LNWR van livery

[Quarryscapes]

I'm sure the answer has been posted before but I can't find it now that I need it! LNWR outside framed vans - would they have black framing a la Cambrian vans? Also roof colour - did it start off white?

[Edwardian]

I'm sure the answer has been posted before but I can't find it now that I need it! LNWR outside framed vans - would they have black framing a la Cambrian vans? Also roof colour - did it start off white?

 

Earlestown works photos of 1885 suggest not.  O/S framed 'Willesden'-labelled goods brake (still with pre-1908 diamonds) photographed in 1913 with dark framing and described as "the two shades of grey" livery.  

 

Penlan will surely know.

[Poggy1165]

I am pretty sure I have seen photos where the framing is darker - but they tend to be earlier ones. But I cannot, from a brief glance, find any source for this, so best wait for a LNW expert.

 

LNWR Wagons states that ordinary goods vans (those not for special traffic) had grey roofs from 1908 onwards. Which is b_ annoying, as it means repainting my d33, the white roof of which I rather like.

[Quarryscapes]

This picture certainly appears to have black framing like a Cambrian van. It's a D32 I'm doing (from Bill Bedford's kit) and it will be in diamonds only livery. 

 

 

Seen above with some other wagons in the paint shop, a D1 and a Cambrian lime wagon that's seen better days. 

 

 

[Edwardian]

Best I could do with my limited LNWR knowledge and resources.

 

The brake van with the dark framing was apparently photographed in 1913.  Assuming the LNWR adopted company initials lettering for brake vans in 1908, it would seem to be a livery earlier than that, and is captioned as showing "the two shades of grey" livery.  It might be that your photograph also shows two shades of grey, rather than black and grey.

 

The monochrome vehicles are pictured in 1885 at the works, so, presumably wear the then current livery.  If I had to form a conclusion on just these pictures, they point to a darker grey framing introduced at some stage between 1885 and 1908, but I would bet good money that the situation is by no means so simple as that! 

[Caley Jim]

....... Also roof colour - did it start off white?

Any roofs which started off white would not remain like that for very long.  The white used was white lead which very quickly formed oxides and sulphides turning it grey, not to mention the layer of soot they would acquire.

 

Jim

[Spitfire2865]

I have seen no one had said it yet. Original LNWR livery was unpainted wood with painted ironwork!

 

But after, wagons were painted an overall grey, with black underframe and either grey or white roofs. Those white roofs quickly turning grey to black from the smoke and smog of the industrial world.

 

So no. No ordinary LNWR goods wagon had picked out ironwork while in grey livery.

 

Though it does look good.

[NCB]

The HMRS LNWR Liveries book states that goods stock was painted light or medium grey  from around 1850 to the grouping, with white roofs and black running gear and heads. From around 1900 the outside framing of vans was often either very dark grey or black. From 1908 roofs were often painted grey on ordinary stock (some special vans, eg fruit, refrigerator, retained white roofs).

[Edwardian]

Any roofs which started off white would not remain like that for very long.  The white used was white lead which very quickly formed oxides and sulphides turning it grey, not to mention the layer of soot they would acquire.

 

Jim

 

It appears that brake vans conformed to the general wagon livery change in 1908, i.e. they gained 'LNWR' initials (http://www.lnwrs.org.uk/Wagons/brakes/BrakeVans.php).  This suggests that the dark and light grey treatment of the brake van pictured above was a pre-1908 livery variant. 

 

The LNWR Society website does not, so far as I can tell, make any mention of a light and dark grey livery.  I have perused the pages on brake vans, covered vans and cattle wagons, all of which had external framing for the earlier diagrams.  Neither the pictures nor the livery descriptions provide any hint of the two-tone treatment.

 

Picking out the framing in a darker colour does not appear to have been common!

 

From what I can see, newly painted stock has white/pale roofs, but, as Caley Jim said, they would soon be grey.

[Argos]

Hi, I am a member of the LNWR society so could ask but NCB's reply above pretty much sums up the accepted wisdom.

 

I don't believe there is any firm start and end dates to the outside framing of some goods and brake vans being painted a darker shade of grey but the photographic record does tie this into around 1900-1910, although could extend a few years in either direction.

The white painted refrigerated vans were also painted with dark "framing" around this time, there is some conjecture whether this is dark grey or black

 

I seem to recall the LNWR wagons were repainted at seven year intervals so the darker framing was probably only in vogue for a few years.

 

Hope this helps. If there is a specific question you want to raise let me know.

[garethashenden]

I'm sure the answer has been posted before but I can't find it now that I need it! LNWR outside framed vans - would they have black framing a la Cambrian vans? Also roof colour - did it start off white?

Some are plain grey, some are two tone ie. normal grey on the body and dark grey on the frames. The framing was never black.

[Quarryscapes]

Good, going to save myself some hassle then and leave it in monotone grey! 

[Penlan]

Came across this (part) view earlier today, definitely two-tone, but both on the dark side of mid-grey.

 

It's at Charlwelton during the construction of the GCR line circa 1896/7.  I knew I hadn't seen this view before when I looked through 'Lost England 1870 - 1930' a mighty tome of a book of photographs.

I might have expected this photo to be in that excellent book 'The Making of a Railway' by L T C Rolt - The GCR main line down to Marlybone, but it's not..

 

Edited January 23, 2017 by Penlan

[Penlan]

Nothing to do with this topic, but I was bemused to see these two wagons at the Port Sunlight Soap works, circa 1897.
Which one of these Wirral Colliery Company wagons is the correct livery.....?  

 

PS - The barrels are for tallow.

