Wright writes.....

[Tony Wright]

Hope you don't mind me adding these to the mix:

 

 

 

and A4 

 

David,

 

A beautiful job on the A4, but 60018 is far too clean. At least for the time I saw it, at Retford in the late-'50s. I could hardly read the number.

 

Great work, though, and please post more. 

[coachmann]

It is my experience that most photos be they monochrome or colour were over-exposed by the photographer in order to record detail in the shadows. Then of course the people scanning the slides altered things to make them printable and this applies today when 'processing' images in photoshop. Unless a black loco is absolutely ex works then of course any variation from total black is bound to be grey or at least that is how it comes out on the printed page. But I stick by what I saw when I say I never saw a grey loco meaning the mid to light greys modellers use. I realise they are copying what they see in colour photos, but in fact the real world was much darker. The video camera is a good tool for showing what happens when one films a loco across the tracks then zooms in to show the nameplate.......The surrounding black or green goes much lighter because the camera meter goes for a mid-grey tone.  

 

Unless kept really clean, the average loco in steam days looked black to me from a distance and this applied to green loco as well. It is worth remembering that in BR days coloured locos were dark green or maroon.......None of yer bright colours we are used to seeing on Diesels and electrics. Close up and other colours were obvious but the only weathering colours that stood out from a distance were rusty cylinder covers and lime streak runs from washout plugs. I happen to believe weathering is an important part of scale modelling but that the various weathering colours should be subtle and 'feathered' in.

 

EDIT: I have just seen the 2-10-0 by davidw and that is what I mean about not seeing grey locos. His model looks right (taking into consideration slight overexposed) to me being in shades of brown, not grey. The A4 looks a treat too.

Edited September 20, 2015 by coachmann

[APOLLO]

Both Tony & Coach are correct in that steam locos back in the 60's certainly were filthy (most of em), black, grey, rusty and all shades in between.

 

The last Dub Dee I saw in steam was back on 7th Oct 1967, westbound on a goods train on a dank rainy Manchester Victoria. She certainly looked black, the picture I took is here amongst others on a trip to Holbeck, Normanton & Wakefield sheds. Plenty of grot on these shots.

 

http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/67100-apollos-grand-days-out/page-3

 

Holbeck had officially just closed to steam (30/9/67) but there were still loco's in steam knocking about as my pictures show. God knows where the dub-dee came from if it's (all ?) Yorkshire sheds were already "officially" closed to steam !!!

 

We all have fading memories, (and fading colour photos / slides !!). 1967 is nearly 50 years ago - (good god !!).

 

Tony's A1 60144 looks right. A mucky loco partially cleaned. Such loco's were common at that time on the few express types remaining (Jubs, Brits). I just think many a time an oily rag was rubbed over the dirt to make a loco respectable for the day, usually an enthusiast special as the end of steam approached.

 

I never travelled on an enthusiast special, the nearest I got was the 10-18 Leeds to Carlisle on a Saturday back in August 67. Jubilee Alberta was the train loco, nice and clean but not too sparkling, definitely not pristine "out of the box".

 

Weathering is an emotive subject, and is not an easy art (for me), although you can't really or over-do up a dub dee can you ?.

 

Brit15

[Chimer]

 By happy coincidence the oldest (just short of a ton!) member of the family with the railway bug was on the layout with me this morning, and reminded me that the only clean loco he saw growing up in Sheffield was an LNER pacific on a Pullman car special on the ex-GCR line, shortly before he was called up on the outbreak of war in Europe. He had once at much the same time seen an LMS 5XP which had been given enough of a cabside wipe to reveal the red paint beneath the filth, but never recalls seeing an all over red engine anywhere near Sheffield.

 

The journey South to the Medway in response to his call-up - for he was a Navy reservist - was a revelation, for while the freight engines were as grubby as ever on the LNER, there were mighty green locomotives surging along the ex-GN main line, a very unfamiliar sight to a Sheffield native. Scotland apparently had good things to offer in the 30s ; the family holidayed on the West Coast, and engines and carriages were often quite shiny by the time Fort William was approached from the South.

 

That would be down to the rain, presumably? 

[Mallard60022]

I think that could have been a  Manchester area DD. I believe they were doing some X Country turns about this time. However I could be talking out of my blowdown valve.

I also really like the 9F from David but I can't comment on the Streak other than in 1960/61 and '62 the Top Shed ones were kept beautifully turned out.

