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GWR Brown livery


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There is a very good photo of a couple of workmen's coaches in the 'Great Western Way' (1st ed.) on page 69. Text reads 'Workmen's coaches in all brown with "GWR" in waist and "Third" wording away from the doors. This style was used through the 1930s". The photo obviously represents a thousand word description... dilbert

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Following up on the PBVs, I have found quite a few pictures of brown K40 and K41 full brakes from the 1930s. These have the GWR shirtbutton emblem on them so I would hazard a guess they were painted the same shade of brown as other coaching stock.

 

Just an update to this thread after a visit to Warley today.I spoke to a knowledgable chap on the GW study group stand and also Precision paints and they both agree the brown used was likely to be the freight brown as used on siphons etc.My new full brake will be in this and when I post a photo everyone can give an opinion !

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If I have understood everyone's posts correctly, I would be able to have a rake of Ratio 4-Wheelers (built "as is" or modfied) sprayed brown and covered liberally with "grot" and it would be prototypically correct for a 1930s workman's train?

 

 

Thanks

 

F

 

By the 1930's the 4 wheelers had often lost much of the panelling as they were sheeted over to extend the life of vehices already way past their best.

 

Mike Wiltshire

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Just an update to this thread after a visit to Warley today.I spoke to a knowledgable chap on the GW study group stand and also Precision paints and they both agree the brown used was likely to be the freight brown as used on siphons etc.My new full brake will be in this and when I post a photo everyone can give an opinion !

 

I would have thought that the PBVs, as part of the coaching stock, would have been painted as the coaches were. I can't see them keeping a 'special' batch of paint just for PBVs*. For Siphons or other passenger-rated wooden stock there may have been a different formulation (for painting over raw wood rather than wood or steel panelling), but assuming the paint could be used on all surfaces, I could also see the same paint being used for everything.

 

*especially since some were painted in brown and cream anyway

 

Adrian

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I wouldn't normally use restored railway items as examples but for what its worth the coach on the left looks right to me, or at least as I remember seeing them on the Cambrian in the early 1960s.

 

GWR post 1922 coach brown glossy colour patch in the original HRMS GWR livery register is also worth looking at. The coach on the right is well off message!

attachicon.gifWEB choc & cream BR.jpg

 

Coach, oh wise one, is that a gold line I see next to the cream?

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Coach, oh wise one, is that a gold line I see next to the cream?

 

I didnt take notice but I expect it was old gold paint, in otherwords yellow that looks like gold. Used extensively by BR on its coaches from 1949 until the advent of corporate blue.

 

Regarding the OP's question, the thing to remember about the first years of Nationalization was BR Gill Sans insignia was adopted before the BR colour schemes were finalised. In the absence of new instructions, the various ex-Big Four carriage works continued to paint vehicles using existing paint from Stores, therefore it was not at all unusual to see coaches in Teak, Brown, Maroon or Malachite carrying BR style Gill Sans insignia.

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Anyone know anything about the livery of a Hydra originally these were passenger stock most evidence suggests black solebars and brown above which would mean just a small area to be painted brown? Thanks

Don

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I would interpret that as body colour; it's in shade compared to the coach side, but the same tone as the side of the ducket.

 

Posted seconds after Miss P, who is right of course, I have just checked photos of the GWRS's brown coaches.

Edited by petethemole
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5 hours ago, gwrrob said:

A bump for this thread to ask whether coaches painted in the wartime brown livery had black ends or body colour. I'm looking at this particular clerestory.

 

https://www.warwickshirerailways.com/gwr/gwrbsh2494.htm

 

Hmmm, what have you got in mind Rob? Funnily enough just last weekend I picked up my (admittedly second hand) scratch built clerestories from the to-do pile after a three year abeyance. I'm going to slap GWR coach brown all over them and add the underframe detail and some Shapeways Dean bogies to give me four decrepit clerestories circa 1947 - they will mix in niceley with Hornby Colletts and toplights. 

 

Cheers, 

 

CoY

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Hi All,

 

i dont know of this is of use at all at all but I seem to remember Pete S. telling me that the paint for the wartime brown coach at DRC was achieved by adding coach brown and red oxide together.

