OO Gauge GWR Toplight Mainline & City Coaches announced

[Hal Nail]

On 04/02/2022 at 13:31, Coach bogie said:

There is a Dick Riley colour shot, in maroon in Great Western Carriages in Colour, Kevin Robertson. Full maroon with single yellow line below and above window height.

Worth bumping this comment - a toplight track recording coach which I think is actually crimson, rather than maroon (either way it is the early lining style), exactly as described by Miss Prism and The Johnster above.

 

There is a twist though. The coach is immaculate and I would suggest freshly painted but the date is given as 1966 and the caption specifically claims it had worn crimson and cream until repainted "like this" before 1960. 

 

Photo is far too good quality to be early '50s so as something of a celebrity vehicle, perhaps this has had a special heritage repaint back into crimson in 1965/6?

Edited February 12, 2022 by Hal Nail

[Dunsignalling]

39 minutes ago, Hal Nail said:

Worth bumping this comment - a toplight track recording coach which I think is actually crimson, rather than maroon (either way it is the early lining style), exactly as described by Miss Prism and The Johnster above.

 

There is a twist though. The coach is immaculate and I would suggest freshly painted but the date is given as 1966 and the caption specifically claims it had worn crimson and cream until repainted "like this" before 1960. 

 

Photo is far too good quality to be early '50s so as something of a celebrity vehicle, perhaps this has had a special heritage repaint back into crimson in 1965/6?

Quite possibly.

 

BR had already begun applying corporate blue/grey to coaches in 1965, so maroon would also have been "heritage" by then, and one might as well be hung for a sheep as for a lamb.

 

John

Edited February 12, 2022 by Dunsignalling

[Coach bogie]

49 minutes ago, Hal Nail said:

Worth bumping this comment - a toplight track recording coach which I think is actually crimson, rather than maroon (either way it is the early lining style), exactly as described by Miss Prism and The Johnster above.

 

There is a twist though. The coach is immaculate and I would suggest freshly painted but the date is given as 1966 and the caption specifically claims it had worn crimson and cream until repainted "like this" before 1960. 

 

Photo is far too good quality to be early '50s so as something of a celebrity vehicle, perhaps this has had a special heritage repaint back into crimson in 1965/6?

If it is 1966, it may not have been freshly painted. It was a little used coach and usually kept under cover so would not be subjected to the usual day to day weathering of service vehicles. I also have an mono Adrian Vaughan view, taken in 1963, clearly in the same livery. It was damaged in a major shunt at Clapham Junction, in 1952, requiring repairs. A mono official photograph was taken after repairs where clearly it has been repainted in carmine and cream livery (with carmine strip at the top).

 

Mike Wiltshire

[The Stationmaster]

2 hours ago, Hal Nail said:

Worth bumping this comment - a toplight track recording coach which I think is actually crimson, rather than maroon (either way it is the early lining style), exactly as described by Miss Prism and The Johnster above.

 

There is a twist though. The coach is immaculate and I would suggest freshly painted but the date is given as 1966 and the caption specifically claims it had worn crimson and cream until repainted "like this" before 1960. 

 

Photo is far too good quality to be early '50s so as something of a celebrity vehicle, perhaps this has had a special heritage repaint back into crimson in 1965/6?

As there are some inaccuracies in the captions in respect of the use of this vehicle in Kevin Robertson's book I would not take the date given for the photo as being wholly reliable.  the photo appears to predate the closure of the wagon works which took place in the 1960s although at the moment I can't find an exact date but it would certainly help to date the picture with a 'latest date'.   Incidentally Swindon works always seemed to be very quick in its later years to repaint vehicles coming in for attention in the latest livery.

 

In the late 1960s it was regularly used to a standard test programme which repeated at intervals of, I think, a few months.  I can remember it well as it was published on our daily Passenger Train Notice because it carried out all its recording trips attached to booked Class 1 trains.   Following various closures of parts of the works it was stabled on a siding at the east end of the loco works side in the vee of the Gloucester line junction.

[Hal Nail]

2 hours ago, Coach bogie said:

 It was damaged in a major shunt at Clapham Junction, in 1952, requiring repairs. A mono official photograph was taken after repairs where clearly it has been repainted in carmine and cream livery (with carmine strip at the top).

