Painting real locos

[daftbovine]

I've just seen a picture of Stepney on the Bluebell Railway with a new coat of paint. I'm not sure when the picture was taken but it got me thinking, when we re paint a model loco, we just dunk it in stripper to get it down to plastic and paint it from there.

 

What do they do with the real thing? especially in preservation. If they just give the loco a sanding down so the surfaces are smooth and then paint on the new colour then some of the older locos must have quite a few layers of paint. Chipping back the paint would give a good idea of how many different livery changes the loco had.

[Coppercap]

On the real thing it seems they were rubbed down and then overpainted. Certainly in BR days, even crests were left on, and were overpainted. Many locos at Barry scrapyard had the older BR emblem showing underneath the later crest through weathered paint. Also, some locos and rolling stock had their earlier liveries identified through analysis of paint layers. It's all part of the history. Why take paint off if it's well adhered and providing good protection? It also costs time and money for labour to completely strip everything back and repainting at every overhaul/repaint. It's different on a model as the paint layer is relatively think in relation to the model's size - keep overpainting and it starts looking a mess with detail obscured.

In more recent times, many preserved locos and stock have deteriorated over the years requiring structural repairs with new material, so the new paint layer starts from base. That's why some things now have an ex-paint shop paint finish almost as smooth and shiny as a new car!

Edited June 13, 2017 by Coppercap

[daftbovine]

Thanks for the reply. So older locos like the Terriers must have a history in paint on them.

[LMS2968]

Thanks for the reply. So older locos like the Terriers must have a history in paint on them.

Possibly, but depends on the quality of the repaints in preservation. When we restoring 8F 8233 in 1969 we found Arabic lettering on the cab sides.

[18B]

Possibly, but depends on the quality of the repaints in preservation. When we restoring 8F 8233 in 1969 we found Arabic lettering on the cab sides.

And every loco sill has Arabic numbers on them today....

[LMS2968]

And every loco sill has Arabic numbers on them today....

Which is why I specified 'lettering'!

[Davexoc]

When Swindon Works closed, some of the painters were employed at Old Oak Common, usually based in the Pullman shed where they repainted for GWR 150, then NSE locos.

Process was remove flaking paint, fill, rub down and then paint. 47500 must have been the widest 47 on BR the number of times it was tarted up for Royal use!

Back then paints were still high in solvents, so standard kit alongside the paint, thinners and brushes was a pint of milk.

 

Dave

[DavidB]

47500 must have been the widest 47 on BR the number of times it was tarted up for Royal use

And it always looked a real treat, as did the other 5 Old Oak 47/4 namers in the early 475xx series, as well as the London-based 50s in the mid-80s (Furious, Glorious and Ark Royal always looked particularly smart at the time, and made their Laira-based classmates look tatty by comparison). The five giant postage stamps that 47500 wore briefly in 1985 presumably made it even wider for a short while.

 

But it was the hydraulics that always fascinated me, where the stressed skin bodywork on the Warships and Westerns was apparently covered all over with the 1950s/60s equivalent of car body filler to smooth out the surface before painting, and the paint then flaked off when it lost the battle with the washing plants, leaving some remarkably shabby and piebald locos at times. I remember seeing Warships in service in the late 60s and early 70s where there was clear evidence of green, maroon and blue paint on the same loco.

 

David

[Dunsignalling]

It wasn't just the paint that came off, either. Quite a bit of the filler used to smooth off the body shells went AWOL from some Warships.

 

When the WR started dumping their rejects onto the Waterloo-Exeter route, one particularly rancid example was D813 Diadem, which was missing so much of it that it must have been a good hundredweight lighter than its classmates. One theory was that the worse they looked, the more reliable they were - the pretty ones being in and out of Swindon every few weeks.  

 

The same happened with the 50s towards the end; rough, lovely, old Ajax was twice the loco any of the shiny ones were.

 

John

[Bert Cheese]

It wasn't just the paint that came off, either. Quite a bit of the filler used to smooth off the body shells went AWOL from some Warships.

 

When the WR started dumping their rejects onto the Waterloo-Exeter route, one particularly rancid example was D813 Diadem, which was missing so much of it that it must have been a good hundredweight lighter than its classmates. One theory was that the worse they looked, the more reliable they were - the pretty ones being in and out of Swindon every few weeks.  

 

The same happened with the 50s towards the end; rough, lovely, old Ajax was twice the loco any of the shiny ones were.

 

John

 

The Warships were a little before my time unfortunately, but I remember a lot of people not being impressed when Ajax was withdrawn to donate its power unit and bogies to 50007 which had been dumped out at traffic at Laira for a few months.

IIRC the component swaps were captured on a Locomaster Profiles video, poor old Ajax was then shunted out the back of the depot while 50007 got a fresh coat of green paint and a virtual guarantee of preservation...

