Anotheran

By way of experiment, in a very unscientific way, I looked at the header picture of the completed model, with its red plates, and converted to greyscale, no other processing at all.

To me the plates now look to have a darker tone! In this case I think it's just an optical illusion caused by the presence of the lighter border to the plates and the white GWR lettering. Proves nothing other than colour is both subjective, and very difficult to nail down in monochrome!

This is where we would really benefit from a reference as that statement seems pretty categorical. Indeed plate 349 does have significantly different tone. I think that 25 and 26 are less convincing. While 25 clearly has differences they look possibly the wrong way round for me. I'd expect red on metal to weather slower than red on wood (it can only get moisture from one direction and the surface itself wears less). So I'd expect the heavier red of the metal to be darker in the way that it is in plate 25. To me plate 26 shows very similar tones. If you look at the tone of the GWR plate (away from the edges where there are shadows and potentially grime, but close to the lettering) then I think it's very close to the tones of the planks just above it.

Obviously I don't know. But I'm not convinced that the pictures give enough evidence to be sure. Which is why a reference for the sentence would have been perfect... especially if it was along the lines of "Swindon instruction memo to workshops dated 1894"

So in short I totally agree with your last statement... Hmmm.

A brilliant blog as usual Mikkel,

That Smethwick photograph intrigued me too. The more I look at it the more I think that the building you see in the modern photo is indeed the upper floor of the old stable block with the roof replaced with a flat one and the left hand end altered somewhat. The Google Streetview only shows the back that has been clad in steel (well it would be for a European Metal Recycling yard wouldn't it!). The birds eye view on Bing provides a slightly better angle showing where the ramp goes down to the lower level where it previously went up to the top floor, but still isn't definitive. It also shows why you can still see the sidings in the scrapyard as a big ugly EWS loco has just pushed 30 empty wagons in to be loaded with scrap.

I'm sufficiently curious that next time I'm in the area I'll have to pay EMR Smethwick a visit to ask if I can take a look at their office building! If I can, and it looks like it is the original stable, then I'll take a few snaps.

On 04/01/2020 at 13:24, Mikkel said:

I'm not sure a commercial publisher would see the market for such a narrow topic

Maybe a self published work on lulu.com. For small runs it looks a reasonable way to go without having the upfront costs of a traditional publisher. I've set up a couple of projects on there in the past though never quite got to the publishing point! An individual book may cost slightly more to the buyer (and definitely will pay less to the author), but it gets it out there... and I'd buy one!

Kind regards, Neil