P

[The Stationmaster]

The real thing - first is 46200 in store (and in reality waiting to be condemned) at Upperby in 1963 and slightly lightened to bring up the detail and with no trace of rust except on the tyres,  Note however the rust on the adjacent 'crab' - but again a consequence of being in store and suffering a different kind of weathering from being in traffic.  Compare with 'Seagull' at York in 1959 - traces of brown road dirt, soot along the top but the rest is in various shades.  Both are Kodachrome originals - obviously old but stored out of daylight before scanning and suffering my amateurish attempts at photography (I were but a lad) but hopefully showing what 'dirt' could be like on well looked after engines.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[t-b-g]

A couple of recent posts illustrate just what I was trying to say very nicely. People's memories suggest that even at a given date, locos in different areas of operation and on different duties had quite different looks as far as cleaning and weathering are concerned.

 

Stationmaster's A4 photo illustrates very nicely that even allowing for the age of the photo and perhaps the lighting, the loco looks very dark indeed. You might even struggle to tell that it is green from an angle. One of the reasons for this is that although certainly not "Ex works" the paintwork on the boiler and the smokebox front have a shiny finish and are reflecting a good deal of light from the sky.

 

The cab roof and tender top on the other hand, are almost dead matt, or appear to be.

 

When somebody does that sort of thing on a model, rather than an overall coat of dead matt finish, that it can really lift it. Even on a filthy freight loco, there would be a bit of shiny oily finish round the slidebars and valve gear.

 

Tony

[Focalplane]

My memory is perhaps colored by the fact that I saw a few ex-works locos out of Crewe and of course the ill-fated City of Birmingham 46235 now condemned to the Stinktank*.  I now refuse to go there even though I have the fondest of memories when the Semi was installed in its own shed at the old Museum of Science and Industry (proper names were used back then!).  The curator at Stinktank* is on record as saying that the locomotive is unique in that it still has its 1960s coat of paint.  But after 50 years one has to wonder how original that paint now looks.

 

Memory says that top link locos should be clean while shunters and goods locos should be grimy.  Unless, of course, they arrived from Crewe, Derby or Swindon the day before yesterday.

 

The final days of steam were not celebrated by me.  I was studying at Southampton University in 1964/5, living in a hall of residence near the SR main line with Bullied pacifics passing all the time.  I never gave them a second glance knowing they were already condemned to be replaced by trains that had no locomotive at all.

 

* Stinktank is my name for the Thinktank "museum" in Eastside, Birmingham, a gimmicky place that will never come close in character and atmosphere to the old museum on Newhall Street.

[westerner]

I do agree with Tony< I prefer locos as I saw them.

 

 

 

 

and not just locos

 

 

I do have a few that have only done a few trips since their last overhaul Powis Castle having only picked up that layer of soot on top of the boiler.

 

[coachmann]

A couple of photos I took at York.The first is of a clearly well cleaned A1 no. 60125 Scottish Union on 30th May 1960....

 

A1 Bonnie Dundee below was rather more typical of Black Fives and Crabs than a top link loco, also taken at York but this time on 2nd August 1961....

 

It is not a statement on changing times.....It is probable this loco had been in traffic for much longer. Heck, they were magnificent machines the A1's. 

Edited September 20, 2015 by coachmann

[runs as required]

I am too young to remember "proper" steam. ...., although I do have memories of EAR articulated locos at Mombassa in something like 1966.

Tony

I enjoyed your reference to EAR red locos. Would you permit this 'Wheneye' story OT ?

 

I had quite a few building projects in the late 1960s in Tabora - a railway junction in central Tanzania  and the beautifully clean crimson lake steam locos were a huge distraction from my project management assignments.

Once a month I'd stay in the EAR Tabora hotel for a week - an extraordinary Bavarian summer palace built in 1914 on axis with the Railway station (steep north German stepped gables). The whole had been readied for the Kaiser to arrive in October 1914 to declare Tabora to be the future capital for Deutsches Ost Afrika. The last makeover it had was for Princess Elizabeth's stay - which likewise never happened after she'd heard at Treetops in Kenya of the death of her father George VI.

 

I was lucky enough to make friends with Big Ken from Horwich works who lived in the railway hotel (and had his own box of Manx kippers delivered by rail parcels once a month). A larger than life Lancashire character in the Fred Dibnah manner, he appeared to have responsibility for every aspect of the line onto the lakes. But his pride and joy was a rickety tower trolley which he would ride atop through floods with the Model T Ford engine puttering alongside, driving a chain that diappeared into the muddy waters below.

