LMS GUV BR Liveries

[Rick_Skateboard]

Hello All,

 

Were any of the LMS GUVs painted in BR maroon with lining, like passenger stock?  Lima seem to have made the model in that livery, but I can't actually find any pictures of real examples like that.

 

 

Cheers

 

Rick

 

[Wickham Green too]

Difficult to tell under the dirt - innit !!?!

[The Johnster]

My memory tells me that these vehicles did indeed appear in lined maroon livery after 1959, but I wouldn't state that to be necessarily correct.  It is in theory, though; the liveries were 1948 1st Jan - 31st May, LMS with no LMS branding, M-prefix numbers in LMS style, June 1948 - 1956 livery change, unlined crimson or crimson & cream, 1956 - 1959, unlined maroon, 1959 - 1966, lined maroon, post 1966 rail blue.  The M suffixes to the running numbers were introduced in 1950 when the first mk1 stock appeared, in order to prevent number duplication.  These are the dates the livery changes were authorised, and of course on each occasion the change took a long time to work through the scheduled overhauls which were when the vehicles were repainted, which were ISTR every seven years.  This is unlike modern practice where branding is important and some livery alterations are simply stickyback/peel off transfers.  No doubt there were some GUVs that went straight from pre-1959 unlined maroon to post-1966 Rail Blue.

 

It means that relatively few vehicles would be painted in the first scheme, LMS style, and that late LMS liveried could be seen in service up to 1954, thought becoming less common.  Some vehicles missed out altogether on the 1956-59 and 59-66 liveries and those painted in the 1948-56 schemes could have been repainted in crimson after being painted in custard/cream, or vice versa.  

 

This is of course a summary of coaching stock BR livery until sectorisation, except that from 1956 until 1962, some WR stock (mk1s, some GW restaurant cars, and some Hawksworth slip coaches) for named trains was painted in a choc/cream livery based on GW practice, and from 1956 until 1966 SR coaching stock of all types appeared in malachite green.  In the early 1960s, the SR 'borrowed' WR mk1 BGs in choc/cream livery to run with the 'Bournmouth Belle' Pullman.  We are drifting OT now, so I'll stop; I can hear Nurse coming with the nice pills...

Edited September 15, 2023 by The Johnster

[Wheatley]

Ive always assumed they did, but now I've come to actually look I don't know ! 

 

Tatlow, 'Historic Carriage Drawings vol 3' - photo of 37759 in 1951, livery stated as "BR Carmine" with lining clearly visible. A The lining looks to be BR to me (yellow/black) rather than the LMS yellow/black/yellow so I'll stick my neck out and suggest it wasn't just LMS lined maroon with a new number. 

 

Jenkinson & Essery, 'LMS Standard Coaching Stock vol1', M44315M in 'plain BR red' in 1965. Clean enough to read the number, no lining visible. It's the aeroplane van version with the high roof but same body. 

 

Gamble, 'Railways in profile No6' - M37759M in maroon in 1959, clean enough to read the number at the far end, no lining visible. 

 

If they were anything like other BR era  NPCCS it probably depended which works painted it last !

 

Edited September 19, 2023 by Wheatley

[Steamport Southport]

I think it's a case of they should have been. But what did happen was not always the same.

 

They were often used as luggage vans for things like Boat Trains and expresses.

 

The early built LMS ones were even fully lined out as if they were panelled. Wouldn't fancy trying to replicate that!

 

https://www.lmssociety.org.uk/topics/npcs.shtml

 

 

 

Jason

[Cwmtwrch]

"Modelling Railways Illustrated"  of Jan-Feb 1994 p139 has a colour picture of M37764M in unlined crimson at Sidmouth in 6/1960.

 

The picture in Tatlow Vol. 3 referred to above shows the load limit in the bottom RH corner in what appears to be italic script, which was LMS practice, rather than the block capitals which were BR practice, and looks too long for the BR version of the wording. The lining matches neither the final LMS practice, nor the later BR practice. However, it does match the lining on the BR crimson and cream livery, and there are some early BR photos of matching lining on some non-corridor coaches repainted at Swindon in crimson soon after Nationalisation, so I wonder if 'authority' had a quick change of mind about lining out plain crimson stock?

Edited September 19, 2023 by Cwmtwrch

[bécasse]

5 minutes ago, Cwmtwrch said:

However, it does match the lining on the BR crimson and cream livery, and there are some early BR photos of matching lining on some non-corridor coaches repainted at Swindon in crimson soon after Nationalisation, so I wonder if 'authority' had a quick change of mind about lining out plain crimson stock?

