BR(W) Steam Loco Livery 1948-64

[The Johnster]

Not always easy to be sure with black & white photos (and some colour ones), is it?  In this case it is at least partly because the smokebox, which gets pretty hot in use, has weathered differently to the rest of the loco, as often happens.  On reasonably clean black liveried locos, the smokebox is usually a much flatter finish than the rest, and on dirty locos one sometimes sees cleaner smokeboxes which have got so bad they’ve been repainted at the shed.  

[Gilwell Park]

Hi. Not sure if this is the right place to ask this question, but here goes.  I have the Fox Transfer sheet FHR 4000/15, 2 pairs of "BRITISH RAILWAYS" in GW style lettering.

 

One pair is red/yellow with black shading. The other pair is red/yellow with black lining out.

 

I assume, but may be wrong, that the red/yellow could be used on black or green locos but that the pair with black lining out should be used on green locos, otherwise most of the lining would be invisible.

 

Confirmation would be welcome.

 

Thanks, Roger.

[Phil Bullock]

On 18/04/2013 at 21:48, Coach bogie said:

There are several others I am aware of. 4628,8792,6733,9710, 7428 all still carrying GWR by late 50's early 60's. 4628 went for scrap still with GWR in 1964.

 

Mike Wiltshire

Am surprised 4628 hadn’t come on to my radar Mike… she was a Worcester loco 1960 until withdrawal in 1964, here she is on shed in 1962, Colour- rail picture

 

4628 on shed

[Miss Prism]

On 25/02/2023 at 21:32, Gilwell Park said:

I assume, but may be wrong, that the red/yellow could be used on black or green locos but that the pair with black lining out should be used on green locos, otherwise most of the lining would be invisible.

 

I got sent a pic that illustrates this.

 

 

I have not noticed the lower set (with the extra black perimeter and a reduced yellow volume), at least on ex-GWR locos/tenders, even those in green. I'll try to keep an eye out for further pics.

 

It could be a non-Swindon variant.

 

Fox are generally trustworthy, so they must have got the lower style from somewhere.

 

[K14]

1 hour ago, Miss Prism said:

 

I got sent a pic that illustrates this.

 

 

I have not noticed the lower set (with the extra black perimeter and a reduced yellow volume), at least on ex-GWR locos/tenders, even those in green. I'll try to keep an eye out for further pics.

 

It could be a non-Swindon variant.

 

Fox are generally trustworthy, so they must have got the lower style from somewhere.

 

 

It doesn't show up in photos as the black keyline is only 1/16" for the 5" lettering & 1/8" for the later 9".

 

I don't know if the BR variant was hand painted or if transfers were manufactured. If they were hand-painted, there's a sporting chance that the black keyline was omitted as it's a right fiddle to do. GW transfers certainly had it - see surviving originals on 4003, 4073, 2516  & 9400.

 

Pete S.

[Rugd1022]

I've just been having a skim through P.B. Whitehouse's book 'The Early Years Of Western Region Steam - An Album Of P.M. Alexander's Photographs' which covers the 1948-52 period, here are some general observations, with a definite nod to the ''it ain't half hard to tell what you're looking at in an old black and white photo guvnor...'' cliche :

 

1027 'County Of Stafford' at Sonning on 15/8/49 with 'British Railways' Egyptian style on the tender, applied / painted slightly higher than normal. Very difficult to tell whether the loco is black or green.

 

6977 'Grundisburgh Hall' at Reading in 8/51, loco appears to be in unlined black (difficult to be 100% sure!), has no smokebox number plate but has its number painted on the front buffer beam, 'British Railways' Egyptian style on the lined green tender.

 

4176 at Exeter St.Davids on 26/3/50 in MT lined black and large early crest.

 

6025 'King Henry III' on Dainton Bank on 25/3/50 in Royal blue livery (it looks very dark in the photo) with what looks like plain 'British Railways' font on the tender.