 

dhig

[runs as required]

OK - back OT

My memory is perhaps colored by the fact that I saw a few ex-works locos out of Crewe

Lunchtime on Shrewsbury station was where one could often admire ex-works locos out of Crewe, likewise the GC.Hayfield branch past the bottom of our school playing fields was the place to catch an apple green loco with a crowded footplate, ex-works Gorton, everyone enjoying a ight engine summers' day jaunt

 

But in response to Westerner's post #5840 about workaday GW locos, the Western locos one glimpsed while passing by Crewe South shed always appeared markedly cleaner than 'our own' LM familiars.

 

dhig

[t-b-g]

I enjoyed your reference to EAR red locos. Would you permit this 'Wheneye' story OT ?

 

I had quite a few building projects in the late 1960s in Tabora - a railway junction in central Tanzania  and the beautifully clean crimson lake steam locos were a huge distraction from my project management assignments.

Once a month I'd stay in the EAR Tabora hotel for a week - an extraordinary Bavarian summer palace built in 1914 on axis with the Railway station (steep north German stepped gables). The whole had been readied for the Kaiser to arrive in October 1914 to declare Tabora to be the future capital for Deutsches Ost Afrika. The last makeover it had was for Princess Elizabeth's stay - which likewise never happened after she'd heard at Treetops in Kenya of the death of her father George VI.

 

I was lucky enough to make friends with Big Ken from Horwich works who lived in the railway hotel (and had his own box of Manx kippers delivered by rail parcels once a month). A larger than life Lancashire character in the Fred Dibnah manner, he appeared to have responsibility for every aspect of the line onto the lakes. But his pride and joy was a rickety tower trolley which he would ride atop through floods with the Model T Ford engine puttering alongside, driving a chain that diappeared into the muddy waters below.

 

dhig

 

What lovely memories to have and thanks for sharing them.

 

I was only about 6 years old at the time but I can remember my Dad (who is entirely responsible for my lifelong interest in railways) showing me a spotless red Garratt, lined out in black and yellow/cream and as near to what I now know to be LMS livery as I can tell. Perhaps the Horwich connection you mention explains why that might have been!

 

I can remember that Dad then made me count the wheels on the Garratt and also on a tank loco with lots of wheels. I counted it as an 0-10-4 but looking up the classes later I now think it was probably a 2-8-4T with the leading pony well hidden behind the cylinders and motion. It was of German origin (possibly by Henschel) and I remember Dad telling me it was the station pilot. I thought this was odd as dad was in the RAF and there was no sign of the big engine ever flying anywhere. I managed to count one side and then he made me do it again as I had forgotten the ones on the other side.

 

We were only there for a few hours but some pictures in my mind have stayed with me to this day as clear as if it was a week ago. One thing I can't remember for sure is if it was Mombassa (where we stayed) or Nairobi (where we travelled to).

[newbryford]

Whilst on loco weathering.

My attempt at a WD (about 20 years ago... apologies for the dodgy pics) A DJH kit complete with Romford wheels and etched overlays.

 

 

 

And further apologies for including a diesel.

 

 

 

Cheers,

Mick

 

 

Edited September 20, 2015 by newbryford

[Mallard60022]

Whilst on loco weathering.

My attempt at a WD (about 20 years ago... apologies for the dodgy pics) A DJH kit complete with Romford wheels and etched overlays.

 

90561_01.jpg

 

90561_03.jpg

 

And further apologies for including a diesel.

60044c.jpg

 

60044ca.jpg

 

 

Cheers,

Mick

Mr. Shackelton would admire both of those, but the diesel in particular. Lovely (even though I don't really like diesels very much).

Phil

[Tony Wright]

A couple of photos I took at York.The first is of a clearly well cleaned A1 no. 60125 Scottish Union on 30th May 1960....

WEB A1 York B.jpg

 

A1 Bonnie Dundee below was rather more typical of Black Fives and Crabs than a top link loco, also taken at York but this time on 2nd August 1961....

WEB A1 York A.jpg

 

It is not a statement on changing times.....It is probable this loco had been in traffic for much longer. Heck, they were magnificent machines the A1's. 

Thanks Larry. 

 

Was I standing next to you when you took these pictures? 

