Post War B12/3 painting

[ianwales]

Hi

I want to repaint the new Hornby B12 for a 1947 era layout, would it be plain black or lined and would it have LNER on the tender or just NE? Thanks

Ian

[Hatfield Shed]

Unless you want to work from a photograph of a specific example, you could probably justify 'any of the above'.

Probably painted black during or even after the war, may have been LNER or NE depending on timing, though there does appear to have been an effort to restore LNER in full that had been effective by 1947. Probably got lining, but might not, there were shortages in materials and skills. Please yourself in short! (They do carry red lined black very handsomely.)

[ianwales]

Hi Hatfield Shed

Do you know of a photo of a B12 in red lined black that I can use as a painting guide please?

Ian

[Hatfield Shed]

Sadly not. The B12/3 seems to have become somewhat camera shy in the immediate post war period! I saw a scratchbuilt B12/3 a long time ago painted in this style, and on asking the owner he had used a photo of a D16 as a guide to the job, and was quite clear that he couldn't prove that any B12/3 had actually gone about in LNER black lined red. But it looked good!

Among the books adorning my shelves is Geoffrey Hughes 'LNER 4-6-0s at work' and on p69 are two B/W photos.

The upper shows 1565, captioned as July 47 and in lined green: and fair enough the bufferbeam is lined out, and the boiler is clearly much lighter then the smokebox, the Westinghouse pump cylinder barrels are clearly lined and there's a hint of lining on the lower tender side, (on both cab and tender side the light falls very unhelpfully) so let's assume the caption is correct.

The lower photo is of 1516, captioned as summer 48, no information on the loco colour or lining, but still with LNER in full style on the tender. It's better lit, and if I am any judge the loco which is reasonably clean is all over black, unlined.

So there you are, the extremes of the paint treatment range for a post war LNER B12/3 appear to be fully lined green to black unlined. But imtermediates such as red lined LNER black, no solid evidence.

Turn to page 60, and there's a grubby 7476 captioned for September 45. I think in black, and there's some sort of lining on the boiler bands, but no lining visible elsewhere, tender still 'NE' only.

[mick b]

Black lined Red stopped in the late 1920's (28?). Hornby lined the post war Thompson B1 in Black lined Red ,so some classes must have been Black lined out Red post war. Never heard of a B12 being in post war Green livery.

[65447]

Black lined Red stopped in the late 1920's (28?). Hornby lined the post war Thompson B1 in Black lined Red ,so some classes must have been Black lined out Red post war. Never heard of a B12 being in post war Green livery.

20 of the B12s in Scotland were so painted by Inverurie works, together with one in England, B12/3 number 1565. A photograph of Belpaire-boilered Scottish B12 number 1543 appears on p63 of 'The Big Four in Colour 1935-50' and the caption makes a good fist of describing the livery. On p64 there is a 1939 photograph of B12/3 number 8537 in full fig lined green and another of small-boilered Scottish B12/4 number 1524. Two more early BR Scottish examples are on p176.

Yeadon volume 7 has a photograph on p56 of England-based B12/3 number 1565 in green, albeit a monochrome reproduction. Adequate livery details are discernable and L N E R appears on the tender in full in Gill Sans lettering, although unshaded and with the incorrect 'curly' 6.

Those that were otherwise in WW2 plain black livery started being painted in the BR lined black livery from 1949, initially with BRITISH RAILWAYS on the tenders and later the early BR totem.

[1H was 2E]

The topic of apple green B12s was also mentioned in the thread 'N2 in apple green?' not very long ago...