 

6024 'King Edward I' near Totnes on 14/9/50 in what *might* be Royal blue, but it doesn't appear to have any lining and there is nothing visible on the tender.

 

7225 passing through Bath Spa on 8/7/49 in what looks like filthy black wit h'British Railways Egyptian style on the tank sides.

 

4017 'Knight Of Liege' at Bath Spa on 14/8/49 in what looks like plain green or black with 'British Railways' Egyptian style on the tender. The shading on the 'British Railways' looks very dark.

 

1005 'County Of Devon' at Temple Meads on 20/5/48 in lined green with 'G   -crest-   W' on the tender.

 

2920 'Saint David' in an undated shot going up Sapperton bank in MT lined black with red name and number plates.

 

6811 'Cranbourne Grange' at Severn Tunnel Junction on 9/10/48 in what looks like grubby plain black with nothing visible at all on the tender.

 

4941 'Llangedwyn Hall' at Newport on 10/9/50 in what looks like plain black with nothing visible at all on the tender.

 

5711 at Talyllyn Junction in 8/50 in grubby black with small BR crest and red number plates.

 

The book itself is well worth seeking out, the photos are very evocative of the period and the mixture of Collett and Hawksworth coaching stock is very apparent. I picked my copy up for £2.60!

 

 

 

 

[Hal Nail]

2 hours ago, Rugd1022 said:

The book itself is well worth seeking out

 

I picked my copy up for £2.60!

Just shelled out 5 quid so it had better be good :)

[Rugd1022]

I'm going to dig out the trusty Bradford Barton GW albums over the weekend and go through the lot, there are bound to be some interesting examples worthy of this thread 😉

 

 

[Steamport Southport]

On 14/07/2023 at 16:45, Rugd1022 said:

I've just been having a skim through P.B. Whitehouse's book 'The Early Years Of Western Region Steam - An Album Of P.M. Alexander's Photographs' which covers the 1948-52 period, here are some general observations, with a definite nod to the ''it ain't half hard to tell what you're looking at in an old black and white photo guvnor...'' cliche :

 

1027 'County Of Stafford' at Sonning on 15/8/49 with 'British Railways' Egyptian style on the tender, applied / painted slightly higher than normal. Very difficult to tell whether the loco is black or green.

 

6977 'Grundisburgh Hall' at Reading in 8/51, loco appears to be in unlined black (difficult to be 100% sure!), has no smokebox number plate but has its number painted on the front buffer beam, 'British Railways' Egyptian style on the lined green tender.

 

4176 at Exeter St.Davids on 26/3/50 in MT lined black and large early crest.

 

6025 'King Henry III' on Dainton Bank on 25/3/50 in Royal blue livery (it looks very dark in the photo) with what looks like plain 'British Railways' font on the tender.

 

6024 'King Edward I' near Totnes on 14/9/50 in what *might* be Royal blue, but it doesn't appear to have any lining and there is nothing visible on the tender.

 

7225 passing through Bath Spa on 8/7/49 in what looks like filthy black wit h'British Railways Egyptian style on the tank sides.

 

4017 'Knight Of Liege' at Bath Spa on 14/8/49 in what looks like plain green or black with 'British Railways' Egyptian style on the tender. The shading on the 'British Railways' looks very dark.

 

1005 'County Of Devon' at Temple Meads on 20/5/48 in lined green with 'G   -crest-   W' on the tender.

 

2920 'Saint David' in an undated shot going up Sapperton bank in MT lined black with red name and number plates.

 

6811 'Cranbourne Grange' at Severn Tunnel Junction on 9/10/48 in what looks like grubby plain black with nothing visible at all on the tender.

 

4941 'Llangedwyn Hall' at Newport on 10/9/50 in what looks like plain black with nothing visible at all on the tender.

 

5711 at Talyllyn Junction in 8/50 in grubby black with small BR crest and red number plates.

 

The book itself is well worth seeking out, the photos are very evocative of the period and the mixture of Collett and Hawksworth coaching stock is very apparent. I picked my copy up for £2.60!