 

I have a query. Are you sure the shot of 60125 was taken in 1960? It's got a speedo (which the A1s began to be equipped with from the March of 1960) and electric warning flashes. It's the latter point I query. All my research (it could be flawed) suggests that the flashes were not fitted to ER/NER/ScR locos of LNER origin until 1961. This usually helps when dating pictures. For instance (as far as my research goes) all the A4s had them by the end of 1961 (but not in 1960), with the exception of 60002, 60011 and 60031. 2 and 31 got them by 1963, but 11 was never thus fitted. 

 

And, 60159's condition dispels the myth that Haymarket's Pacifics were always in spotless condition. Interestingly, she doesn't have electric warning flashes. 

 

I'm often given pictures such as these by Irwell to pass some (usually inane) comments on, usually along the lines of where? What? When? Why? In any order. I'd put the date for 60125 as 1961 (but not much later, because she's still got the smokebox door hand rail in one piece), obviously at York and suggest she's about to come off her train. Why? Because she carries a light engine code and is in full forward gear. In the case of 60159, I'd say the same year, but in this case she's just backed onto her train (which is empty stock) because she's still in reverse gear. Or, that she's arrived on an empty stock set and the driver is just setting back to uncouple. 

 

It's well known that readers of my scribblings down the years have very little trouble in getting off to sleep!

 

Edited to correct my punctuation!

Edited September 21, 2015 by Tony Wright

[westerner]

dhig,

 

I would agree that most "namers" were kept pretty clean, hence the Castle. but by the early 60's a lot of locos looked fairly filthy. By the way all of my weathering is done from photos.

 

A couple more in pretty clean state. Dinmore Manor and County of Gloucester

 

 

[coachmann]

Thanks Larry. 

 

Was I standing next to you when you took these pictures? 

 

I have a query. Are you sure the shot of 60125 was taken in 1960?

 

You are correct in that the 1960 date should be May 1961. I enlisted the help of Mary and she told me I went to York on my own in May 1961 during our 'honeymoon' break whereas our 1960 visit was in the middle of Winter 'cos she remembers me leaving her close to a brazier that was stopping a water crane from freezing over!

 

I seem to recall there were parcels coaches in the train and 60159 was coming off at the time, so good detective work there Tony. 

[glo41f]

Hi Chaps

 

To my way of thinking, the weathered models displayed here are far more evocative of the steam locos I remember than the shiny examples we see on model railways. However, weathering is often used to disguise an otherwise none too good model making it worse in my eyes. (In evidence m'lud I cite the GW Grange weathered by Chris Leigh in one of the Model Rail videos). I was visiting a major preserved line last week and even the well polished performers there had areas where the cleaners had not gone and there were notable bumps dents and scratches on the engines. Some of the examples shown here are really top drawer and all credit to the wizards who have painted them. It all goes to emphasise Tony that you must do something about the very clean track beds on LB! Perhaps the project for the winter?

 

Martin Long

[polybear]

.......whereas our 1960 visit was in the middle of Winter 'cos she remembers me leaving her close to a brazier that was stopping a water crane from freezing over!

 

 

You're such a romantic, Coach.....

[Focalplane]

Hi Chaps

 

To my way of thinking, the weathered models displayed here are far more evocative of the steam locos I remember than the shiny examples we see on model railways. However, weathering is often used to disguise an otherwise none too good model making it worse in my eyes. (In evidence m'lud I cite the GW Grange weathered by Chris Leigh in one of the Model Rail videos). I was visiting a major preserved line last week and even the well polished performers there had areas where the cleaners had not gone and there were notable bumps dents and scratches on the engines. Some of the examples shown here are really top drawer and all credit to the wizards who have painted them. It all goes to emphasise Tony that you must do something about the very clean track beds on LB! Perhaps the project for the winter?

 

Martin Long

 

I could just press the Agree button, because I agree with the comment above that says if you weather one part of a model railway you should weather the rest to match.  I have, somewhere, a photo of a Manor at Bridgenorth looking pristine in a very coaly, sooty, oily backdrop.  Even the enginemen were suitably weathered to match their surroundings.

 

But there always was something about an ex-works and well maintained locomotive back in the early/mid 1950s, regardless of the surrounding ambience.  I would suggest that the weathering should emphasize the backdrop, allowing those top link locos to show off a bit!

 

To this effect I would think that the early British Railways era (lion on wheel logo) would be the better time to model post war steam.

 

One thing mentioned a few weeks ago is that even on a shiny well maintained loco the smokebox is invariably dull.