The quick answer to that is undoubtedly yes. It wasn't just Swindon that lined the earliest repaints of non-corridor bogie stock into BR red, so far as I have been able to establish all the works concerned did it and I assume that bogie NPCS received the lining too. Judging by the scarcity of photos of lined red vehicles, the practice ceased very rapidly although at the time the repainting of non-corridor vehicles was probably well down the priority list anyway. Perhaps the majority of non-corridor stock in service at that time was panelled and photographs show the lining was placed through the centre of the waist panelling where it looked awful. I have always assumed that that was the major reason why the practice of lining red vehicles was abandoned. Interestingly, when the colour changed to maroon in 1956 non-corridor vehicles didn't receive lining initially but practices changed again, perhaps because panelled vehicles disappeared rapidly with the onset of dmus, and lining reappeared in due course. It can make identifying paint schemes in photos difficult but if a vehicle in a photo has waist-lining and the painted number at the left-hand end it is in red, not the later maroon.

[Cwmtwrch]

Thank you. I thought that with two regions doing it the others very probably were too, except perhaps the SR, but didn't have the evidence. The waist lining on maroon was three lines [black - gold or yellow - black], where as on crimson it was two lines only [black - gold or yellow], so it is possible to differentiate between the two given a reasonable quality photo.

[Wickham Green too]

The Southern Region certainly didn't use waist lining on their own - wooden bodied - NPCS and it's unlikely they would have painted anything for the other regions ........ except Lot 30023 for six (!) BGs built at Eastleigh in 1951 ( presumed red & cream ).

 

Minehead : 11/6/23

[Steamport Southport]

I didn't think they were even painted. Just covered in forty years of grime....

 

 

 

Jason

[Hal Nail]

2 hours ago, Cwmtwrch said:

 [black - gold or yellow - black]

actually it was yellow/gold - black - yellow/gold!

 

the below link gives dates of 1949 to 1951 for the lining on early crimson on the Western region. With coach repaints often quoted as every 7 years, that would limit how many passed through the works in the 2 year window when lining was happening. I don't know how much variation there was between regions but I didn't think much earlier on?

 

http://www.gwr.org.uk/liveriescoach1948.html

 

4th pic down here looks like it is in lined crimson in 1950?

 

https://www.steve-banks.org/m/prototype-and-traffic/167-parcels-traffic-in-br-days

 

There is another one that is clearly lined much further down at Aylesbury but it is undated and you cant blow the pic up to see clearly. I think it might still be in LMS?

 

Edited September 20, 2023 by Hal Nail
spelling

[Cwmtwrch]

Oooops...

[bécasse]

3 hours ago, Hal Nail said:

actually it was yellow/gold - black - yellow/gold!

 

the below link gives dates of 1949 to 1951 for the lining on early crimson on the Western region. With coach repaints often quoted as every 7 years, that would limit how many passed through the works in the 2 year window when lining was happening. I don't know how much variation there was between regions but I didn't think much earlier on?

 

http://www.gwr.org.uk/liveriescoach1948.html

 

4th pic down here looks like it is in lined crimson in 1950?

 

No, that 4th picture shows a brake end in the lined maroon livery. I am not quite sure when lining started to be applied to non-corridor (and presumably NPCS) but certainly early post-1956 repaints in maroon were unlined. If a non-corridor or NPCS vehicle was lined and had the painted numbers at the right-hand end it was in maroon, but if the painted numbers were at the left-hand end it was in red/crimson.

 

As I have suggested above lined non-corridor vehicles in red/crimson were extremely rare, either very few were repainted during the two year period when officially the lining should apparently have been applied (which isn't impossible) or works decided that the lining looked so awful on panelled stock that they left the lining off of their own accord and the official 1952 instruction merely reflected what was already happening out in the sticks. Leaving lining off would have been an easy decision for works to take as it would have saved work at a time when many/most were struggling with staff shortages.

[Hal Nail]

29 minutes ago, bécasse said:

No, that 4th picture shows a brake end in the lined maroon livery. .

If you mean the E157 that's the wrong link. Try the steve banks one.

 

The only crimson stock I've definitely seen lined was the AEC parcels railcar.

 

All a bit off topic given the OP was asking about maroon but of interest anyway I think!

Edited September 20, 2023 by Hal Nail

[Cwmtwrch]

The change to maroon is dated to March 1956 onwards in "BR mark 1 Coaches", and the start of lining on non-corridor coaches to 1959. There are some complications, in that some BR BGs were built in unlined crimson, rather than lined crimson and cream, and these continued to lack lining in maroon, at least initially. Similar comments apply to some ex-GWR, ex-LNER and ex-LMSR BGs. Most NPCCS were not lined in maroon, as far as I know, although BR CCTs and GUVs generally were, apart from those in SR green and the prototypes, which were pre-1956 and so unlined crimson when built, as were Royal Mail vehicles. There were other exceptions, such as ER covered car carriers, so I can't say Lima were wrong.

[Rick_Skateboard]

Thanks to everyone who's taken the time to reply.  I think on closer inspection one photo I was looking at I was mistaking the beading for lining, and on another it was actually LMS livery that had survived into the BR era.  Given the lack of solid evidence for a lined GUV in BR livery I will just go for plain maroon or crimson when it come to painting my one.

 

Cheers

 

Rick

Edited September 22, 2023 by Rick_Skateboard