The LNER Encyclopedia

I'm currently interested in the BR Green colour. I have several modern colour photographs in a few books that I have. The BR Green colour seems to varry from a dark green (which seems to match the green used on Hornby Model Trains) to an almost olive-drab green (in most of the photographs) via a medium/light green (in one photograph of a Standard 5, 4-6-0 tender locomotive). All photos show a gloss finish that you would expect from modern preserved locomotives. As a guess, the colour variation is down to the effects of weather/sun-light on the paint (the last car I owned suffered simularly) or it it just sunlight and the media that the photograph was taken in?

Can anybody clarifly this apparant colour variation?

On that subject, from here I can see Farish Falcon (Poole) and Farish (Bachmann) UoSA (Now DOC) and the older Poole version is a more deffinate Green

Other than sunlight/weather, it could be down to the actual film used for the original photograph. Ektachrome has a far cooler colour temperature range than Kodachrome. Fuji, Agfa, and others each have their own balances re. colour. Then there's the variable of exposure settings and, further, the differentiation in hues from printing processes. Even slight varations may occur at different points in the print run of the book as the press crew try to maintain consistency in colour. Even a shift change at the printers can conceivably be a factor as another set of eyes takes over.

So, short of seeing two or more locomotives standing together 'in the flesh', it would be difficult to say if there were any actual hue variations originally. Additionally, paint matching techniques in those days weren't the sophisticated, computerised methods available today, so there may well have been differences in colour. I'd have to say that it's pretty unlikely that after a repaint of a locomotive, say ten years after it left the works, that the new paint colour would be an exact match.

I'm sure, and we'll find out Tuesday when Bittern hits Grosmont, that Bittern and UoSA are different green, but then you have the 'weathering' to USoA

Ah, yes indeed. Another variable, you see. A grand sight, the two of them together, nonetheless.