 

 

 

32 minutes ago, The Stationmaster said:

Swindon works always seemed to be very quick in its later years to repaint vehicles coming in for attention in the latest livery.

 

 

My point is that a crimson coach with single type lining - ie early 50s livery - at any point after it had already had crimson and cream, is unusual. It definitely isnt in post 1956 standard lined maroon, so is an outlier either way.

 

Prototype for everything....!

 

Edited February 12, 2022 by Hal Nail

[Dunsignalling]

35 minutes ago, The Stationmaster said:

As there are some inaccuracies in the captions in respect of the use of this vehicle in Kevin Robertson's book I would not take the date given for the photo as being wholly reliable.  the photo appears to predate the closure of the wagon works which took place in the 1960s although at the moment I can't find an exact date but it would certainly help to date the picture with a 'latest date'.   Incidentally Swindon works always seemed to be very quick in its later years to repaint vehicles coming in for attention in the latest livery.

 

In the late 1960s it was regularly used to a standard test programme which repeated at intervals of, I think, a few months.  I can remember it well as it was published on our daily Passenger Train Notice because it carried out all its recording trips attached to booked Class 1 trains.   Following various closures of parts of the works it was stabled on a siding at the east end of the loco works side in the vee of the Gloucester line junction.

From the STEAM website:

 

"...and in 1963, a large part of the old carriage and wagon works on the eastern side of the Gloucester branch line was closed and sold for redevelopment".

 

John

[Coach bogie]

1 hour ago, The Stationmaster said:

In the late 1960s it was regularly used to a standard test programme which repeated at intervals of, I think, a few months.  I can remember it well as it was published on our daily Passenger Train Notice because it carried out all its recording trips attached to booked Class 1 trains.   Following various closures of parts of the works it was stabled on a siding at the east end of the loco works side in the vee of the Gloucester line junction.

In the school summer holidays, in the 1970's, I spent alot of my time spotting, staying with relatives who were employed in the works. The Vee was the stabling point of choice then as well. one of my uncles was a carriage fitter and he always seamed to know when it was going out. Prior to making up the test train, if it was facing the wrong direction, an 08 would come from the stabling point, couple up and take it down to turn on the works turntable ready for the next days working. I never saw it leave as it was usually a very early departure time - too early for me, but it would reappear within a couple of days facing the other way round again. It was in blue/grey by this time.

 

Mike Wiltshire

[The Stationmaster]

50 minutes ago, Dunsignalling said:

From the STEAM website:

 

"...and in 1963, a large part of the old carriage and wagon works on the eastern side of the Gloucester branch line was closed and sold for redevelopment".

 

John

So that photo would most likely be pre 1963 (and conceivably much earlier) with those wagons in the background beyond the milk tanks.

[The Johnster]

Lined crimson seems to have been a WR thing AFAIK, and may have had an association with coaches withdrawn from revenue and then re-instated or used in other non revenue work such as track recording, but this is speculation on my part.  Lewis doesn’t help in that he frequently uses the word ‘maroon’ when he is describing the crimson pre-1956 livery for non-gangwayed stock.  
 

The WR had form in what might be described as ‘creative interpretation’ of the June 1948 livery instruction, painting saloon auto trailers in the crimson/cream gangwayed livery until late in 1949, when Mr.Riddles saw one at Paddington and wrote to to region demanding to know what his best main line livery was doing on a lowly auto trailer.  There were gangwayed auto trailers, the Plymouth Area sets and TVR sets, but after this these trailers were given plain crimson livery, which seems inconsistent as the region could have argued that they were gangwayed stock, albeit at one end only. 
 

It is sometimes difficult in monochrome photographs to be certain which unlined livery has been applied to a coach, but clearly if the photo is taken pre 1956, the livery is crimson and not maroon.  From 1959, lining was applied to non-gangwayed stock on the same way as gangwayed, so it can be assumed that such a coach in a lined BR livery is maroon, but the single yellow lined crimson as applied to W 3338 and possibly others muddies the waters a bit. 
 