[Swindon 123]

When a group of us bought D2578 off Bulmers in 2001, the intention was to repaint the loco into the last BR livery it carried in 1967. Inspection of the paintwork, which hadn't been touched for 33 years, revealed it had cracked badly, not helped by it being varnished as well at some time in the past. It was quickly decided that the only way to do a good paint job on the loco was to strip it back to bare metal. It took us nearly 5 years to strip down and repaint D2578, with a lot of paint stripper in the form of Nitromors being used, but it did the job. it also had the advantage that as we stripped the layers of paint back we revealed the different liveries and position of numbers the loco had carried in its short BR life. This helped greatly in ensuring the loco was restored to an accurate livery, and also in the production of an accurate model representation of the class when Heljan came to produce their model.

A ongoing photo history of the restoration of D2578 can be found on Flickr at the link below, but here are a couple of "Before" &  "After" shots to be going on with.

D2578 in 2001.

MoL-1-016 by Paul James, on Flickr

D2578 in 2016, still in the original restoration paint job.

D2578, 21-08-16 [2736] by Paul James, on Flickr

 

D2578 restoration photos from the beginning can be found here.

https://flic.kr/s/aHsjFym4Sp

 

Paul J.

Edited June 14, 2017 by Swindon 123

[Rugd1022]

The bodyfiller used on the Warships and Westerns was called 'Prestolith' and used to crack and fall off because the stressed skin bodywork underneath would twist slightly. Despite the chassis' being built up from two parallel tubes to give them some strength it still used to happen a lot.

 

The ex-Swindon painters at Old Oak (and those who were already at 81A) always seemed to be in competition with each other, to see who could get away with non standard livery quirks the most... for instance the constant repainting of the WR namer 47s in the 47 076 to 47 083 batch, the plates on some of them changed from red to black and back again several times.

Edited June 14, 2017 by Rugd1022

[25901]

At Bury when we were overhauling 25262, we rubbed down No. 1 cab and uncovered the numbers 25322 (Tamworth Castle) which was a interesting find that we didn't know about.

 

Regarding D2578, I've worked on two 05's and so send much kudos to Swindon 123 and the team for a job very very well done

[BR60103]

On body filler: Toronto's first subway cars, from Gloucester, were painted a lovely shade of red. Apparently when they were repainted the British body filler was not compatible with the Canadian paint and it fell off. Some bodies were almost completely filler.

[GordonC]

At Bury when we were overhauling 25262, we rubbed down No. 1 cab and uncovered the numbers 25322 (Tamworth Castle) which was a interesting find that we didn't know about.

 

Regarding D2578, I've worked on two 05's and so send much kudos to Swindon 123 and the team for a job very very well done

 

Were the class 25 cabs not almost components that could be removed and swapped easily at works visits? I thought I'd read that somewhere

[Rugd1022]

Were the class 25 cabs not almost components that could be removed and swapped easily at works visits? I thought I'd read that somewhere

 

Yes this is correct Gordon, there are numerous photos in Ian Allen / OPC books etc of cabs around Derby Works waiting fitting to a loco in for overhaul.

[rodent279]

Slightly OT, I have a GWR cast iron bench, an original not a replica, with scroll GWR lettering, not the monogram, that came from Kenny O, in the early '80's. Of course, it could have been used at any one of the GWR/WR's stations, but it ended up at Kenny O.

 

When we got it, it was in BR blue with the GWR picked out in white. On stripping it back, we found coats of brown, GWR/BR green & maroon, in that order. After that it's a bit more difficult to identify what's what, but there's probably about 7 layers of paint on a bench that dates back to at least 1930-ish.

 

Since the maroon was one of the older layers, this leads me to speculate that some benches may have got some spare left over crimson lake in the early '20's, when the GWR reverted to chocolate brown. Can anyone confirm?

 

I was going to strip it completely, but have since been advised to keep the layers of paint, as they are proof of it's age, and that it's not a replica!

 

cheers N

Edited June 17, 2017 by rodent279

[Marshall5]

I can't comment on the maroon colour but it is my understanding that it should have been light & dark stone in GWR days being repainted in chocolate & cream under B.R.  I'm sure there are more knowledgeable souls than I out there who might be able to add more. Best of luck with your project.

Ray.

[rodent279]

I can't comment on the maroon colour but it is my understanding that it should have been light & dark stone in GWR days being repainted in chocolate & cream under B.R.  I'm sure there are more knowledgeable souls than I out there who might be able to add more. Best of luck with your project.

Ray.

 

Ah well, I believe that is a common misconception. I thought they should have been dark & light stone for years, because I read it in a book, but there is no sign of anything like dark or light stone in any of the layers that I can determine. I've since been told, and read on the internet too, that actually they were "factory brown" in GWR days, and looking at b&w photos, the benches very often do seem to be a darker colour than the station buildings. Google for photos of the interior of Paddington, for example-in some you can see benches, and they are definitely too dark to be either dark or light stone. I've not yet come across a good colour photo of a station in GWR days showing a bench.

Factory brown is a similar shade to chocolate brown, but I think slightly lighter. I guess it could have been made form left overs of chocolate brown.

 

cheers N

Edited June 17, 2017 by rodent279

[Rail-Online]

Could any of the layers of paint on your bench ends be undercoat/primer?  I have seen some strange colours whilst stripping cast iron signs and am never sure..........

 

Tony

Edited June 22, 2017 by Rail-Online