Coaches in BR livery, when?

[boeing757]

65447,
Thank you for your detailed response, though I will admit to not understanding the difference between carmine and crimson. I remember these vans used on the pick up goods on the Bishops Stortford branch for parcels/valuable small items. They were so filthy it was impossible to tell what livery they were in.
Apologies to all if my previous post was a bit spikey
Bob

[65447]

'757,

The official British Railways colour name is crimson lake, although the lake is usually dropped. The actual colour comes from the BS381 colour range developed from 1930 and the BS name is crimson: http://www.willowpowdercoating.co.uk/wi ... chart.html

When first announced J N Maskelyne considered that it was nowhere near crimson but to his mind closer to carmine, which it is not but never mind! Unfortunately the errant reference has stuck but should really be avoided in favour of the correct name.

[robertcwp]

'757,

The official British Railways colour name is crimson lake, although the lake is usually dropped. The actual colour comes from the BS381 colour range developed from 1930 and the BS name is crimson: http://www.willowpowdercoating.co.uk/wi ... chart.html

When first announced J N Maskelyne considered that it was nowhere near crimson but to his mind closer to carmine, which it is not but never mind! Unfortunately the errant reference has stuck but should really be avoided in favour of the correct name.

That's a very interesting colour chart. Colour photos from the BR crimson and cream era are not a reliable indication of the shade as they tended to make reds look lighter than they were. However, they do show that BR maroon was a darker colour - it was meant to be the same as the LMS carriage colour.

[60117 Bois Roussel]

Well I'm amazed that nobody on this forum can answer my simple enquiry. Does the information not exist or are we just unwilling to share?
B

Alas, it can be easy to think that if a question is simple, then the answer must be too. I wish!

Just for the record, I assembled a pile of information based on surviving records and photographs (a good source already much mentioned) but the variations were staggering. In any enterprise where there is amalgamation with "new" companies, new management, and new policies, the first years can see an enormous amount of change and inconsistency with different districts and different sites making different interpretations of how to proceed. Add a little of the natural desire to stay with long-standing practice, or tweak the new ones while they are in a state of flux, and the result IN PRACTICE is an enormous amount of variation both geographically and chronologically.

This is the practical reality and the more pictures you study, the more you will learn. Dare I say that my study of this subject proved so complex that I actually could not find a way of describing it in a lucid way and had to go back to the Editor where it was due, to say so. Matters are complicated by the fact that principal stock went through the system, so to speak, more quickly and was used and thus seen more. Lesser stock could linger for ages in carriage sidings and then appear as a substitute, a strengthener, or in a relief, or in an excursion. This and its skewed representation by photographers who couldn't resist snapping the abnormal is pretty well-covered ground.

My best suggestion is to do your own research by looking at the photographs and picking your way through them as best you can, bearing in mind that it wasn't as critical as you may think and just about anything you choose will have been true somewhere for some of the time. The steam railway was always full of this kind of thing.

As regards precision of colour, it's a fantasy. Paints like Crimson Lake (called maroon by BR) started in the days when reference colour panels were used (I saw the practice still in use in UK industry in the 1980s). Crimson Lake is reputed to have been started by the Midland Railway and the same paint was still being supplied to BR. What changed with a colour that is so fugitive, was the colour of the undercoat, the number of top coats applied, the colour of the varnish, and the number of coats of varnish. And I haven't even started on effects of the light, changes in lining and the natural factors of degeneration which modellers cheerfully bundle under the tag "weathering". Variations over time were immense, possibly the best known one being CR loco blue where how much white lead was added wasn't specified well enough and liberties were taken. A comparable one for coaches arose after WW2 at Stratford Works which found itself with unused stocks of khaki paint from WW1. They got rid of it by mixing it in the brown paint used to paint older carriages with the inevitable result: every shade of brown you can think of! Honestly chaps, it's possible to make too much of precision when the reality on the ground was so variable. Try to learn to live with it, accept it and relax in the knowledge that in those days variability was the norm. It actually looks better on the layout too.

[65447]

As regards precision of colour, it's a fantasy. Paints like Crimson Lake (called maroon by BR) started in the days when reference colour panels were used (I saw the practice still in use in UK industry in the 1980s). Crimson Lake is reputed to have been started by the Midland Railway and the same paint was still being supplied to BR.