As always, working from photographs is best, but even then one is reliant on the quality of the photo, and the provenance particularly of the date.  When it comes to non-gangwayed stock, clear photographs with good provenance taken at a time when film was expensive and the number of exposures on a roll was limited and photographers were conscious of this (difficult to explain in an age of digital imagery when you may easily take hundreds of images in an afternoon, most of which are discarded soon after) are fairly difficult to source for some of the more obscure prototypes.  In fact I am often amazed at how much of the everyday mundane scene is on such record!

 

In the absence of good photos of established provenance, one is forced to rely on ‘best guess’, and best guess will always be the more usual appearance of stock in your period and location, and best practice is to avoid the rarer liveries.  

[gwrrob]

Seen in their cabinet yesterday although not easy to photograph with reflections. Due to be released later this year and the corridor types are at the design stage according to Richard Webster.

 

[Michael Hodgson]

Dapol are listing the BR Maroon stock as second class.

Surely it woud still have been called Third when that livery was extant?

[Neal Ball]

10 minutes ago, Michael Hodgson said:

Dapol are listing the BR Maroon stock as second class.

Surely it woud still have been called Third when that livery was extant?

If it’s BR maroon, then No, that’s 2nd class.

 

However, if it’s GWR brown from WW2 then it’s correct as 3rd class

[The Johnster]

Third class was renamed as second class in 1956, at the same time i believe as the introduction of the plain maroon livery for non-gangwayed coaches and the lined version for gangwayed stock. and the beginning of the use of BR chocolate and cream livery for named expresses on the WR and that of malachite green BR livery on the Southern Region.  It made no difference to the coaches, as only first class accommodation was branded, by numerals on the doors and the dark blue 'sausage' stickers in the windows of the compartments or saloons. 

 

To briefly summarise, liveries applied to this stock during the BR period were as follows:-

 

1/1/48 - 31/5/48 - continuation of the previous big four livery but with BR Gill Sans numbers and regional prefix, so for these coaches the 1945-7 GW livery but with BR Gill Sans numbers and lettering and a W prefix.  'First' and 'Third' compartments denoted by lettering on the doors GW style.

 

1/6/48 - 1956 - plain crimson with numbers and lettering as the previous period,  W suffix added after BR mk1 stock was introduced in 1950, to avoid duplicate numbering.  First class denoted by Gill Sans '1' on the doors.

 

Post 1956 - plain maroon with lettering and numbers as above.  Lined maroon in the style of gangwayed stock was used from 1959, but TTBOMK none of the these coaches ever carried this livery.

 

Passenger stock is repainted every 7 years, so in late 1948 and 1949 it would have been possible to see these coaches in GW shirtbutton choc/cream (just), 1942-5 Austerity lined brown, 1945-7 GW choc/cream, the early 1948 BR vesion, and BR unlined crimson.  Roofs were grey from very early in the war due to the white being very visible from attacking enemy aircraft.

 

 

[Dunsignalling]

10 hours ago, The Johnster said:

 

Passenger stock is repainted every 7 years, so in late 1948 and 1949 it would have been possible to see these coaches in GW shirtbutton choc/cream (just), 1942-5 Austerity lined brown, 1945-7 GW choc/cream, the early 1948 BR vesion, and BR unlined crimson.  Roofs were grey from very early in the war due to the white being very visible from attacking enemy aircraft.

 

 

That's a rather sweeping statement that was probably only applied in full to main-line corridor stock on the GWR/WR as it was elsewhere.

 

For coaches in secondary and branch-line use, minor repairs, touching-up and re-varnishing every couple of years would extend the intervals between full repaints significantly. In extreme cases, the next might be deferred until any required repairs were sufficiently extensive to make it inevitable. Emblems and lettering were often updated within this process, leading to some photographs being misinterpreted  as illustrating repainted vehicles.

 

Once old stock with limited future service expectancy required extensive attention, a decision would be made between repair/repainting and withdrawal.  

 

On the Southern Region, 1930s rebuilds of older coaches went for scrap in the late 1950s with BR-style lettering applied over much-varnished Southern Railway malachite green paint that could have been almost twenty years old. I'd be very surprised if no similar ex-GWR instances could be identified.

 

John

Edited March 21, 2022 by Dunsignalling

[Coach bogie]

I have been reading old Great Western Journals. No 36, Page 198/9 has a large spread image, of Maidenhead station, with a full six car set in the carriage siding, 1930's chocolate and cream livery accompanied with the diagram to get it there. Worked Saturday Slough to Maidenhead, siding overnight to work Sunday 8.05am to Paddington.

