BR Station Colours in the 70s?

[Binky]

Was there a standard colour scheme for station buildings in the BR blue era? If so what colours were doors, windowframes, ironwork and platform canopies painted? Thanks

[VIA185]

The simple answer is, 'No.' The Corporate Image specified that 'house colours' (Rail Blue etc) were not to be used on buildings. This was in order that historic structures could receive colour schemes best suited to the architecture. However, types and styles and positions of signing would certainly be of specified pattern and would comply with the Corporate Image. One of the first station schemes that I recall seeing ,at the time, envisaged a white (presumably enamelled or plastic) strip right round the building about 10-12ft off the ground, with the station name at intervals, on the platform side, in the new Rail alphabet. While it might have worked on SR art deco stations it clearly wasn't going fit or suit many older designs and accordingly it was dropped early on. That said, on the Western Region a lot of two-tone grey was used on buildings, while in line with convention, most window frames and glazing bars were white. (CJL)

Edited February 9 by VIA185
added info

[Goldhawk]

11 hours ago, Binky said:

Was there a standard colour scheme for station buildings in the BR blue era? If so what colours were doors, windowframes, ironwork and platform canopies painted? Thanks

l don’t think there was ever such a thing as a rigid standard colour scheme for stations but there were a lot of what might be described as “typical”.

The painting scheme for small to medium station might be -

Black for ironwork, metal fencing, door and door frames, window frames, platform seats and lamps.

Pale cream was used for the undersides of canopies and canopy valencing, timber buildings and fencing.

White for window sashes and glazing bars.

Edited February 9 by Goldhawk
Punctuation error.

[melmoth]

I certainly don't wish to contradict someone as knowledgeable as @VIA185 but my 1980ish schoolboy memory insists that a lot of the doors and doorframes at Aberystwyth were painted in a gloss equivalent of Rail Blue.

 

My memory could, quite obviously, be wrong.

[Wheatley]

There were painting schedules and then there was what happened. The official schedule (on the ER and LMR at least) was mushroom grey (no idea what the real name was, pale grey with a bit of brown in it) with white window and door frames, and black doors, ironwork, downpipes etc. 

 

When Appleby was painted that colour the then Railman (Paul Holden) repainted it maroon and cream off his own bat and got carpetted for it, but it stayed maroon and cream. He got his own back as Line Manager under Regional Railways when a quiet word with the Works Supervisor across the yard ensured that everything else between Hellifield and Howe & Co was painted maroon and cream to match, rather than whatever colour RRNE though we should be painting it. (My request to paint one box white with the blue dash things down one corner was refused). 

 

Many many things got painted with something someone had left over, so Rail Blue doors would only need someone to know where to pick up a half used tin. 

Edited February 9 by Wheatley

[Tom Burnham]

As I recall, timber buildings on the SE Division of Southern Region were in almost white with almost black doors and other trim.  Not very inviting, and not particularly historic either.

[Nearholmer]

Yes, the Southern standard in the 1970s was effectively black and white, and on some stations is seemed to work well, and on others very definitely not, some of that being down to the individual in-charge, and how much “picking out” they did in the two colours, I think To my recollection there was some variation in the colour of doors, in that at some stations they were black, but at others either post-box red, or a mid olive/bronze green.

 

If you hunt out Derek Hayward’s website (findable by his name), he’s assembled a very good gallery of East Sussex stations, which includes a lot of colour photos taken during the 1970s.

 

The other thing to bear in mind is that repainting took an awful long time. Some Southern stations were still in very worn-out green and cream until the early 1980s, with old signage in place. Deptford is one I recall being re-signed very late, maybe 1982, and I don’t think it got a lick of paint until then either. Tunbridge Wells West was re-signed IIRC, but the booking hall was in glorious green and cream, in very good order due to lack of use, when it closed (and still gas-not-very-well-lit).

 

 

Edited February 9 by Nearholmer

[VIA185]

9 hours ago, melmoth said:

I certainly don't wish to contradict someone as knowledgeable as @VIA185 but my 1980ish schoolboy memory insists that a lot of the doors and doorframes at Aberystwyth were painted in a gloss equivalent of Rail Blue.

 

My memory could, quite obviously, be wrong.

You may well be right. There were many 'interpretations' of the Corporate Image on rolling stock, and there was even less supervision over buildings, so I'm sure there were places which didn't follow the official plan. After all, the important thing was that places were painted and smart. (CJL)

 

[Wheatley]

To be honest, unless you painted it bright red it's unlikely anyone would object, Paul only got told off because some panjandran had made a special trip out from Preston to see it and arrived to find the last bit being painted out. 

 

Then Chris Green painted the entire south east bright red. 

 

[adb968008]

Plenty of BR blue doors and window frames around the north west, especially glazing with wire squares in it.

 

i think a lot of wooden pre fab was painted blue / white that way too.

Edited February 9 by adb968008

[31A]

7 hours ago, Wheatley said:

The official schedule (on the ER and LMR at least) was mushroom grey (no idea what the real name was, pale grey with a bit of brown in it) with white window and door frames, and black doors, ironwork, downpipes etc. 

 

Mushroom grey, black and white is certainly what I remember from the Eastern Region in the 1970s / early 1980s.

[Steamport Southport]

BR blue and white was common around here in the NW, and lots of stuff that looked like it hadn't seen a coat of paint since steam days!

 

I can still remember seeing maroon and cream station signs well into the 1970s.

 

Wigan Wallgate 1976 is typical of what I remember

 

Geoffrey Skelsey via Wiki

 

Couple of other photos show similar

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wigan_Wallgate_railway_station

 

 

 

Jason

Edited February 9 by Steamport Southport

[Andy Kirkham]

I think I remember this apricot colour on several stations in the Westcountry, as seen here at Newquay in 1974

 

 

[31A]

This is the mushroom grey / black / white that I was thinking of.  Admittedly it's a signal box, but the same colours were used on stations:

 

 

[Flying Pig]

Red doors at Lincoln St Marks, just before closure in 1985 (but I doubt they had been repainted recently).  As I recall the doors at the front entrance (just behind the props holding the portico up) were also red.  Was this a local oddity?

[Michael Hodgson]

I recall working for 3 days at Great Malvern in the early 1970s where the station had an excellent paint job, all the fancy ironwork on platform canopies etc had been carefully picked out in different colours, this was at a time when other stations just got a simple coat of whatever was fashionable.  I was told it had been done unoffically by the station staff themselves during quiet periods, the paint was said to have "fallen off the back of a train".

 

[Wheatley]

Off topic a bit but I repainted the lever frame (the correct colours because lever colours have never been a free for all !) at Huddersfield Junction in 1988 in between trains. The S&T went ballistic because "that was their job" and I don't think my cocky teenage reply that I'd yet to see them paint anything helped much. 

 

A couple of days later our Area Inspector informed me they'd made an official complaint to the AOM, and dropped off a tin of locking bar blue to finish the job. 

[Will Crompton]

In the 70s I remember a lot of stations painted in Pantone grim no. 66.

[MidlandRed]

Architecture and Signposting is covered in Section 3 of the Corporate Identity Manual (July 1965). Some of the history (including that pre 1965) is covered in British Rail Designed 1948-97 - David Lawrence. The signposting covered in the 1965 manual is shown in some detail in that book. Architectural colours and signposting pre 1965 are referred to and tend to be based on regions, which in some cases are carried forward from previous companies. 

[Nearholmer]

What does the manual have to say about painting stations? I’m guessing whatever it says is very broad-brush(!) leaving the regions to decide from the standard colour palette.

 

 

 

Edited February 11 by Nearholmer