Another GWR coach roof board query

[checkrail]

I have another roof board query if I may.

 

Sankey Scenics have just produced some nice printed roof boards for GWR coaches (with the latest Hornby Collets specifically but not exclusively in mind I guess).

They have black lettering on a white background.  I note that the old Airfix/Dapol/Hornby Centenary coaches also had their plastic 'Cornish Riviera Limited' roof boards in the same colours.

 

My copy of Great Western Way speaks of red letters on a white board being changed to black on white in 1922, but goes on to say, "The introduction of brown letters on a cream board is believed to have been gradual from 1925".

 

What was the actual situation on the mid to late 1930s?  Can't pick up any hints from "The Big Four in Colour", and with b & w pics it's difficult to tell cream from white or brown from black.

 

Info from the knowledgeable gratefully received!

 

John C.

 

​My layout: STOKE COURTENAY, 1930s GWR junction station.  See layout topic.

 

[Sankey Scenics]

Hi John

 

From my research, the boards were painted white but over a period the paint "yellowed" to a degree due to atmospheric conditions. As far as the lettering was concerned originally red but then black - no record of brown / chocolate other than the italic lettering used by Western Region in the late 1950s for named expresses.

 

Hope this helps.

 

Allan

[gwrrob]

http://www.precisionlabels.com/sl3.html?

 

Not used the Sankey versions but have some of this range John.

[Clearwater]

Apols for off topic. "Yellowed" reminds me of the (apocryphal) story I heard of an early/mid 90s refurb of an underground station where they spent ages trying to colour match the ceiling which was an off yellow colour. Eventually the penny dropped with them as to the cause of the off yellow colour due to almost a hundred years of cigarette smoke up to the mid 80s...

[MarkAustin]

Apols for off topic. "Yellowed" reminds me of the (apocryphal) story I heard of an early/mid 90s refurb of an underground station where they spent ages trying to colour match the ceiling which was an off yellow colour. Eventually the penny dropped with them as to the cause of the off yellow colour due to almost a hundred years of cigarette smoke up to the mid 80s...

This was certainly the case on the Glasgow Underground, before modernisation and the "Clockwork Oranges", where the smoking car ( the motor car IIRC) had a pale brown ceiling, and the non-smoker was white, as I well remember from my days there. When withdrawn, the cars were at least a 100 years old.

 

Mark A