 

 

 

 

 

Without looking at the photo I would expect it to be green as it was brand new in March 1947. I can't see them repainting it black until it got lined BR Black.

 

 

Jason

[The Johnster]

3 hours ago, Steamport Southport said:

 

Without looking at the photo I would expect it to be green as it was brand new in March 1947. I can't see them repainting it black until it got lined BR Black.

 

 

Jason

 

Are we talking about County of Stafford at Sonning 15/8/49?  A 1947-built County should have been painted when new in fully lined out GW green (cabside lining carried above the cab side window), along with Castles and Kings, during that period, with the tender branded in the G crest W style.  A tender with Egyptian style 'BRITISH RAILWAYS' lettering must therefore have been a swap and not the loco's original tender; tenders were painted in this style between 1/1/49 and 31/5/48.  As the full width tenders were unique to the Counties and Counties were still being delivered during the first six months of 1948, there's a story to be told here no doubt!  Best explanation I can come up with is a fault found with the 1948 loco's tender as it was being put into service, and  County of Stafford's original tender pinched to get the new engine into service (perhaps for no better reason than that Stafford was to hand at Swindon that day), the corollary of which would be the 1948 loco's tender being put behind Stafford, where it still was when that loco was photgraphed at Sonning 15/8/48.

 

Note before you follow my advice on this matter to make a model with, that I am merely stating what the correct liveries were at the relative dates of painting of the locos, not that they were definitely painted in them; on the ground, with paint shortages and other problems in an austerity economy, all sorts of anomalous things happened at around that time!

Edited July 16, 2023 by The Johnster

[Miss Prism]

1027 in GWR days

1027 in BR lined green, 1949

a few months later, the lining and colour was obscured by grime

 

[Coach bogie]

1027 was a Westbury pet. The only County allocated there and often photographed by Maurice Earley as it was usually on the same ex Weymouth diagram from Westbury, with a fast turn around at Paddington before the return Working, ensuring it returned to Westbury the same day . Usually it was very clean and the shots of it around nationalisation, I have seen, which I used for my Nucast County all are lined green with G crest W. Sadly it was only a short allocation when the powers at be decided a Hall was sufficient for average loads from Weymouth and 1027 was moved on. Built at the same time as 1027 was 6978 Haroldstone Hall which went not far from  Westbury, to Salisbury and it too was in fully lined G rest W livery, again treated as a pet and kept as clean as possible, usually working return Cardiff trains to get her home for the evening. Another short allocation with Salisbury ex GWR shed closing in 1950.

 

Mike Wiltshire

[The Stationmaster]

11 hours ago, Miss Prism said:

1027 in GWR days

1027 in BR lined green, 1949

a few months later, the lining and colour was obscured by grime

 

The upper picture (I have emboldened! the link) is on the Up Main Line between Twyford and Ruscombe with Twyford East Signal Box very dimly visible in the background

[Hal Nail]

On 16/07/2023 at 06:48, Miss Prism said:

1027 in GWR days

1027 in BR lined green, 1949

a few months later, the lining and colour was obscured by grime

 

it then got the usual eary logo at some point before totems - albeit this is a later photo given the maroon coaches. As an aside, how long did the intermediate British Railways lettering generally last once applied - did they repaint specially or just when needed anyway?

Edited July 17, 2023 by Hal Nail

[Miss Prism]

1 hour ago, Hal Nail said:

As an aside, how long did the intermediate British Railways lettering generally last once applied - did they repaint specially or just when needed anyway?

 

That's a how long is a piece of string question. Only approx 10 (??) 4-6-0 tenders got the Gill Sans font, and most of those were blue or experimental light green. On top of that, there is general tender swapping, commonly at every major works visit, which is in the region of every 2 years for the big high mileage 4-6-0s. 1027 seems to be a well-photographed County though, so maybe the swap to the early crest could be identified a bit better.

