Hornby Battle of Britain Manston

[gordonian31]

Can anyone advise if Manston ran with red background nameplates as I thought all BOB were Blue background

[toboldlygo]

Can anyone advise if Manston ran with red background nameplates as I thought all BOB were Blue background

 

Without digging through various books I can't be 100% sure, some did run with a red background and others with a black background.

[Forester]

Actually most BoB were given black nameplates when they first went into BR Green, then back into the Air Force Blue of their malachite green days, while a very few had red plates later in life: Spitfire, 73 Squadron and Hawkinge among them.

I've never seen a picture of Manston with red plates and I would need convincing, but it's not impossible.

[Forester]

You have to feel some sympathy for model producers over nameplate colours.

 

Many years ago someone built me a fine model of BoB Sir Eustace Missenden in its unique delivery finish of "BR early crest malachite green" (!).

For years argument raged among everyone I showed it to over what colour the most unusual nameplates should be .People who claimed to remember the short-lived original malachite finish confidently gave every colour in the spectrum from red through yellow and green to blue (........but not violet).

 

Not long ago Hornby produced their own version of it and, similarly doubtful, went for red nameplates, only for a colour photo of the loco to immediately surface showing the plates were in fact Air Force Blue .............. just like all the other BoBs ........ (Doh!)

 

So Hornby got it wrong just like almost everyone else, although the answer was staring everyone in the face!

[Dunsignalling]

Actually most BoB were given black nameplates when they first went into BR Green, then back into the Air Force Blue of their malachite green days, while a very few had red plates later in life: Spitfire, 73 Squadron and Hawkinge among them.

I've never seen a picture of Manston with red plates and I would need convincing, but it's not impossible.

Best rule of thumb is to assume blue unless you have good reason to believe otherwise - you'll simply be much less likely to get it wrong!

 

AFAIK both Spitfire and Hawkinge eventually reverted to blue plates though 73 Squadron appears to have kept red ones to the end. 

 

The Railway Modeller review (January 2015 issue) of the Winston Churchill funeral train illustrates one of 34051's nameplates painted red (colour photo dated 1957) though they certainly didn't stay that way.

 

John

[sandwich station]

If you look at their website http://www.southern-locomotives.co.uk/Overview/Locomotive_Overview.html in the archive section for Manston, although the pics are black and white when she was named in 1948, I would say the plates were blue but in some of the later pics they could well be red as they seem to be darker especially around the time she had British Railways on her tender.