What a load of absolute tosh - BR maroon was NOT the same colour as BR crimson lake used in the 'crimson and cream' earlier livery, and paint technology was far more sophisticated than suggested. Lake is not a colour but a means of production.

[boeing757]

Gentlemen,
Thanks again for the additional info.
65447
Well I knew I'd seen the term carmine somewhere but it's crimson for me from now on. Your comments regarding the lining on crimson vhicles is noted, but in the same Tatlow volume there is a photo of an LMS 42' GUV supposedly in crimson with yellow/black lining at waist level and cantrail, is that a variation from norm?
60117
Thanks for your thoughts. I am aware that various carriage works continued to exercise a degree of indpendence after nationalisation and that paint mixing was very much a shade of the day, my enquiry was more about what the official schemes were. My problem is that contemporary photographers took endless shots of the locos but largely ignored rolling stock. Add to that the lack of colour imagery, even if suspect colour, and the task gets more difficult.
I agree we can get too wound up about accurate colours, as I said earlier, the stock was so filthy it was impossible to discern what the paint finish was!
Bob

[65447]

Well I knew I'd seen the term carmine somewhere but it's crimson for me from now on. Your comments regarding the lining on crimson vhicles is noted, but in the same Tatlow volume there is a photo of an LMS 42' GUV supposedly in crimson with yellow/black lining at waist level and cantrail, is that a variation from norm?

No, that was the norm. The arrangement of the beading on Gresley teak-panelled stock coupled with the high window line made it very difficult to apply paint and lining consistent with stock of other companies and BR standard coaches. That is not to say that occasionally will be seen in photographs a vehicle that has the upper lining applied, but in the BR crimson & cream scheme you will note that Gresley teak-panelled stock in particular lacks the upper crimson band and lining below the cornice (roof) at cantrail height, and in the BR maroon scheme the upper lining.

[harvester]

I always thought "blood and custard" covered it accurately!

[Bill Bedford]

As regards precision of colour, it's a fantasy. Paints like Crimson Lake (called maroon by BR) started in the days when reference colour panels were used (I saw the practice still in use in UK industry in the 1980s). Crimson Lake is reputed to have been started by the Midland Railway and the same paint was still being supplied to BR.

What a load of absolute tosh - BR maroon was NOT the same colour as BR crimson lake used in the 'crimson and cream' earlier livery, and paint technology was far more sophisticated than suggested. Lake is not a colour but a means of production.

That's not what was meant. BR maroon was a close match to MR/LMS crimson lake (allegedly), BR crimson was a completely different colour. Which is why you should never believe the labels on paint tins, it will only get you more confused.

[robertcwp]

To pick up on a point from earlier in the thread, when BR introduced its first standard liveries in 1949, non-gangwayed stock and at least some non-passenger stock was painted in BR crimson with lining (the same style as on a crimson and cream carriage, with the black adjacent to where the cream would have been). Lining on non-gangwayed crimson stock was abandoned around 1951 on cost grounds. This lack of lining carried over into the post-1956 BR maroon period, with lining on non-gangwayed stock not being reintroduced until around 1958-9 and even then not applied consistently.

The official 1949 announcement as noted earlier referred to the new colour as crimson lake, although it was not the same colour as the crimson lake that had been used by the LMS and Midland, and which was similar to the BR maroon of 1956. I try to refer to the BR 1949 colour simply as crimson or as BR crimson. Carmine was an unofficial term coined it is said by the editor of one of the model railway magazines of the day.

BR crimson/cream is a minefield of detail variations in relation to its application to LNER (and other Company) designs. On Gresley stock, there was no upper crimson band above the windows. On the first 1949 repaints, the crimson went up to immediately below the windows - look at a 1949 photo of the Master Cutler set, which was one of the first in the livery, and you will see what I mean. However, the post-war ('Thompson') stock had deeper bodylights so the crimson did not go as far up the carriage side. To match, the style on Gresley carriages was changed so the crimson finished in line (more or less) with where it was on the post-war (and later BR Standard) stock, thus giving a cream band below the bodylights.

There was also some variation in the style on post-war stock. Compare these two images for example:
http://www.dewi.ca/trains/aylesbur/pres0005.html
http://www.dewi.ca/trains/aylesbur/pres0004.html
Note lack of upper crimson band on one and the different number positions.