 

Mike Wiltshire

[Hal Nail]

On 21/03/2022 at 10:41, Dunsignalling said:

I'd be very surprised if no similar ex-GWR instances could be identified.

You are probably right but it highlights an approach many modellers follow, which I've always found slightly odd, that they wont do something that didnt happen, but if they can find one one tiny outlier, anywhere, then that is the excuse they need to happen every single minute on their layout!

 

I just try to make each individual model accurate for some point in its life but sticking to just one date would rule out so much of the variety you see in books straddling as little as 5 years, Ive ended up with stuff representative of the era but not necessarily all the same precise year.

 

[Dunsignalling]

33 minutes ago, Hal Nail said:

You are probably right but it highlights an approach many modellers follow, which I've always found slightly odd, that they wont do something that didnt happen, but if they can find one one tiny outlier, anywhere, then that is the excuse they need to happen every single minute on their layout!

 

I just try to make each individual model accurate for some point in its life but sticking to just one date would rule out so much of the variety you see in books straddling as little as 5 years, Ive ended up with stuff representative of the era but not necessarily all the same precise year.

 

Some outliers might well have remained as such because they had gravitated to outlying locations. Once into those kind of traffics, vehicles tended to get stuck there, further reducing the chances of them getting updated!

 

If you model such a place, the appearance of odd coaches carrying one or more obsolescent liveries could well be "justifiable" where they might not at high profile locations.

 

Mind you, there is plenty of photographic evidence that, aside from prestige services that received rakes of the "latest and best" stock (albeit often with the odd mis-matched strengthening vehicle), GWR carriage formations tended toward the eclectic, to put it mildly.

 

Whilst the company undoubtedly achieved an early example of a "corporate image", its reputation as a pioneer of standardisation seems to have been extrapolated from the interchangeability of components developed at Swindon, into a myth of uniformity across the board. 

 

John

Edited April 25, 2022 by Dunsignalling

[1466]

2 hours ago, Hal Nail said:

You are probably right but it highlights an approach many modellers follow, which I've always found slightly odd, that they wont do something that didnt happen, but if they can find one one tiny outlier, anywhere, then that is the excuse they need to happen every single minute on their layout!

 

I just try to make each individual model accurate for some point in its life but sticking to just one date would rule out so much of the variety you see in books straddling as little as 5 years, Ive ended up with stuff representative of the era but not necessarily all the same precise year.

 

I favour Pendon’s approach of having a given year with plus or minus 5  years each side . I selected 1935 so I can run GWR railcard . 
1935 is in itself a good year coming a year after the introduction of the “shirt button” monogram . 

[Michael Hodgson]

4 hours ago, Hal Nail said:

 

I just try to make each individual model accurate for some point in its life but sticking to just one date would rule out so much of the variety you see in books straddling as little as 5 years, Ive ended up with stuff representative of the era but not necessarily all the same precise year.

 

 

Somewhat off-topic, but it is all but impossible to model one particular date because we don't have precise records of when everything got repainted etc.  A modeller I knew (deceased a good many years ago) wanted to build an O gauge model of the local breakdown crane.  So he asked at the shed and was given permission to measure up etc.  The painters had re-done one side but not the other when he visited, so he faithfully modelled it in two different liveries and his model can only be accurate for at most a few days!

[The Johnster]

13 hours ago, 1466 said:

I favour Pendon’s approach of having a given year with plus or minus 5  years each side . I selected 1935 so I can run GWR railcard . 
1935 is in itself a good year coming a year after the introduction of the “shirt button” monogram . 

 

I suppose this is what I do on Cwmdimbath, which has a period set at 1948-58, or in other words, 1955 plus or minus 5 years each side.  I had no idea I was in such illustrious company as the Pendon boys!  I chose it because it was a particularly varied and fascinating period as regards liveries, and have tried as far as possible to incorporate as many of the various liveries that are appropriate (realistically anything from 1942-5 austerity, Swindon and Caerphilly versions, to 1958 including transitions) and backed by photographic evidence of the Tondu valleys.  Tondu still had half-cab panniers and 44xx in 1948, the last of the former lasting until 1951 and the latter until 1953, when the Cardiff Valleys regular interval timetable came into force and auto working in the area was extended considerably, some 4575s and Collet compartiment stock being converted in connection with this, included on my layout.  There is also the possibility of 3100, doyen of the Collett 31xx large prairie class, no.4 boiler and 5'3" driving wheels, bit of a beast usually used on the Porthcawl-Cardiff 'residential' commuter service, but I've seen photos of it up at Abergwynfi, so...