 

[The Stationmaster]

3 hours ago, Hal Nail said:

it then got the usual eary logo at some point before totems - albeit this is a later photo given the maroon coaches. As an aside, how long did the intermediate British Railways lettering generally last once applied - did they repaint specially or just when needed anyway?

I see - yet again - that whoever assembled that collection of photos isn'r too hot at bothering to work out locations.  In this case readily helped by the allocation history of the engine and the (albeit limited) background view it is the arrival platform at Neyland which was a common spot for engine photography.

 

Not that I took any photos the day i went there with my dad to do the shed.  It was one of the most fascinating places on the Western and was, I'm pretty sure, the only Western station which retained separate arrival and departure platforms until the end.  The stop blocks of the departure platform were at an angle to those of the arrival platform so while the arrival platform was straight the departure platform was on a curve for most of its length.   Even more unusual the engine shed was between the arrival and departure lines off the end of the arrival platform while the turntable was separated from the shed by the Up Main Line from the departure platform so a departing passenger train in effect ran through part of the shed yard.

[The Johnster]

4 hours ago, Hal Nail said:

it then got the usual eary logo at some point before totems - albeit this is a later photo given the maroon coaches. As an aside, how long did the intermediate British Railways lettering generally last once applied - did they repaint specially or just when needed anyway?

See Ms P’s answer.  Locos (and coaches) were painted at major overhauls, which were scheduled on a mileage basis for loco, so express 4-6-0s which racked up mileages quickly were painted more frequently than engines that spent their lives pottering around on short-distance trip or pilot work.  The classic example is the Holyhead breakwater locos, last to carry the early BR black diesel livery, several decades after it’s official demise. The situation was very unlike modern times, where the ‘branding’ element of liveries is a much greater priority and new owners put their stamp on the stock as quickly as possible, sometimes with stickyback vinyl overlays that can be put on overnight at the depots.  
 

Outdated liveries could often be seen in service on such locos over a decade after they had been superseded, some missing out on liveries altogether, particularly of course the intermediate forms of the early BR transition liveries.  Livery changes took time to be fully instituted, and few ever were, completely. 

 

[Steamport Southport]

5 hours ago, Hal Nail said:

it then got the usual eary logo at some point before totems - albeit this is a later photo given the maroon coaches. As an aside, how long did the intermediate British Railways lettering generally last once applied - did they repaint specially or just when needed anyway?

 

It got lined BR Black between those liveries. I have a feeling they all did.

 

https://railway-photography.smugmug.com/GWRSteam-1/Hawksworth-Locomotives/Hawksworth-County-Class/County-Class-Pre-1968/1023-1029-Built-1947/i-Ws8JXzM/A

 

Definitely Black. Better shot here.

 

https://www.transporttreasury.com/p923782706/eb3a4d772

 

 

Jason

Edited July 17, 2023 by Steamport Southport

[The Johnster]

Lined black was the BR mixed traffic livery introduced June 1948, the Counties being power-rated 6MT under the BR system.  They were however used exclusively on passenger or NPCCS work, as the 2-cylinder format on such a powerful loco with GW long stroke pistons resulted in a pronounced piston surge, making them unsuitable for use with loose-coupled freight stock not fitted with screw couplings.   
 

Lined black was also used for Passenger locos of 5P and less, which on the WR meant Saints.  It theoretically meant 14xx, 54xx, 64xx  (1P), and arguably the 1953 auto-fitted 4575s (4MT), but many of these engines were painted plain black in the 1948-56 period.  Post-1956 was a bit of a free-for-all in WR paintshops, with just about any MT or sub-5P class being given lined green.  Some 56xx (5MT), large prairies (4MT), and BR Standard 3MT tanks got ‘economy’ unlined green.  To throw further spaniards into the works, OOC 3F 8750s and 4F 15xx used on Paddington ecs duties got lined black. 
 

The BR power and RA ratings were more or less ignored in practice on the WR, which continued with the GW coloured spot and alphabetic systems, applying them to BR Standards and diesels until the introduction of Corporate Blue in 1966. The red spots were not easy to see on dirty maroon-liveried Westerns and Warships.  

