The LNER Encyclopedia

What were the colours of the LNER containers for furniture removals etc., pre-war?
Peco have brought out an N gauge model which is in light blue, is this correct?
Maurice C.

BD containers (I believe that was the classification for the furniture ones) were originally the same red oxide colour as fitted goods vehicles, then went to dark blue. I'm not sure of the date of the livery change OTTOMH.

That also applied to A types - only the insulated ones differed, being painted white.

There's a picture in the 'LNER Locomotives in colour' collection of Claud Hamilton at an exhibition in the 1930s and there are a couple of red oxide containers visible in the background. I'm fairly sure there's a blue one visible in another picture in that same book but I don't have it to hand to check.

Light blue doesn't sound right - only engineers' vehicles were painted light blue and even then it may have been more a fading effect than the original colour.

We have all got used to modern paint pigments that exactly match the required specification are very resistant to fading.

The fact is that any paint produced before the early 1960s was probably not an exact match for anything.
Plus all paints weather and fade, some colours are worse than others.

Early blues, unless very high quality using expensive pigments, were amongst the worst for fading in strong sunlight.
Plus as the body of the paint starts to break down with weathering you get a sort of dusty powder effect which makes the paint appear lighter in colour.

Perhaps the Peco model depicts a container painted with a duff batch of paint.

Alan

The change in livery styles was introduced in 1935 but took some time to be fully effected. The lettering style changed to Gill Sans.

Ordinary containers remained Red Oxide with Straw lettering and
Refrigerated containers White with Black lettering.

The 'House Move' furniture containers were painted Oxford Blue from about 1934 - a darker blue closer to (or even darker than) the colour of the upper band at the top of the forum web pages and the same as used on Engineer's vehicles.

The design and layout of the lettering and logos varied over time and by the designated traffic - intended to provide mobile adverts of the service provided. The colours were also to an extent harmonised with those of the road transport fleet.

The full range of types is described and illustrated in Tatlow's LNER Wagons Volume 4B and in the LNER Society's Symposium Proceedings 2010.

Many thanks for the prompt repies.
I too thought that the containers would have been painted in Oxford blue as the road vehicles.
Maurice C.