Rapido OO Gauge GWR B Set coaches

[The Fatadder]

Numbers colour I think is pretty much impossible to tell, though the logic certainly stands that old stocks would be used up first.  However I think the yellow lettering looks more correct in this case as per the Didcot example and your drawing.

 

My attempts were sprayed with Triumph Russet Brown which I found to be quite close to didcots shade.  
 

 

 

Now to work out where I’m finding a second pair of these coaches from….

[Corbs]

10 hours ago, Miss Prism said:

I slung together a preserved prototype pic (at Didcot) and your artwork above. It's a very unscientific comparison, but I would say the colour you've chosen is very close. I strongly suspect the GWR didn't care too much about the colour shade in the middle of the war - it's just another cheap red-brown oxide with a coat of varnish. 

 

 

10 hours ago, The Fatadder said:

Numbers colour I think is pretty much impossible to tell, though the logic certainly stands that old stocks would be used up first.  However I think the yellow lettering looks more correct in this case as per the Didcot example and your drawing.

 

My attempts were sprayed with Triumph Russet Brown which I found to be quite close to didcots shade.  
 

Now to work out where I’m finding a second pair of these coaches from….

Thank you both.
Colour - Very interesting, just goes to show what a difference light can make to a shade/colour. The drawing uses Pantone 7526 C currently (subject to change).

Numbers - I agree that to have matching lettering colours looks gooderer but can't shake the feeling that the numerals are gold. This is one of those humdingers - it is our intention to represent things as close to what they actually were rather than an idealised version, but one needs to be dang sure about it and the photo isn't the greatest quality.
 

First draft of a post-war livery below (thanks to checkrail for the Russell reference) for perusal.
 

Gold outlined black typeface - The lettering is interesting, I have been looking for matches but this mimics what the SDR used on some of their stock, which is an adapted version of Gill Sans, I think the actual lettering might be slightly different but this will need refining if so.

Cross referencing the photo and the diagrams/descriptions in Great Western Way and GWR.org.uk, we have the thicker (7") band of chocolate at the top with corresponding 3/8" gold and 3/4" black lining band.

Double lined at the waist but without the 'boxing in' at the ends as on the inter-war livery.

Grey roof, naturally.

6894 and 6895 are at this point labelled as 'Kingham Branch' on the ends. From what I can tell in the photo the THIRD compartments are not labelled.

Smoking and No Smoking signs may need revision, I have done an approximation on the wartime livery but need to look into this more as style seems to have been all over the place depending on the actual coaches.

 

 

 

Adding previous page's wartime brown draft for completeness:

Edited December 1, 2022 by Corbs

[County of Yorkshire]

Somewhere, I’m very sure I’ve got a picture of an original GWR WW2 coach brown paint swatch from Didcot’s collection. Perhaps @K14 of this parish might be able to comment? 

[The Fatadder]

18 minutes ago, County of Yorkshire said:

Somewhere, I’m very sure I’ve got a picture of an original GWR WW2 coach brown paint swatch from Didcot’s collection. Perhaps @K14 of this parish might be able to comment? 

I had a feeling I had seen such a paint swatch, if I recall correctly it was what they matched the paint for their wartime brown coach to.

 

the pure Hawksworth liveried coach does now pose something of a problem, to go for that or to rebrand a shirt button version into the simplified post war livery.   The problems of modelling a real location without enough period photos! 

[Corbs]

18 minutes ago, The Fatadder said:

I had a feeling I had seen such a paint swatch, if I recall correctly it was what they matched the paint for their wartime brown coach to.

 

the pure Hawksworth liveried coach does now pose something of a problem, to go for that or to rebrand a shirt button version into the simplified post war livery.   The problems of modelling a real location without enough period photos! 

 

If it's any help, the Bodmin shirtbutton set's main reference photo is dated 1951 and the coaches still have the roundel (and the loco still has bufferbeam numerals).

[Miss Prism]

11 hours ago, Corbs said:

If it's any help, the Bodmin shirtbutton set's main reference photo is dated 1951 and the coaches still have the roundel (and the loco still has bufferbeam numerals).

 

I'm not disputing 1951, but where did that date come from?

 

[Corbs]

7 minutes ago, Miss Prism said:

 

I'm not disputing 1951, but where did that date come from?

 

On Rail-Online's description it is dated as c1951, which from the description makes sense as the WR took over Wadebridge in 1950.

Oddly the file name says '1930s' but I think that is referring to the B-Set itself rather than the photo. 

[Miss Prism]

13 minutes ago, Corbs said:

On Rail-Online's description it is dated as c1951, which from the description makes sense as the WR took over Wadebridge in 1950.

Oddly the file name says '1930s' but I think that is referring to the B-Set itself rather than the photo. 

 

Tony seems to have added 'c 1951'. I suggested 'early 1950s', which also appears, in response to the original 1930s caption, which was clearly wrong. The insignia looks indiscernible to me, but my guess is that it is a coat of arms.

