Trends in Pre-Grouping Coach Livery

[Edwardian]

Mulling over fictitious schemes made me consider appropriate liveries.  For instance, the West Norfolk Railway has a quite elaborate Victorian loco livery and a two-tone coach livery with dark lower body and ends (bronze green - red break ends) and light waist and upper panels (ivory) with the beading picked out in black. So, rather like the Highland or the Cambrian. For 1905, that seems a perfectly feasible livery, and one that could have been adopted some time ago.  I suspect it wasn't the original livery, and I suspect that the original 1850s Joseph Wright coaches would have been supplied in varnished wood, or, perhaps, painted in all over green. As to quite when the current WNR livery was adopted, I don't know.  I have a vague notion that the 1880s sounds about right.

 

Now, I was all for doing something similar for the Isle of Eldernell & Mereport Rly (blue and cream), but them thought to myself that:

 

(i) The two-tone scheme was probably not appropriate in the 1860s, when the line opened, though the thought was to represent the 1890s, by which time such a livery is more credible.    

 

(ii) Many 1860s-1870s style coaches are not that well suited to the full lined-out two-tone schemes.

 

I am currently considering rendering the 1860s stock in original-teak and later-built stock in the two-tone.  

 

That said, there were exceptions:

 

 

Anyway, rather a rambling prologue, but it made me think about when the two-tone scheme became fashionable among those companies that adopted it.

 

The GWR's chocolate and cream (or ivory) goes back a long way, but others not so. For instance I think the Highland's was late and short-lived (1896-1903 IIRC as it was a Peter Drummond livery), the Great Central was something like 1899-1907 IIRC).  LSWR was 1880s, and at some point, don't recall when, the Furness went from IIRC a dark lake to the well-known blue and white etc, etc.

 

I wondered if we could pin down any trends?

Edited May 16, 2022 by Edwardian

[Hroth]

You could take the easy way out and have a hiccup/reversion to a single colour as the GWR did 1908-22. A small concern might change to a simplified livery as a cost cutting measure or because of a lack of experienced staff.

 

Your E&M may well have coaches running from their earlier financially successful period as well as the more cash strapped present as essential repainting becomes a necessity.

[CKPR]

For what it's worth, the M&CR's coaches were originally varnished teak, switching to the more familiar green and white c. 1904-5. Whether this was for practical, economic or aesthetic reasons is unrecorded but the timing of the change may be significant if similar livery changes were being put into practice elsewhere. As for the Furness. I suspect this was part of the general smarting up and intentional repurposing of the FR, hitherto a glorified mineral line, as a provider of Edwardian holidays and excursions in the Lakes. 

[Compound2632]

There are two basic colours for carriages, to which they will revert if not closely watched: claret, and green. Green is for seconds / thirds so it's unsurprising that it's the colour to which multiple units gravitated in the 1950s and 60s. Claret is a bit more up-market, hence its use for locomotive-hauled stock in the same period. Notice, also, how Great Western carriages turned claret under Churchward, who really wasn't interested in paint.

 

Claret with buff upper panels gives you the two-tone liveries of the London & North Western and the Great Western, probably also those of the London & South Western and Lancashire & Yorkshire.

 

There is a third category: those companies using tropical hardwood panelling. The reason those went for a varnished finish was that they couldn't get the claret paint to stick.

Edited May 16, 2022 by Compound2632
missing apostrophe inserted

[billbedford]

One other point, red ends on all brake vans were mandatory from mid 19th century. The rules were relaxed on passenger vehicles after continuous brakes were introduced, with each company deciding when to make the change. The rules for goods brakes seen to have been changed around the turn of the 29th century, but the SR persisted with red ends until nationalisation. 

[Compound2632]

12 minutes ago, billbedford said:

One other point, red ends on all brake vans were mandatory from mid 19th century. The rules were relaxed on passenger vehicles after continuous brakes were introduced, with each company deciding when to make the change. The rules for goods brakes seen to have been changed around the turn of the 29th century, but the SR persisted with red ends until nationalisation. 

 

But there are plenty of lines on which there is no evidence for red brake ends, passenger or goods. The Midland, for instance, certainly had grey ends to its goods brakes in to the 1880s and 90s; its passenger brakes had ends that were the normal carriage colour, which was, admittedly, claret. Likewise LNWR and GWR.

[Edwardian]

8 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

 

But there are plenty of lines on which there is no evidence for red brake ends, passenger or goods. The Midland, for instance, certainly had grey ends to its goods brakes in to the 1880s and 90s; its passenger brakes had ends that were the normal carriage colour, which was, admittedly, claret. Likewise LNWR and GWR.

