BR Mixed Traffic Black - Drag beams colour?

[Lacathedrale]

Were the two beams that faced each other between the locomotive and tender painted black, or red as per the buffer beams?

[Steamport Southport]

Black.

 

The red buffer beams were a safety thing. Same reason that the area between the frames was also often red.

 

Best online source.

 

http://www.ianrathbonemodelpainting.co.uk/british-railways-liveries-1949---56.php

 

 

 

Jason

 

Edited January 20, 2022 by Steamport Southport

[Lacathedrale]

OK - I'll take what you say for granted - but by your justification if the inside of the frames was red for safety, I'd thought the beams between the tender and loco would also be red?

[bécasse]

The insides of the frames were painted red (or vermillion) to ease the task of spotting any cracks that started to form.

[Steamport Southport]

14 minutes ago, Lacathedrale said:

OK - I'll take what you say for granted - but by your justification if the inside of the frames was red for safety, I'd thought the beams between the tender and loco would also be red?

 

How often would a tender be taken off though?

 

It wasn't just a case of uncoupling them it was a pretty major job and the loco wouldn't be being moved about without it's tender very often.

 

The inside frames has moving parts inside them. Who's to say that a crew member won't decide to move the reversing rod when you are oiling up? You really do need to be aware.

 

 

Jason

[hmrspaul]

3 hours ago, Steamport Southport said:

 

How often would a tender be taken off though?

 

It wasn't just a case of uncoupling them it was a pretty major job and the loco wouldn't be being moved about without it's tender very often.

 

The inside frames has moving parts inside them. Who's to say that a crew member won't decide to move the reversing rod when you are oiling up? You really do need to be aware.

 

 

Jason

I'm not sure that it is that unusual to separate tender and loco. On another site there has been discussion of the role of the small loco yard shunter at the Guildford partial roundhouse. Only tank locos could be turned complete, tender and loco were separated to be shunted in and out of the roundhouse. 

Plenty of photos at main works show tenders separated from locos, fully repainted so should be easy to gather if there was any special finish to the beams. 

 

Paul

[Michael Edge]

BR didn’t paint the inside of frames red anyway - and drag beams were always black.

[LMS2968]

I rather think they did. Whether or not you could tell they red after a few months in service is a different matter.

[Michael Edge]

We've been through this before, I only found out about red frames from the model railway magazines - I'd never seen it on visits to various works in the 1950s and 60s. I've also found photos of all black BR frames outside paintshops, it may well have been a practice that died out during the war. It remained common, though not universal with other loco builders though and became popular again in the preservation era - but preserved locos have lots of pretty coloured painting that isn't exactly authentic.

None of this included the outside of the drag beam though, black with rusty patches where the buffers touch.

[bécasse]

I agree with Mike, I visited a number of BR loco works in my youth and never saw a set of steam loco frames painted red, it would have been unnecessary once ultrasonic testing became possible (and far more effective) anyway. The purpose of the red had been to make it possible to spot cracks forming, wiping over the frame with an oily rag would have left a fine black line where a crack was forming which was readily visible against the red background, at least to a skilled eye.

[LMS2968]

Hmm . . . not getting very far with this Essery and Jenkinson in 'Locomotive Liveries of the LMS' specify vermillion between the frames, but instructions from BR days seem to be lacking; there's no information either way. I do though clearly remember looking at Black Five in Liverpool Exchange station way back in 1068 and being surprised to see some rather dirty red below the boiler. It was 54 years ago, though . . .

 

I've attached some material babout liveries from early BR days. It doesn't move this conversation on in the slightest but might be useful to someone.

[rab]

23 hours ago, Steamport Southport said:

The inside frames has moving parts inside them. Who's to say that a crew member won't decide to move the reversing rod when you are oiling up? You really do need to be aware.

 

 

Jason

 

I don't. know if it was general practice or just a GWR thing, but I read somewhere that if someone went underneath to oil up, they left a coat over the reverser which was an indication not to move it.

[jim.snowdon]

On 21/01/2022 at 09:40, LMS2968 said:

Hmm . . . not getting very far with this Essery and Jenkinson in 'Locomotive Liveries of the LMS' specify vermillion between the frames, but instructions from BR days seem to be lacking; there's no information either way. I do though clearly remember looking at Black Five in Liverpool Exchange station way back in 1068 and being surprised to see some rather dirty red below the boiler. It was 54 years ago, though .

There are times when I think the world according to Essery & Jenkinson was (a) confined to the LMS and (b) stopped on December 31, 1947.

 

Red buffer beams owe more, I suspect, to traditions going back into the 19th century, when it was not uncommon for the ends of brake carriages and goods brake vans to also be painted red. It's almost as if they were treated as being equivalent to a red signal - not to be passed. Red ends on rolling stock died out gradually, although some railways, like the Southern, painted the ends of their goods brake vans red until 1948. red buffer beams just remained on locomotives, but not universally on multiple units, until the arrival of yellow ends in the diesel era.

 

As far as red on the insides of locomotive frames and other internal components, I would not be at all surprised if different works maintained their own conventions out of habit. Certainly, it was to assist in finding cracks, but by into the BR era it is quite probable that crack detection methods had improved to the point where testing was undertaken only at the areas known to suffer, generally at the upper corners of the axle cutouts.

 

[LMS2968]

I have to agree on the Essery and Jenkinson issue. To be fair, the LMS was their 'thing', what they knew and so what they wrote about. On the other hand, I have the full set of the 'Liveries . . . ' series. I'll admit there's a lot of information in them, although it never seems to contain the information I'm after.

 

I don't know what methods of crack detection were used on BR during steam days, but if it involved anything more than a visual inspection, I suggest that was done only during works visits and not at sheds. The snag is, depending on the class, works visits might be five years apart, more than enough time for a crack to start and propagate into something substantial.

[Sabato]

On 20/01/2022 at 20:44, hmrspaul said:

I'm not sure that it is that unusual to separate tender and loco. On another site there has been discussion of the role of the small loco yard shunter at the Guildford partial roundhouse. Only tank locos could be turned complete, tender and loco were separated to be shunted in and out of the roundhouse. 

Plenty of photos at main works show tenders separated from locos, fully repainted so should be easy to gather if there was any special finish to the beams. 

 

Paul

 

[Sabato]

Whoops, hit a button to soon. 

 

Guildford had a "standard" 55ft LSWR overgirder table. Large enough to take a BR standard class 5 and the Southern moguls. It wouldn't take a pacific or Southern 4-6-0s with 8 wheel tenders. Nor would it take a pacific, less tender, plus B4.

 

In very early days pre 1860/70 or so as locos got larger , and the infrastructure lagged, it might have occurred. In later days as a regular occurrence, no, to suggest otherwise is nonsense. Separating a tender off would only be done for tender swaps or other maintenance work 

[Mike 84C]

Western Region locos had a flat red oxide colour inside the frames to include the axles,motion and stretchers. I went underneath quite a few. And yes I also shot out from under a 3800 I was cleaning when the motion moved 'cos the driver did not see a b' great not to be moved board on the lamp brackets!

[31A]

You can certainly see photos of locos maintained at Stratford which show components between the frames to have been painted red; for example the motion bracket of N7s which stands up above the frames is noticeably red in several pictures.