that in order to tie this in, I either feature a 517 on Castle Aching, which is a geographical impossibility, or one of the denizens of the district will have to be called Holly Green. 

 

 

Speaking of sheds on wheels, which we were, probably, a few pages/couple of hours ago, I just came across this0878C97D-D861-46FA-9251-1689A1E05AAE.jpeg

From Railroad Magazine April 1938

 

Hmm, looks like a shed on twin bolster wagons to me?

 

Someone moving a chicken farm around west Norfolk?

 

 

You don't happen to know who built that loco do you? I saw one very much like that last week when I visited the layout in Rev. Brian Arman's house and I wonder if it is the same one.

 

 

No, save that it was a very nice gentleman at an exhibition at STEAM in Swindon in 2014.  I asked if I could take photographs and he kindly insisted upon lifting the glass cover off his trio of 517s.

 

Heaven, so far as I was concerned.

[Talltim]

I never knew they were painted in chocolate and cream.

There’s nothing new under the sun

http://railcolornews.com/2017/10/31/gb-pullman-livery-for-db-cargo-uk-class-67s/

[Edwardian]

I never knew they were painted in chocolate and cream.

There’s nothing new under the sun

http://railcolornews.com/2017/10/31/gb-pullman-livery-for-db-cargo-uk-class-67s/

 

I assume the thought process was some desire to maintain the illusion of a single unit when the GWR went from steam railcars to autotrains by matching the coach livery. The ultimate expression of this desire was the faux coach body built around at a 517 and a Pannier.

 

The often distressingly dour Churchward at one stage managed to get GW coaches painted all-over brown, which might explain 572, or it might be that 572 and 1160 were variants on a scheme to go with chocolate and cream coaches.

 

I believe that later 517s were also painted in Lake to match the 1912 coach livery.

[Northroader]

I did a model in Wolverhampton livery a while back, trying to match the painting in the frontispiece of the RCTS book. Looking at my paintshop notebook, (where I jot down notes of what I use in case I want another one later) I did a mix of Humbrol paints, first tried 2 Emerald Green with 14 medium blue, but decided the tone was too light, and did 2 mixed with 15 Midnight Blue. Another job was an old broadgauge loco, in holly green. Now most folks say you get green by mixing blue and yellow, but you can also get a good dark green mixing some yellow into black. The brown frames for the loco are a mix of Phoenix late BR bauxite to Humbrol 70 red brown, 2:1 proportions (dunno if you’re supposed to mix Phoenix and Humbrol, maybe different chemistry set, but it worked)

[Compound2632]

I believe that later 517s were also painted in Lake to match the 1912 coach livery.

 

Getting so close, so close...

[ChrisN]

I could probably sneak a 517 onto my layout bringing the last train of the day down from Dolgelley.  I have a GWR Society(?) mag(s) that have all the 517 variations in.  If anyone is interested I will go and find them and tell you which ones. However, I think it is more likely that it ought to be an 850 saddle tank, but either way as it is 1895 I could probably do it in Wolverhampton green.  So all very relevant.

[Hroth]

...

I believe that later 517s were also painted in Lake to match the 1912 coach livery.

Would that be the Lady of the Lake?

 

"The Kelpie" Herbert James Draper (1863-1920)

 

There are ferns, ok, trees.  Its ART!!!

[runs as required]

I assume the thought process was some desire to maintain the illusion of a single unit when the GWR went from steam railcars to autotrains by matching the coach livery. The ultimate expression of this desire was the faux coach body built around at a 517 and a Pannier.

The often distressingly dour Churchward at one stage managed to get GW coaches painted all-over brown, which might explain 572, or it might be that 572 and 1160 were variants on a scheme to go with chocolate and cream coaches.

I believe that later 517s were also painted in Lake to match the 1912 coach livery.

That I think is the very first thing that attracted me to Churchward. His dour single mindedness.

Someone who did not give a damn about anything except the objective he was set upon.

I could not have resisted playing to the gallery for cheap laughs along the way ... and that is what has got me where I am today!.

  dh