[Tony Wright]

Hi Chaps

 

To my way of thinking, the weathered models displayed here are far more evocative of the steam locos I remember than the shiny examples we see on model railways. However, weathering is often used to disguise an otherwise none too good model making it worse in my eyes. (In evidence m'lud I cite the GW Grange weathered by Chris Leigh in one of the Model Rail videos). I was visiting a major preserved line last week and even the well polished performers there had areas where the cleaners had not gone and there were notable bumps dents and scratches on the engines. Some of the examples shown here are really top drawer and all credit to the wizards who have painted them. It all goes to emphasise Tony that you must do something about the very clean track beds on LB! Perhaps the project for the winter?

 

Martin Long

Thanks Martin,

 

Picking up on a few things.............

 

Too clean track beds on Little Bytham? I agree, in overall views it looks too uniform. 

 

 

My apologies for this picture having appeared before, but it does illustrate the patchwork nature of the permanent way, particularly in steam days. Ironically, the actual track was inspected more (on a daily basis) at the time of this picture being taken (1956/'57) than in more recent years. Of course, there was much more track, a lot of it (like some of the cross-overs and sidings) hardly used. There was also the ever-present steam loco to dribble mess all over the place. 

 

 

And, the model 'equivalent' picture. Again, I've used this before but not to mention the ballast/trackbed. Despite its overall excellence, Norman Solomon's ballasting, it could be argued, is too uniform.

 

 

 

Once more a comparative pair of views (apologies again for their re-appearance), showing how much needs to be done to make the appearance of the trackbed more 'natural'. 

 

 

 

I have started, 'distressing' areas in the vicinity of the signal box (along with starting the point rodding). Most Down stopping passenger trains used the fast road, and I imagine, as they got away, the locos would dribble oil and dirty water on the ballast. They might have even slipped, for it was uphill. I've had a go at the Down sidings as well, but there is much more to do. 

 

 

Returning to weathering, how could I have forgotten Geoff Kent? A master of the craft if ever there was one, and a master-builder too. 

 

 

Finally, I've been asked to caption some pictures of Birmingham New Street. They were taken in 1957/'58, and there are some two dozen shots. With one exception, every loco is filthy (the exception being a 3F newly displaying the later-style BR device) - Jubs, Pats, Mickeys, various tanks; all filthy, which rather dispels the myth that BR steam in the '50s was cleaner than a decade later. The stock is cleaner (though not a pair of antiquated non-gangwayed LMS carriages), particularly the brand-new DMUs. But, who would produce a loco like this, with the last digit gone (where?). It's LLANDUDNO, by the way.

 

As for locos with dirty smokeboxes, the opposite was often true. Smokeboxes tended to wear out before boilers, and many's the time I've seen what appears to be an ex-works loco approaching, only too find that all it's got is a new smokebox. Shining clean on the front of a grubby loco.  

[peach james]

As one of the last who can claim _working_ steam experience, the answer is it depends on what manpower there is available.  We last painted out the engine room and boiler room in 2008, when we had latex paint to put on the lagging.  It had gotten progressively dirtier over the following 3 years, until we were looking for paint to do it again in 2011 before the refit.  I don't believe it ever got painted out again, and clean depended on people willing to take care of where they worked.  I had my areas reasonably clean, but why clean if you can sleep instead, and why paint if you had _actual_ work to get done, like drilling out broken studs, or fixing leaking pipes.  (or looking for R134A leaks, which I spent an inordinate amount of time looking for...)

 

So, clean depends on having cleaners to do the work.  There are valid reasons to clean steam engines, for me I find it a good way to check the state of the engine, and make sure that all the bits are where they are supposed to be.  (amazingly, they don't always stay put !).  Little Johnny (my 4" Fowler model) has a loose bolt on the valve chest cover, which I found on Sunday afternoon. 

 

Smokeboxs can be hard to keep paint on.  Even now, it can be hard to keep paint on, and it definitely will be a different colour than the rest of the boiler if it is painted in the same paint.  It's hard to keep paint on at 800+F

 

James

[coachmann]

Just to add what Tony said about smoke boxes, at Newton Heath at least, the boxes got a regular dose of paint or whatever it was. It doesn't look right on a model. Re. track colouring, he steam loco dropped water, steam and ash and together with the rail contributed to giving ballast a regular tan that steadily got darker. But when the diesel came along, and in particular the hydraulic, track started to appear black along regular oil runs and station stops. This effect was particularly noticeable in the West Country.

Edited September 21, 2015 by coachmann

[Focalplane]

If you spent a lot of time at New Street Station you would be grubby too! I know because me Mam told me so.