 

I’m sure he will elaborate further if required!

 

All the best,

 

Castle

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I can’t find a photo of the finished coach, but this was Painted with Halfords Triumph/Rover Russett Brown.  Which to my eyes looks pretty close to the coach at Didcot.  IMG_2617.jpg 

 

This was sprayed onto a black undercoat, while this Sunshine stock third was sprayed onto white

IMG_0681.JPG

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I have this problem looking at photos of 4 wheelers and clerestories on miner's workman's trains in South Wales; they are so dirty it is next to impossible to be definitive about the liveries.  Some 4 wheelers managed to be repainted in BR crimson, but they got pretty dirty pretty quickly as well.

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Having subsequently looked at several photos from the Warwickshire railways site that I've saved for my own reference, there are a couple where the ends are not in shade, and they don't look black at all. I haven't got time right now to search the site for them again, but one is a C10, another a PBV. diagram K17, both at Snow Hill.

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1 hour ago, The Johnster said:

I have this problem looking at photos of 4 wheelers and clerestories on miner's workman's trains in South Wales; they are so dirty it is next to impossible to be definitive about the liveries.  Some 4 wheelers managed to be repainted in BR crimson, but they got pretty dirty pretty quickly as well.

I don't think that many did get repainted in BR crimson. I have only managed to definitely identify one vehicle whose number I have forgotten but which was a Met. 5-compartment vehicle with one compartment converted and labelled for the guard's use.

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2 hours ago, petethemole said:

Having subsequently looked at several photos from the Warwickshire railways site that I've saved for my own reference, there are a couple where the ends are not in shade, and they don't look black at all. I haven't got time right now to search the site for them again, but one is a C10, another a PBV. diagram K17, both at Snow Hill.

Would this be one of them, Pete?

https://www.warwickshirerailways.com/gwr/gwrbsh2495.htm

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To interpret black and white photo evidence of coaches painted in the WW2 austerity plain brown accurately is difficult; the vehicles are often dirty as well.  But it does look to me as if there were 2 browns, a reddish hue used on lined coaches (gangwayed and some auto trailers) and a more plain brown shade used on non-gangwayed stock.  As most of my research in this area has been about trailers where the ends were painted brown, I am not sure what colour the ends of gangwayed or non-gangwayed other stock were painted or if they were different, but some photos of non-gangwayed stock show the same colour extending from the sides to the ends; again, difficult to pin down under the muck, especially on South Wales workmen's stock.

 

These were coaches that were used by miners in the days before pit head baths, and had the upholstery removed so that the dirt could be hosed out of the compartments; many services had specifically labelled 'clean' compartments for office staff to ride in.  While the compartments were hosed after use, the exteriors got filthy and stayed that way.  G W R initials amidships and the numbers were difficult to distinguish.  

 

As for 4 wheelers in crimson, W2774 and W289 were 'noted' at Caerphilly in a 'Railway Observer', date unknown but according to information on page 2 of my 'South Wales Valleys in the 1950s' over on Layout Topics, information from the inestimable and ever helpful ChrisF of this parish.  Mine are out of use pending a relaying of the fiddle yard to include a road they can run on reliably...

 

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I still hold firm on:

 

Triumph Russet Brown - "Austerity Brown"

 

"Freight Brown" by Precision - - "All-over Brown"

 

Brown or Lake coaches - black ends

 

 

 

and also:

 

The GWR wasn't always good at following its own rules.

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6 hours ago, M.I.B said:

 

The GWR wasn't always good at following its own rules.

I suspect that the further one was from the eagle eyes of Swindon or Paddington the more “relaxed” the observation of the rules became ( except Operating Rules of course! )

Tim T

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On 28/06/2019 at 19:49, timbowilts said:

I suspect that the further one was from the eagle eyes of Swindon or Paddington the more “relaxed” the observation of the rules became ( except Operating Rules of course! )

Tim T

Problem with that is the still I posted earlier was at Aldermaston, the GWR's wartime HQ - they are all  GWR headquarters staff in that picture turning a blind eye to brown ends on the coaches!

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