[strang steel]

I may have mentioned this before; if so, apologies.

On the very first Marsden Rail video, York, at just after 7 minutes 60025 enters the station from the north with a passenger service. The first coach is a crimson Mk1 BG, and the second is a maroon SK. The colours in the video may not be accurate, but it certainly shows just how dark the maroon looked when compared to crimson.

[60117 Bois Roussel]

60117 Bois Roussel wrote:

As regards precision of colour, it's a fantasy. Paints like Crimson Lake (called maroon by BR) started in the days when reference colour panels were used (I saw the practice still in use in UK industry in the 1980s). Crimson Lake is reputed to have been started by the Midland Railway and the same paint was still being supplied to BR.

65447 replied:
What a load of absolute tosh - BR maroon was NOT the same colour as BR crimson lake used in the 'crimson and cream' earlier livery, and paint technology was far more sophisticated than suggested. Lake is not a colour but a means of production.

Clearly the greater the word count of a post the greater the untruths it can hide..

This is deliberately insulting. You didn't even read my note properly, so you're doubly insulting. What a carry on!
Are intemperate, spoiling activities like this supposed to actually help anybody? Or enhance the reputation of this forum??

The information that I gave about Crimson Lake/Maroon came directly from a former employee of the company who actually made the paint in a 1:1 personal discussion. From yer actual horse's mouth, you could say, and it's been endorsed by other people over the years. Essentially how the same paint presented differently. One of the points I was trying to make is that it's unwise to rely too much on rules, regs and specs - and that's a common criticism about some people on this forum. The question is, what is the actual purpose of rules, regs, and specs is? And why are they are so often not adhered to or give different results in practice, ie. in real life? If the object of the exercise is to do little more than debate rules, regs and specs in a vacuum and split hairs over them, as I often see, I would suggest that something might be being missed.

[robertcwp]

This image shows the crimson and cream style normally used on Gresley stock - note the cream band below the bodylights. Also note the freshly painted maroon carriage with black cornice:
69504_EFinchley_RCTS_NorthKentRailtour_21-3-59_m by robertcwp, on Flickr

And a contrast in styles on post-war stock:
Coachingstock_Mallaig_1950s by robertcwp, on Flickr

V2 by robertcwp, on Flickr

And a couple on David Ford's site showing the earlier style of crimson and cream on the Master Cutler:
https://flic.kr/p/ejasJe
https://flic.kr/p/ejgcjY

[60117 Bois Roussel]

This image shows the crimson and cream style normally used on Gresley stock - note the cream band below the bodylights. Also note the freshly painted maroon carriage with black gutter:
69504_EFinchley_RCTS_NorthKentRailtour_21-3-59_m by robertcwp, on Flickr

An excellent picture: that black cornice is missed by many people who paint it the roof colour. Many other liveries had specially painted cornices too.

I've heard (sorry, no source for this) that BR came to view its crimson as a failure, especially on the SR where the former company used to trade on how much sunshine it offered, although whether because such a red was too fugitive and too prone to fade/discolour, or because the spec regarding the paint quality was not good enough. That's a common problem in all walks of life - how to trade off quality against cost? - and long-run mistakes are common. Wise people (and those with deeper pockets) know that there is a price for quality and that you get what you pay for.

[1H was 2E]

I was interested to read the reference to lining on the bright red livery used for non gangwayed and NPCCS stock. Although my tender age at the time prevents me from giving first-hand experience beyond identifying, I recollect, a 6 wheel coach as being unusual, I am surprised that lining was applied to coaching stock in this colour. I can fairly certainly recollect reading in a contemporary RO that the WR was admonished by the centre for lining out stock in this livery, the practice seen as being extravagant. The wonderful weather and other attractions mean that trawling through old mags in a darkened room for confirmation will have to wait.

Another post refers to "blood and custard". I hate this expression, along with "ferret & dartboard" and other pejorative terms. These were subtle ways those who hated the concept of nationalisation attempted to belittle every action of the new organisation. Personally, I liked British Railways/ Rail throughout my youth to the extent later joined the organisation for my working life. This antagonism continued for many years; when, on train surveys, I courteously (I hope) enquired of passengers details of their journey I was sometimes met with cold refusal followed by "You're a load of socialists/communists spying on our private lives"