[Corbs]

15 minutes ago, Miss Prism said:

 

Tony seems to have added 'c 1951'. I suggested 'early 1950s', which also appears, in response to the original 1930s caption, which was clearly wrong. The insignia looks indiscernible to me, but my guess is that it is a coat of arms.

I did wonder that too but I do believe it's the roundel. My reasoning is that blowing up the hi-res image and tweaking the levels, there is nothing written above it (no GWR or G.W.R.) and nothing either side of it.
You can make out the coach number closest to the camera but also just about see the one at the other end, which would mean that anything written in between should be visible (reflections aside)

On the post-war livery reference, the coat of arms was moved to the first class door (flanked by GREAT WESTERN) and this is in the normal location in the panel.

It's also single-lined rather than double (for the inter-war livery descriptions in GWW).

Of course, none of this means that it's definitely not the coat of arms,  there is nothing to say that in the period of austerity, the coat of arms wasn't applied without any GWR or GREAT WESTERN branding (blimey, two consecutive double negatives). It could have happened, but the appearance does match the description of shirtbutton livery in GWW (extract attached).

Edited December 1, 2022 by Corbs

[Miss Prism]

Hmmm, yes, see what you mean. My original reaction was that the coaches looked to be in good nick, and I therefore thought the livery was probably '1943-ish' (with single lining). The lack of G W R above the insignia is telling however - I hadn't spotted that. I suppose I thought that a livery that old wouldn't have survived to that date!

[Corbs]

It really is an odd one. If it weren't for the location limiting the timeframe then could be forgiven for assuming it's an earlier photo.

 

 

 

[Miss Prism]

That's precisely what Tony assumed originally.

[Oldddudders]

2 hours ago, Corbs said:

 the WR took over Wadebridge in 1950.. 

Off-topic, but I hadn't realised that. And nor had Ian Allan's 1955 Atlas, which showed the division still at Boscarne Junction 

[BenL]

1 hour ago, Corbs said:

It really is an odd one. If it weren't for the location limiting the timeframe then could be forgiven for assuming it's an earlier photo.

 

 

 

But quite a common late war early post war livery variation was just the crest on its own, with no GWR above and no Great Western to the sides.

 

Edit: Also, didn’t the GWR have some services that ran through to Wadebridge pre-nationalisation, I’m pretty sure that’s what the GWR Journal article on the Bodmin Branch says. If so, a Wadebridge location wouldn’t necessarily suggest a 1950s date.

Edited December 1, 2022 by BenL

[Miss Prism]

4 minutes ago, BenL said:

But quite a common late war early post war livery variation was just the crest on its own, with no GWR above and no Great Western to the sides.

 

Ah ha!!

[Mike_Walker]

25 minutes ago, Oldddudders said:

Off-topic, but I hadn't realised that. And nor had Ian Allan's 1955 Atlas, which showed the division still at Boscarne Junction 

ISTR the WR took over the responsibility for infrastructure maintenance in 1950, operations remained split between the SR and WR until 1963.

[The Fatadder]

35 minutes ago, BenL said:

But quite a common late war early post war livery variation was just the crest on its own, with no GWR above and no Great Western to the sides.

 

Edit: Also, didn’t the GWR have some services that ran through to Wadebridge pre-nationalisation, I’m pretty sure that’s what the GWR Journal article on the Bodmin Branch says. If so, a Wadebridge location wouldn’t necessarily suggest a 1950s date.

interesting, that’s not one I’ve come across before (but I think I will need to find a suitable prototype to model it)

[Edwardian]

So, dare I mention the Kingsbridge branch?

 

Someone, I'm sure, has modelled Brent, or something like, so presumably is well up on this stuff? 😉 

 

I think the E140s announced by Rapido were originally and predominately Bristol Division sets, but seemed to find themselves further afield before too long. For instance, in 1936, I believe, ex-Bristol E140s came to form Kingsbridge No.1 and No.2 sets.

 

Before that, the sets were, I understand, E145s: 6316 + 6335 for Kingsbridge Branch No.1 and 6338 + 6348 as Kingsbridge Branch No.2.

 

So, apart from running numbers and 9' bogies as opposed to 7' bogies, is there any difference between the E140s and E145s? 

 

If not, and before I order 4 of these coaches and enough 9' pressed steel bogies for them, is there any good reason why Rapido would not tool for a 9' bogie and produce E145s as well? 

 

The thought of the new Rapido Prairies with Rapido B-Sets is awakening long dormant urges to return the the GW in the 1930s. Stop it, you swine, you know I will be unable to resist!

 

 

[Clearwater]

32 minutes ago, Edwardian said:

 

 

The thought of the new Rapido Prairies with Rapido B-Sets is awakening long dormant urges to return the the GW in the 1930s. Stop it, you swine, you know I will be unable to resist!

 

 

 

Presumably between Jan and December 1936 to avoid changing your name?

[Corbs]

46 minutes ago, BenL said:

But quite a common late war early post war livery variation was just the crest on its own, with no GWR above and no Great Western to the sides.

