Brake Van Interior

[two tone green]

Hi all.

 

As part of my move into O gauge, busily building lots of stock ready to populate the layout come the new year.

 

Have managed seven 16t Parkside kits for mineral wagons and pleased with the results. Grey and Bauxite coloured to give a bit of a variation on the layout with coal loads. Looking good for my first attempt in O. Will post pictures next time I'm home in two weeks.

 

But have got to the stage of needing a brake van to end the train and building the Parkside PS40 LMS 20 Ton Brake Van to meet my requirements.

 

I will paint the exterior grey for use on British Railways and add lights etc to finish it off. But what was the colour of the inside. Was it wood coloured, grey as per the outside or some other colour to give 'comfort' to the occupier. White or some other light shade would seem to make sense so as to reflect the available light in there and make it a bit brighter as such.

 

Looking forward to making it work as well with head,tail and interior lights running off DCC with anti flicker being achieved by the excellent DCC Concepts anti flicker units. A stove as well with anti anti flicker to get flicker of the burning fire.

 

Any help with interior furnishings & lighting would be useful, no Ikea stuff thanks.

[BernardTPM]

I've got a picture I took of B951675 near Temple Mills in 1978 that had one side missing so the inside was visible. Basically the interior was painted in pale cream (paler than the cream used on stations in the old regional colours) with the number in black over the ducket. The interior of the ducket was suffering from a fair bit of rust. Only the base of the stove was in situ, again rust coloured, but solid rust colour rather than speckled! The padded seat base on the locker under the ducket was black.

[two tone green]

Thanks Bernard, excellent info.

 

I suspected that even in the bad old days of train travel, even for the brakeman he would have some form of comfort during the trips he would do. The pale cream colour confirms this. The photo would be useful if you can upload it. Thanks.

 

Will have a look at the paint suppliers to see if there is a suitable colour.

[The Stationmaster]

Going from a BR standard van what I can remember is as follows -

 

Interior was cream (but I'm not at all sure if there was or wasn't a different colour below waist level - it's a very long time since I was last in one), upholstery was either leather or some sort of leather cloth and very dark; lower woodwork under benches, desk etc was definitely a sort of mid brown. The normal practice of many Guards was to ensure they got the stove red hot during cold weather so it was always rusty, and the true comfort merchants jammed every potential source of draughts with newspapers (but note the latter was more common on the BR Standard vans which had a terrible reputation for draughts and were much disliked by Guards who had known anything better such as vans to the LMS or GW designs).

[two tone green]

Thanks Mike, very interesting back ground stuff on brake van interiors. A game of draughts sounds like the favorite way of passing the time.

 

If any one has any photos to go with the excellent info offered above it would be much appreciated.

[buffalo]

Not your prototype, but there's a good picture of the inside of a GWR TOAD in Russell's 'Great Western Wagons Appendix'. This very much confirms Mike's description, at least for the GWR. Dark chocolate to waist, cream above, white roof, fittings black. Unfortunately, I can't recall seeing a picture of the inside of an ex-LMS van.

 

Nick

[Boris]

Having stripped a couple of planks out of various vans, I will agree on cream above waist level, I have however found some evidence to suggest that some were either green or maroon below waist level. Research has also found anecdotal evidence to suggest that in certain parts of the country guards were known to write various witticisms on the walls.

[Mark Saunders]

Some vans were bauxite up to about half way up the duckets, more common on LMS body type.

 

Steel plates behind the stove tended to be black.

 

Comfort wise LMS vans were too big to heat properly, and had no where to stretch out for those long Saturday nights!

 

Mark Saunders

[The Stationmaster]

A 'party piece' trick of Goods Guards with anyone who happened to be daft enough to ride with them was quite dastardly - you has to stand in one spot, close your eyes and then turn round three times on that spot. When you reopened your eyes you had to pass a very simple test - tell the Guard which way the train was going.

And if you think that's simple? Well it isn't …. in fact it is amazingly difficult, better than any fairground ride for total disorientation (and sorry it added nothing to the quest for colour information).

[beast66606]

Hi Andy,

 

see this thread on old RMWeb for a pic or two from me.

[two tone green]

Thanks all, great pictures Dave.

 

I may opt for the half green or brown, half cream scheme. It seems to make sense that the lower half would be a darker shade to help with dirt on walls etc and cream on upper walls for light reflection.

 

And as for the party piece Mike, will have to try to find a brake van, a friendly guard and a train to give it a go.

[BernardTPM]

I regret it's on a slide and I don't have a slide scanner. Interesting that those more recent 'scrapping' pics had light grey in place of cream. Half-and-half might well have preceded all-over cream.

[two tone green]

No problems Bernard. Dave's scrap pictures give some idea of what it was like on the inside.

 

I have a spell in Cardiff next weekend so will pop into the Ian Allen book shop there and see what is available to look at, buy.

[Steve Taylor]

For colour reference think of the pale cream as something akin to Landrover's "Limestone" (as used on series I/II/III and early 90/110 wheels and hardtops). The accompanying picture in a stored van may be slightly yellow due to the light quality through the glass though had been white-balanced to the guage.

[craigwelsh]

I've got an article with some BR publicity shots of "the new standard brake van design" at home somewhere, i'll try and find it later to have a look. The mag also had a picture of the 'new' 12T standard van as well!

[Coombe Barton]

One person's interpretation -(scroll down) http://www.gwr.org.uk/galatkinson15.html

[two tone green]

Thanks for all the info, excellent.

 

Like the GWR stuff, its an excellent source of wagon info and will be a help to me even if I'm not a 100% GWR type person.

 

Need to get paint ordered now.

 

Thanks again, great stuff.

[tebee]

I seem to remember, when we looked over some Ex- LMS "Queen Mary" vans when tendering for them for preservation, that there was several versions of the interior color. Most where light gray or cream but some had a greenish tinge while other had a much darker color, sort or cream merging into brown though that could just be the affects of nicotine. Seats where brown leatherette and cupboards and lockers where brown or wood colored.

 

I don't recall any half and half versions but this was a long. long time ago

[hmrspaul]

You haven't mentioned what period you are modelling. This http://gallery6801.fotopic.net/p17129803.html (and next) is a late photograph. BR instructions in the 1950s and in 1963 were ceiling and upper walls Stone finishing paint and lower walls to a height of 3ft. 6in. freight stock red (modellers call this bauxite).

 

Paul Bartlett

[two tone green]

Hi Paul,

 

Its around 1965'ish, two tone green diesel, small yellow warning panel era that I'm aiming for but a certain amount of license will creep in so as to satisfy my desire to run a variety of stock and not always from one area.

 

The photos are very good, thanks and with the BR instructions, it gives me a good start. Thanks. I already have the colours you suggest and I'll give it a go to see what its like.

 

Only another week and half before home again but able to get some of the building work done on the kit.

[Boris]

Comfort wise LMS vans were too big to heat properly, and had no where to stretch out for those long Saturday nights!

 

Mark Saunders

 

Interestingly enough I was out in an ex LMS van last week when it was -10 outside, it was nice and warm, even when on the move One thing I have noticed though is that some stoves (not solely limited to LMS vans) have a sharper/narrower than average elbow on the back of the stove where it joins onto the stove pipe. This is a fantastic place for clinker and crud to build up if guards are over zealous when applying coal, the van I have in mind has one of these stoves and does struggle to warm up unless one cleans this elbow regularly.