Citadel's Workbench - Carlisle in late Victorian times

[SteamAle]

CK&PR is hoping to come to the show so he will be very interesyed in your progress. I'll be the one with a bright yellow shirt and shorts! Makes it easy for people to find me.

[Citadel]

What a satisfying process 🙂.  I'm hooked.  OK, maybe my base colour ended up a little too dark / orange but hopefully there was a huge variety re: how the wood aged in service.  

 

 

 

 

Did try to get the 'grain' in the right direction but am really new to this so welcome any comments / tips.  The Mike Trice videos on YouTube were invaluable and very thorough, really appreciate all the effort that must have gone into making them.

[Chas Levin]

Very good looking, Mike! It really looks like wood - top stuff!

[Citadel]

Have spent the last couple of evenings on the D293 Luggage Third.  Once again channelled my new found underframe lining mojo....

 

 

 

@SteamAle, a quick question about the M&C carriages.  Go you think the solebars will be brown or black?   If brown do you think the ironwork should be picked out in black?

[SteamAle]

CKPR will have the answer on the tip of his tounge. I'll have to dig into the records first.

[Schooner]

Simply exquisite @Citadel. As ever, this thread provides both hope and despair aplenty!

[CKPR]

Good question. We know for certain that post-1905 the underframes, headstocks and ends of the coaches were green and unlined as there is no mention of any  solebar lining in Ross Pochin article on M&C livery (MRN Jaunary 1967) in which he quotes from the notes of one Arthur Gunn [former M&CR coach painter ?]. As for the teak coaches, I think the solebars would have been black and unlined - "Prior to the autumn of 1905, M&C coaches were varnished teak with lettering and numbering in square block style having a gold leaf body 4 ins high, shaded black on the right hand side".

Edited November 11, 2023 by CKPR

[WFPettigrew]

3 hours ago, CKPR said:

As for the teak coaches

 

Unfortunately the series in the Locomotive Magazine in the 1890s, detailing livery schemes company by company, is unhelpfully over concise when it comes to the M&C.  

 

The September 1897 edition included the final installment of the main English companies, the M&C and the Furness.  Whereas the FR gets a paragraph on the loco livery, including lining, as well as further shorter paragraphs regarding the paint schemes of the the carriages (at the time transitioning from the older chocolate and teak to the Aslett era ultramarine blue and off white), NPCS and goods wagons, the M&C gets just a single paragraph:

 

"The engines of the Maryport and Carlisle Railway are painted green, with black bands, lined on both sides with vermillion. The buffer beams are red with gold figures on, and the lettering on the tenders is in gold, with red shading, whilst the number plate is bright brass, with scarlet ground. The carriages are varnished teak, with gold letters and black shade."

 

This of course does not help the question about the solebars! Nor indeed the likes of horseboxes or the wagon stock!

 

3 hours ago, CKPR said:

I think the solebars would have been black and unlined

 

Would seem to be a very sensible position!

 

All the best

 

Neil  

[Compound2632]

3 hours ago, CKPR said:

As for the teak coaches, I think the solebars would have been black and unlined

 

I'm coming at this from a standpoint of complete ignorance of M&C carriage liveries but on the grounds of general theory of carriage-painting, I question this. My first question is, what were carriage underframes made of? Teak is I think unlikely but not impossible; if teak, it seems to me most likely that the solebars and headstocks would have been varnished, with black ironwork. A more probable material is oak, in which case solebars and headstocks might be varnished or painted. If iron or steel - or if oak with an iron or steel flitch plate - then painted, black being possible but not inevitable.

 

What did other companies with varnished teak carriages do? The Great Northern seems to have painted solebars and headstocks an orangy-brown colour to match the teak, but not I think scumbled. According to Midland Style, the solebars of LT&SR carriages were painted light brown.

 

If on the adoption of the green and white livery, solebars and headstocks were painted body colour, that seems to me to argue a strong presumption in favour of their having been painted to match the body colour previously.

Edited November 11, 2023 by Compound2632

[CKPR]

Six o' one and half a dozen of t'other !

[CKPR]

Here's a thought - what is the coach livery in the carriage  print depicting the M&C Crampton ?

[Compound2632]

18 minutes ago, CKPR said:

Six o' one and half a dozen of t'other !

 

Is Mike making as many as a dozen M&C carriages? My approach would be to come down on one side of the fence and stick there!