 

Edit: Also, didn’t the GWR have some services that ran through to Wadebridge pre-nationalisation, I’m pretty sure that’s what the GWR Journal article on the Bodmin Branch says. If so, a Wadebridge location wouldn’t necessarily suggest a 1950s date.

We've had a discussion internally about these points you raise, and we find ourselves in a situation that either A) the photo date is incorrect (if the GWR ran through to Wadebridge) or B) the coach has a crest and not a roundel (or both A and B, or neither).

The thin upper band compared to the larger 7" one of the other 1943-onward style makes me hesitant to say it is one or the other.

 

For quite a large class of coaching stock they were incredibly camera-shy so without any hard evidence either way it is difficult to say.

While we keep searching for further evidence I'll see if I can draw up the post-war livery of the crest on its own that you mention - this is what I was wondering about in the previous post as GWW does say there were a lot of mixed liveries in this period.

 

 

[Edwardian]

12 minutes ago, Clearwater said:

 

Presumably between Jan and December 1936 to avoid changing your name?

 

Oh I did enjoy that. Yes, well my presence here post-dates my disappearance down the pre-Grouping rabbit hole, so my days of devouring 1930s coach working timetable, loco registers and Soole and Lockett photographs really belongs to another me from an age long ago when there was still hope in the world and before sentence of matrimony was passed upon me.

 

 

[gwrrob]

2 hours ago, Edwardian said:

So, dare I mention the Kingsbridge branch?

 

Someone, I'm sure, has modelled Brent, or something like, so presumably is well up on this stuff? 😉 

 

 

Indeed and I have the rather nice Lionheart 7mm set in austerity brown. The writing on the solebar is something I've not seen before. This is a livery I hope Rapido do too.

 

 

 

[The Fatadder]

2 hours ago, gwrrob said:

 

Indeed and I have the rather nice Lionheart 7mm set in austerity brown. The writing on the solebar is something I've not seen before. This is a livery I hope Rapido do too.

 

 

 

I am very hopeful I can replace this with something more accurate.  Just wish I could find a photo of Kingsbridge no1 

[BenL]

4 hours ago, Corbs said:

We've had a discussion internally about these points you raise, and we find ourselves in a situation that either A) the photo date is incorrect (if the GWR ran through to Wadebridge) or B) the coach has a crest and not a roundel (or both A and B, or neither).

The thin upper band compared to the larger 7" one of the other 1943-onward style makes me hesitant to say it is one or the other.

 

For quite a large class of coaching stock they were incredibly camera-shy so without any hard evidence either way it is difficult to say.

While we keep searching for further evidence I'll see if I can draw up the post-war livery of the crest on its own that you mention - this is what I was wondering about in the previous post as GWW does say there were a lot of mixed liveries in this period.

 

 

I’m very much leaning towards the photo date being incorrect. It looks like a shirtbutton to me, plus I checked the GWR Journal article on the Bodmin Branch and there were indeed regular scheduled GWR services through to Wadebridge  in prenationalisation days. I’ve now also looked at the full picture we’re talking about, and it just looks more 1930s than 1950s to me, though I appreciate that’s completely subjective! The picture is at the top of this page of anyone else wants to see it:

http://www.gwr.org.uk/b-set-notes.html

 

I should have been more specific about the crest on its own - I haven’t actually seen it on a B-set specifically, from photos it’s most common on clerestory coaches in wartime/postwar all over chocolate brown, although I’m sure I’ve also seen it on non-clerestory coaches in chocolate and cream, but only with single lining. I’m afraid I’m away from my books at the moment so can’t provide an example of the latter at the moment. But as you say, there was considerable wartime/immediate postwar variety, including ‘Great Western’ with no crest in between. I’m sure I’ve read that the supply of transfers was short at times - certainly that old stocks of pre-shirtbutton ‘GWR’ were used before the post war sans serif version came into play. There’s a short article from the MRJ about wartime GWR liveries, I can send you a scan - it includes some detail on paints to use to capture the wartime reddish brown seen on the Kingsbridge B-set as noted above.

 

 

[BenL]

3 hours ago, gwrrob said:

 

Indeed and I have the rather nice Lionheart 7mm set in austerity brown. The writing on the solebar is something I've not seen before. This is a livery I hope Rapido do too.

 

 

 

I’m a big fan of this livery too and have long wanted some coaches sporting it. However I wonder if Lionheart got it a bit too chocolate, the brown used on steel sided passenger carrying stock usually seems to have been a more reddish-brown like the example from Didcot shown above and as modelled by @The Fatadder of this parish.
 

Having said that, while the MRJ article I mention above discusses this reddish brown and how to achieve it, it also shows a model of a steel-sided coach in all over chocolate brown with a shirtbutton, a livery I’ve never seen a photo of. From what I’ve gleaned from the well known sources and photos, all over chocolate brown seems to have been largely reserved for clerestories, parcels brake vans and short four wheel non-corridor coaches in workmen’s services, which had started to get this livery back in the 30s.

 

The joys of attempting to model the postwar GWR!

Edited December 1, 2022 by BenL