 

Edited January 24, 2017 by Penlan

[Spitfire2865]

Nothing to do with this topic, but I was bemused to see these two wagons at the Port Sunlight Soap works, circa 1897.

Which one of these Wirral Colliery Company wagons is the correct livery.....?  

 

PS - The barrels are for tallow.

 

Port Sunlight Work - WCC Po wagons #4A.jpg

Someone was dead set on repairing one of those wagons.

[Nearholmer]

Whenever this topic comes up, I bore people by pointing to pre-WW1 r-t-r models, made by Carette for BAssett-Lowke, with artwork by Henry Greenly, who lived in Watford, and had the LNWR almost literally at the end of his garden.

 

In response to a query at the time, Greenly commented that the grey of the real wagons varied in shade quite a bit.

 

Here are a few, dating from 1909-1914, with apologies to the owners of the images.

[coachmann]

The only comment I can offer is, when George Mellor (GEM) produced his 4mm scale white metal kit for a LNWR Goods Brake he told me they were two-tone. In those far off days there was only memories and Ernest Carters 'Britains Railway Liveries 1825-1948' to go off. The book stated dark grey with black framing for goods brakes and covered vans. I'm guessing George would have been around 15 yrs old at the Grouping.

[Jol Wilkinson]

The  LNWR goods vehicle grey was a 50/50 mix of black and white, according to LNWR Liveries by the HMRS. I had a spray can made up by Halfords and it is fairly dark although that may be influenced by the fact it is a gloss finish. It is certainly much darker than the tin plate models. Were they deliberately a lighter grey to show up the printed detail?

 

How much did the LNWR grey fade as ii weathered? That might have been part of the reason for Greenly's observation.

[Nearholmer]

There is another thread that has gone into this topic at some length, so as a non-LNWR-o-phile, I would suggest looking for that too.

 

As to Greenly's choice of colours: he and his clients weren't afraid of using darker greys where appropriate, on GWR things for instance, and, by using different shading techniques, they obtained good "relief" with printing on tin. I tend to the view that he coloured the models in accordance with what he observed, which was a mix of the fresh and the timeworn. His chosen colours for coaches seem to accord exceedingly well with later research, and Carette took a lot of care over colours, as is evidenced by them getting the tricky LSWR carriage livery right - their printing seems again to have accorded with 'observed condition', which probably meant weathered varnish.

 

Kevin

[Jol Wilkinson]

There is another thread that has gone into this topic at some length, so as a non-LNWR-o-phile, I would suggest looking for that too.

 

As to Greenly's choice of colours: he and his clients weren't afraid of using darker greys where appropriate, on GWR things for instance, and, by using different shading techniques, they obtained good "relief" with printing on tin. I tend to the view that he coloured the models in accordance with what he observed, which was a mix of the fresh and the timeworn. His chosen colours for coaches seem to accord exceedingly well with later research, and Carette took a lot of care over colours, as is evidenced by them getting the tricky LSWR carriage livery right - their printing seems again to have accorded with 'observed condition', which probably meant weathered varnish.

 

Kevin

 

The subject of wagon grey is a regular discussion amongst several of us who model the LNWR and are also members of the LNWR Society, so any source of information is always welcome.

 

One thing that is often overlooked is how poor peoples colour memory is. Unless you hold two colour samples against each other, it is very difficult to know how well they match. So unless Greenly and Carette did that against actual prototypes, there has to be some question over the accuracy of the their period models. 

[Nearholmer]

Indeed.

 

But, since HG was there, at the time, seeing the wagons day-in, day-out, and was in the approval loop for what Carette printed, and because, between them, they captured the coach liveries very well, I tend to have faith.

 

Something that tends to be forgotten is that commercial model railways, as opposed to toys, got very good indeed in the few years leading up to WW1 ...... those guys took 'modern image' just as seriously as people take it now; it just happened to be the LNWR, Midland, Caledonian etc for them. The LNWR got star-billing, simply because it was the local company for the two men who effectively founded our hobby.

 

Anyway, enough on that colour-source; doubtless there are paint-flecks to discuss.

 

Kevin

[Spitfire2865]

First to build a time machine gets to claim the right answer.

[Jol Wilkinson]

There are original paint samples for carriages, taken from vehicles painted over in LMS livery. At least one is at Quainton. Some were later preserved as departmental vehicles.

 

Whether any wagons survived in the same way I don't know but think it is rather less likely.

[coachmann]

In days when there were far fewer railway paints than there are today, we model painters worked on advice and a prayer!  When GEM cast his J36 and said "You paint it ~ I'll photograph it", he spotted the vacant look on my face. "Oh just mix yellow and black 50-50 and add a spot or red!" That was it and it was supposedly NBR olive. Many years later when PPC did the NBR colour, I bought a tinlet out of curiosity. It pretty well matched mine, so railways did not use top secret colours with magical properties after all...! Drop black, Invisible grey, Split milk and Improved engine green were not mixed by the gods...

 

The railway companies always stocked red, yellow and black and it seems to me they were added in small amounts to achieve colour coordination between a company's locos and carriages. 'Black' was also added to paint to remove it's garish appearance. You may have noticed that even the most colorful railway liveries never had the garishness of those on fairgrounds.

Edited January 24, 2017 by coachmann

[Penlan]

RE. van livery - Diamonds only, some may be interested to catch my post at 

http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/115096-some-lnwr-wagons-in-p4/page-2&do=findComment&comment=2634250

post #29.  

The van in the background seems to have the same tone of grey all over,

presumably because the diamond looks bright, it's newly painted in the single grey livery.  

Edited February 27, 2017 by Penlan