[apl31]

That Hamilton Ellis print shows teak (or something like it) with ironwork painted black. The image I was looking at has a reference 1953 which I assume is date he painted it. So it may still be a guess.

[apl31]

However there was a nice article in CRA journal August 2022 on M&C carriages. The illustration drawings of teak stock show black underframes. The later green carriages are shown with green underframes.

 

[Citadel]

Many thanks for all the inputs, much appreciated!  I do want to be historically correct and to some extent there is the thrill of the chase in this respect.  Sometimes though the definitive answer has maybe been lost in time.

 

Think on balance will go with @CKPR’s suggestion to look at the Crampton carriage print -  based on this think will go brown with the ironwork picked out in black.  Fully accept though that this might just have been the whim of the artist at the time though.

 

 

Aesthetically find this more attractive than the solid black under frame.  I did spray one this colour but the solebars are so deep (and almost flush with the body) it did jar a bit.

 

Also like the logic that in the green era solebars and headstocks were painted body colour - potentially suggests maybe a carryover from  when the bodies were teak.

 

Can always repaint them black if new evidence comes to light 🙂

[Compound2632]

4 hours ago, apl31 said:

That Hamilton Ellis print shows teak (or something like it) with ironwork painted black. The image I was looking at has a reference 1953 which I assume is date he painted it. So it may still be a guess.

 

Hamilton Ellis was born in 1909 and grew up in the south of England, so is certainly no eye-witness. But he made his painting 70 years ago, less than 40 years after the M&C teak livery was dropped. He was a carriage enthusiast as well as a founder member of the HMRS, so I think we can assume his choice was not arbitrary but based on the best information he could get at the time. 

[Buhar]

I think you'll find the M&CR applied an elaborate red and gold lining to the underframes with the builder's plate burnished and the tare in scroll script picked out in gold leaf.

 

Alan

[WFPettigrew]

1 hour ago, Buhar said:

I think you'll find the M&CR applied an elaborate red and gold lining to the underframes with the builder's plate burnished and the tare in scroll script picked out in gold leaf.

 

That would put most people off.   However, this is Citadel we are talking about here. 

 

I am now waiting for the post saying how he used kindergarten crayons or felt tip pens, and knocked out an impeccable rendition of the aforementioned red/gold lining and script in 35 minutes.  (Both sides.)

 

 

 

 

[Citadel]

On 09/11/2023 at 23:45, Schooner said:

As ever, this thread provides both hope and despair aplenty!

 

I like the idea of bringing hope 🙂.  As for despair though not my intention - reserve this for myself when I notice details like the lining on radial under frames and realise that it was way more complex than I thought:

 

 

To be honest though you only notice so much in 4mm scale.  

 

On 11/11/2023 at 21:28, WFPettigrew said:

I am now waiting for the post saying how he used kindergarten crayons or felt tip pens, and knocked out an impeccable rendition of the aforementioned red/gold lining and script in 35 minutes.  (Both sides.)

 

If only...  I did have a go though at a brown underframe, didn't really have exactly the right colour (think needs to be a little bit redder) - will see whether I can tint a bit.  Also need to put some matte varnish to reduce the reflection off the black ironwork then do a bit of subtle weathering

 

 

Quite enjoyed doing the yellow lining - nowhere to hide really compared to MR and LNWR (where you can use a black pen to thin the lines and tidy up the corners).  Also like the brass handles against the teak.

 

 

 

 

Finally, was away this weekend (birthday).  Nice treat waiting for me on my return 🙂

 

[Schooner]

Right, that's it!

 

Firing up this and @woko's threads, loading Youtube with Mike Trice and doing my fictional line's mid-Victorian vans in varnished wood!

 

If I can get results half as good as you talented lot I'll be chuffed, and should have desired effect of being plausible but not usual (for the majority of post-grouping hobbyists).

 

Looking forward to following the new builds too :)

[WFPettigrew]

44 minutes ago, Citadel said:

Quite enjoyed doing the yellow lining

 

Just superb!

[Coal Tank]

I have recently done the brake van and the DX goods is on the list 

[Compound2632]

30 minutes ago, Coal Tank said:

I have recently done the brake van and the DX goods is on the list 

 

i'm half-way through the brake van and finding getting the axlebox / spring castings a bit of a faddle to fit so am interested to see how other people get on.

[Coal Tank]

I'll get it out and do some photos 

[richard i]

44 minutes ago, Coal Tank said:

I'll get it out and do some photos 

Please don’t. It is a family friendly forum.

 

hat coat leaving.