 

What Bill says makes a lot of sense, but my immediate thought was 'But the GWR ...'

 

Anyone know off hand when the LB&SCR stopped painting coach brake ends red? It probably says in the Southern Style volume, but my books are largely still crated.

[Dave John]

So did the Caledonian Bill, officially vermillion ( aye, posh red ye ken ) ends on brake coaches and goods brakes. 

 

It is debatable whether the ends of coaches with a central brake compartment were red. 

 

As to trends it depends on how affluent the Caley felt at the time . Basic coach brown, all over coach purple or fully white and lined panels depending on the significance of the stock. 

 

 

[Compound2632]

6 hours ago, Dave John said:

Basic coach brown, all over coach purple or fully white and lined panels depending on the significance of the stock. 

 

Ah, you see, I was counting the Caledonian in the claret group - anything in the chocolate brown to purple lake range being essentially a minor deviation from that basic carriage colour.

[apl31]

The Furness Changed to blue/white c1896. Coaches had been brown I think, however according to "The Coniston Railway" (by Michael Andrews  and Geoff Holme) panelled coaches had previously been Cream and crimson lake in 1870s

[billbedford]

9 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

 

But there are plenty of lines on which there is no evidence for red brake ends, passenger or goods. The Midland, for instance, certainly had grey ends to its goods brakes in to the 1880s and 90s; its passenger brakes had ends that were the normal carriage colour, which was, admittedly, claret. Likewise LNWR and GWR.

 

The orthochromatic films of the time rendered all reddish colours as black, even the Doncaster officials show teak coaches as a uniform dark colour. So unless the main colour of the carriage was green or blue the red ends would be indistinquable from the sides in any photograph. 

 

I've looked through the photos in Vol 2 of Midland wagons and believe that the Kirtley vans M276 and M43 have red ends as does standard van M115. I would also say that the livery of van M1047 also included red ends, an examination of the buffer faces suggest that this van has been whitewashed for photographic purposes. 

[billbedford]

9 hours ago, Dave John said:

So did the Caledonian Bill, officially vermillion ( aye, posh red ye ken ) ends on brake coaches and goods brakes. 

 

Vermillion was the colour specified by the BoT. It was the same colour that was applied to loco buffer beams, though there seems to be no record of when that rule was first applied. 

[Edwardian]

Fascinating.

 

What you say should, of course, apply to the GW. Being a go-ahead yet stubbornly different railway, it trialed vacuum brakes in 1876 but decided to fit its own version from 1880, so, really red ends could have disappeared quite early on the GW

 

Nevertheless, if you modelled a pre-1880 GW coach with one end brown and the brake end red, I suspect you'd never hear the end of it.

 

3 minutes ago, billbedford said:

 

... there seems to be no record of when that rule was first applied. 

 

Ah. That was my next question.

[billbedford]

5 minutes ago, Edwardian said:

Nevertheless, if you modelled a pre-1880 GW coach with one end brown and the brake end red, I suspect you'd never hear the end of it.

 

Quite right, both ends should have been red. The intention of the rule was to show the loco crew if and where the train contain brake vans. The rule was introduced before barakes on locos were universal. 

[Edwardian]

Just now, billbedford said:

 

Quite right, both ends should have been red. The intention of the rule was to show the loco crew if and where the train contain brake vans. The rule was introduced before barakes on locos were universal. 

 

OK, but I suspect you knew what I meant, many would disbelieve a GW coach with red ends.

[Compound2632]

36 minutes ago, billbedford said:

I've looked through the photos in Vol 2 of Midland wagons and believe that the Kirtley vans M276 and M43 have red ends as does standard van M115. I would also say that the livery of van M1047 also included red ends, an examination of the buffer faces suggest that this van has been whitewashed for photographic purposes. 

 

This is a radical proposition!

 

Do you have a reference for the BoT requirement?

 

To my mind, a difficulty is that the red ends, if they were such, were clearly discontinued but there was no change in the method of working goods trains, i.e. no continuous brakes. On other lines, red ends were continued with.

 

I note that there is no suggestion of red brake ends in Midland Style.

[Edwardian]

It seems to me that there are three parts to this issue of regulations:

 

1 Pre-1889 what the BoT recommended and what companies actually did

 

2. What the 1889 Act required of companies or empowered the BoT to do.

 

3. What Orders the BoT subsequently made

 

The answer to (2) is short and easy, those to the others less so.

 

Regulation of railways Act 1889

 

1Power to order certain provisions to be made for public safety.