 

Plus 57xx, 8750 including 6750 steam reverse variant with no vacuum brake, 45xx, 94xx, 56xx, 5101, and 42xx, a pretty good biodiversity for a small colliery branch!

[1466]

10 hours ago, The Johnster said:

 

I suppose this is what I do on Cwmdimbath, which has a period set at 1948-58, or in other words, 1955 plus or minus 5 years each side.  I had no idea I was in such illustrious company as the Pendon boys!  I chose it because it was a particularly varied and fascinating period as regards liveries, and have tried as far as possible to incorporate as many of the various liveries that are appropriate (realistically anything from 1942-5 austerity, Swindon and Caerphilly versions, to 1958 including transitions) and backed by photographic evidence of the Tondu valleys.  Tondu still had half-cab panniers and 44xx in 1948, the last of the former lasting until 1951 and the latter until 1953, when the Cardiff Valleys regular interval timetable came into force and auto working in the area was extended considerably, some 4575s and Collet compartiment stock being converted in connection with this, included on my layout.  There is also the possibility of 3100, doyen of the Collett 31xx large prairie class, no.4 boiler and 5'3" driving wheels, bit of a beast usually used on the Porthcawl-Cardiff 'residential' commuter service, but I've seen photos of it up at Abergwynfi, so...

 

Plus 57xx, 8750 including 6750 steam reverse variant with no vacuum brake, 45xx, 94xx, 56xx, 5101, and 42xx, a pretty good biodiversity for a small colliery branch!

Hello and Welcome Johnster .

I missed  your updates whilst RMweb was struggling .

Any news ?

Best

Ken 

[The Johnster]

Update for Ken, then...

 

I've been taking a bit of a rest after the intense modelling period connected with the new colliery (hard now to believe this did not exist even as a twinkle in The Johnster's eye 5 months ago) and am girding up my lions/building up a head of steam to re-open hostilities on the 31xx front.  Taken a couple of phone photos of operations and the new Oxford GER van, though, which I'll upload shortly...

 

I've been revisiting some tired paint jobs on some of the coaches, and have attached stiff card cantiievered side pieces to extend the width of the goods depot area to enable me to model more yard details; life in this semi-fictional mining village (the location exists, but there is no village or colliery, and no branch line, the railway is not a model but real, only small and in the 1950s) goes on, Taliesin The Cat is still not impressed, it is night on the Cwmdimbath clock at the moment and all is quiet bar the burbling of the Lechyd stream and a bit of dripping from the colliery Peckett which is in light steam overnight at the colliery loco shed, and Anastasia 'Nasty' Jenkins snoring on the Richter scale in no.2 Lechyd Terrace.  A couple of lights remain on at the colliery where some night shift mainenance is taking place. 

[Guardian]

Just a quick question regarding the GWR versions announced as not all of them are illustrated on the Dapol homepage:

 

Set 1 - crimson 1912-22

Set 2 - chocolate/cream - unspecified - could be garter crest 1922-27 or twin cities w/lettering 1945-48?

Set 3 - chocolate/cream coat of arms 1927-34

Set 4 - chocolate cream shirtbutton 1934-42

Set 5 - All brown - unspecified - 1908-12 or WW 2 post 1942?

Set 6 - BR maroon 

 

I am interested in the colour scheme of set 2 as this is only specified "chocolate/cream". As the only c/c schemes not announced on sets 3 and 4, garter crest 1922-27 and twin cities w/lettering 1945-48 are possible.

 

Does anybody have more information?

 

Best

Mark

 

[Dana Ashdown]

I take it that Set 2 will be in the fully lined chocolate and cream livery of 1922-27, with garter crest. I presume that Set 5 will be in the later all brown livery, not the 1908 version.

[Guardian]

That would also be my guess, but let's see how Dapol reverts to my respective request...