 

[Rugd1022]

1 hour ago, The Johnster said:

Lined black was the BR mixed traffic livery introduced June 1948, the Counties being power-rated 6MT under the BR system.  They were however used exclusively on passenger or NPCCS work, as the 2-cylinder format on such a powerful loco with GW long stroke pistons resulted in a pronounced piston surge, making them unsuitable for use with loose-coupled freight stock not fitted with screw couplings.   
 

Lined black was also used for Passenger locos of 5P and less, which on the WR meant Saints.  It theoretically meant 14xx, 54xx, 64xx  (1P), and arguably the 1953 auto-fitted 4575s (4MT), but many of these engines were painted plain black in the 1948-56 period.  Post-1956 was a bit of a free-for-all in WR paintshops, with just about any MT or sub-5P class being given lined green.  Some 56xx (5MT), large prairies (4MT), and BR Standard 3MT tanks got ‘economy’ unlined green.  To throw further spaniards into the works, OOC 3F 8750s and 4F 15xx used on Paddington ecs duties got lined black. 
 

The BR power and RA ratings were more or less ignored in practice on the WR, which continued with the GW coloured spot and alphabetic systems, applying them to BR Standards and diesels until the introduction of Corporate Blue in 1966. The red spots were not easy to see on dirty maroon-liveried Westerns and Warships.  

 

 

I like the subtle John Lennon reference there Johnster!

[The Johnster]

So subtle I'd forgotten it was a John Lennon reference; tx for reminding me!

[Hal Nail]

On 16/07/2023 at 02:21, The Johnster said:

A tender with Egyptian style 'BRITISH RAILWAYS' lettering must therefore have been a swap and not the loco's original tender;

 

On 16/07/2023 at 07:22, Coach bogie said:

1027 was a Westbury pet.

 

Usually it was very clean and the shots of it around nationalisation, I have seen, which I used for my Nucast County all are lined green with G crest W. Sadly it was only a short allocation when the powers at be decided a Hall was sufficient for average loads from Weymouth and 1027 was moved on.

So not inconceivable that when 1027 was moved from Westbury, they kept the G W tender and gave it away with a different British Railways one?

 

Incidentally, every photo I have seen of a lined (proper) green loco with British Railways wording has GWR style lining around the full cab and on fireboxes - there are several on the original webpage this thread is about 

 

Excluding experimental liveries, did  the change in lining style only commence after that initial 6 months or so period where liveries were as 1946? That presumably would also have applied to black/green valences as well?

Edited July 21, 2023 by Hal Nail

[The Johnster]

The new standard BR liveries were introduced on 1st June 1948, lined LNWR-style black for mixed traffic engines like Counties, classed as 6MT.  BRITISH RAILWAYS on the tenders was from that date in the standard Gill Sans.  The livery change was notified a few weeks earlier so applied to all locos painted on or after 1/1/48.  The next change was the introduction of the unicycling lion emblem, September 1949.  

[Miss Prism]

7 hours ago, Hal Nail said:

Incidentally, every photo I have seen of a lined (proper) green loco with British Railways wording has GWR style lining around the full cab and on fireboxes - there are several on the original webpage this thread is about 

 

Excluding experimental liveries, did  the change in lining style only commence after that initial 6 months or so period where liveries were as 1946? That presumably would also have applied to black/green valences as well?

 

Thanks. It does seem GWR lining style in respect of fireboxes and cabsides continued until the beginning of the Gill Sans period (June 1948), when the BR(W) lining style was adopted. See e.g. 5021

 

I haven't found a picture good enough to ascertain what might be on valences.

 

I'll do a new sentence or two on the gwr.org.uk livery page.

 

[Coach bogie]

At nationalisation, with the quick change of livery, you were always going to get a mix and match of the different styles until things settled down. Here is a lined black Hall with green tender.

 

Mike Wiltshire