(1)The Board of Trade may from time to time order a railway company to do, within a time limited by the order, and subject to any exceptions or modifications allowed by the order, any of the following things:—

       (a) To adopt the block system on all or any of their railways open for the public conveyance of passengers;
       (b) To provide for the interlocking of points and signals on or in connexion with all or any of such railways;
       (c) To provide for and use on all their trains carrying passengers continuous brakes complying with the following requirements, namely:—
            (i) The brake must be instantaneous in action, and capable of being applied by the engine-driver and guards;
            (ii) The brake must be self-applying in the event of any failure in the continuity of its action;
            (iii )The brake must be capable of being applied to every vehicle of the train, whether carrying passengers or not;
            (iv) The brake must be in regular use in daily working;
            (v)  The materials of the brake must be of a durable character, and easily maintained and kept in order. In making any order under this section the Board of Trade shall have regard to the nature and extent of the traffic on the railway, and                   shall, before making any such order, hear any company or person whom the Board of Trade may consider entitled to be heard.

 

I would assume that, if there were a mid-century injunction to paint brake ends vermillion it was a recommendation that lacked the force of law. Apart from the ability to delay the opening of new lines on safety grounds (1842), I don't think the BoT could force companies to do anything pre-1889.

[Compound2632]

I've had a quick look for instances where the BoT was given the power of compulsion in earlier Regulation of Railways Acts; the only one I could readily identify is in the 1868 Act:

 

S22 - Communication between passengers and the company’s servants.

"Every company shall provide, and maintain in good working order, in every train worked by it which carries passengers, and travels more than twenty miles without stopping, such efficient means of communication between the passengers and the servants of the company in charge of the train as the Board of Trade may approve." (With financial penalties for non compliance on the part of railway companies and misuse on the part of passengers.)

[Compound2632]

BTW in 1868 that "twenty miles without stopping" would be about half-an-hour, going by the LNWR's 40 mph express schedules. 

[Edwardian]

15 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

BTW in 1868 that "twenty miles without stopping" would be about half-an-hour, going by the LNWR's 40 mph express schedules. 

 

Or any journey relying on Webb's chain brakes?

[Compound2632]

13 minutes ago, Edwardian said:

Or any journey relying on Webb's chain brakes?

 

Mention of Webb brings me back to the subject of red brake ends. In LNWR Liveries, there is no mention of such for passenger or goods brake vans but "ballast brake vans were painted in the normal grey livery but with vermilion ends".

 

One could infer that this is a survival of earlier practice, from a time when all brake ends were vermilion, but it seems to me that there is no positive evidence to support such an inference. If there was, it would certainly have been known to the authors of LNWR Liveries.

[magmouse]

1 hour ago, Compound2632 said:

but it seems to me that there is no positive evidence to support such an inference.

 

Thanks everyone for this fascinating discussion about the prospect of red ends. My conclusion so far is that:

1. modelling pre-grouping era railways would be a great deal easier if we had colour photographs of the period, and,
2. the total number of posts on RMweb would be about half the actual number, but,
3. paradoxically, life as a railway modeller would be less colourful...

Nick

(who can't quite get an image of a GWR Toad with red ends out of his head)

[Regularity]

6 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

 

Ah, you see, I was counting the Caledonian in the claret group - anything in the chocolate brown to purple lake range being essentially a minor deviation from that basic carriage colour.

This range of colours is so vague that three contemporaneous reports of the EWJR describe the coaches being painted in “off-white and lake”, and then go on to describe the latter colour as being like that used by the LNWR, GWR and MR! Also, was it really “off-white”? That could be anywhere from white, with slight yellowing of the varnish, to a pale cream… Photos of the time don’t help, of course.

 

Not seen evidence of red ends on brake vans, though. And no passenger trains ran 20 miles without stopping, so even if this mooted “regulation” was in place, not for them.

 

I would love to see evidence of this assertion, though.

[billbedford]

32 minutes ago, Edwardian said:

I would assume that, if there were a mid-century injunction to paint brake ends vermillion it was a recommendation that lacked the force of law. Apart from the ability to delay the opening of new lines on safety grounds (1842), I don't think the BoT could force companies to do anything pre-1889.

 

Except, there was a similar practice of painting the buffer beams of locos vermillion. This was almost universal until the end of steam. The only exceptions I know of are LNWR tenders and streamlined locos. The latter seems to me to suggest there was some sort of legalise along the lines of 'a flat plate at the leading end of the locomotive' . 

[billbedford]

1 hour ago, Regularity said:

Not seen evidence of red ends on brake vans, though. And no passenger trains ran 20 miles without stopping, so even if this mooted “regulation” was in place, not for them.

 

When people describe loco liveries, how many include the red buffer beam?