LNER Paint Finish - Pre War

[2512silverfox]

Not sure of the provenance of some of the remarks re LNER Loco Green.

Certainly in the mid 60s the paint shop at Doncaster had, on the foreman's wall, so called sealed patterns of the colours used. These were prepared at various times but included 'the Loco Green used at Darlington' in addition to the Doncaster version. T & R Williams featured heavily in the records but there were other manufacturers, although Williams was favoured for varnishes.

These patterns were used by Precision when they first produced their paints in the early 70s and were carefully matched. I believe Ian Cherry also used them and I am pretty sure that they are still at the NRM because we used the GNR pattern when 251 was refurbished at Derby in 1976. Humbrol, in their old authentic range, used a match to 4472 as first preserved which is probably why it varies slightly from Phoenix Precision.

The actual Mansell references do vary slightly.

I still favour Jenkinson's story; when shown a model of an NER 4-4-0 in 7mm for ten minutes, only two out of fifty present, shown a bundle of colour swatches, could accurately match the colour from memory some ten minutes later!

[mick b]

Cheers Mick! I have a Hornby USA Scotsman converted to Salmon Trout which is in the slightly darker green which presumably Hornby have used as their attempt to be faithful to the Darlington green used in 1968ish. With the postponement of Book Law, I am tempted by some "bargain" USA Scotsman sets for further conversions, but was worried about colour. Probably shouldn't be?

What Green ? does it match any of the other Hornby LNER version Pacifics?. The ones I have, match Precision Doncaster very well. Havent got a USA version to compare.

Where are all the bargain ones hiding ?

[jwealleans]

That's interesting, Nick. So there was apparent recognition and at least tolerance of Darlington doing something slightly different? That is at least consistent with their continued use of the NER or other non-standard loco classifications and variations in lining out of locos.

[giner]

Sealed patterns notwithstanding, these were the days prior to computer colour matching when it relied on the good eye (well, I hope he had more than one ) of the person(s) involved in the task.

From my own experience in the printing industry, again long before computers, 'eyeing' a colour match with inks was a practised and developed art with Pantone swatches, or sometimes with customer-supplied examples. But, given the precision with computers now, I doubt we ever matched colours quite as accurately by the old methods.

[ten ten]

Like Gineer, I spent many years colour matching for print.Prior to Pantone,it needed much skill and experience, knowledge of pigments to be mixed and exceptional colour vision to meet spec.(Graphic Design students learnt the hard way to not interfere with the mixing process!)
Given the pigments may have been from different suppliers,and mixed by different people,there would have been minor ex works variations Over a period in service,with the effects of atmospheric pollution,sunlight etc, I doubt any engine would be exactly the same colour as another.

[2002EarlMarischal]

Cheers Mick! I have a Hornby USA Scotsman converted to Salmon Trout which is in the slightly darker green which presumably Hornby have used as their attempt to be faithful to the Darlington green used in 1968ish. With the postponement of Book Law, I am tempted by some "bargain" USA Scotsman sets for further conversions, but was worried about colour. Probably shouldn't be?

What Green ? does it match any of the other Hornby LNER version Pacifics?. The ones I have, match Precision Doncaster very well. Havent got a USA version to compare.

Where are all the bargain ones hiding ?

The "bargain" USA Scotsman models were sets excluding the observation car at just over £85 on eBay. Assuming the unwanted 2nd tender could be sold for around £25, then you were left with an A3 requiring removal of the USA appendages for around £60!

The one I have is a slightly darker green than the Humorist you did for me Mick, or indeed Hornby's own Flying Fox for example. That's why I thought Hornby had tried to match the green used erroneously by Darlington in 1968.

[2512silverfox]

Johnathan is quite right about the NER being different! They also had their own mix of 'teak' paint for solebars etc which was marginally darker than that used at Doncaster, and also one should remember that this colour was mixed on site up until 1939 so varied anyway.

Another factor was the instability of varnishes during the prewar period, in that they did tend to darken and yellow with age which inturn would have had an effect on the green base coats.

Personally I use very slightly different shades on all my Green locos, keeping the tins for repairs etc carefully marked. I recently did a repair on a loco painted in 1974 with Humbrol authentic and the paint, well stirred, was just as last opened.

[2002EarlMarischal]

Johnathan is quite right about the NER being different! They also had their own mix of 'teak' paint for solebars etc which was marginally darker than that used at Doncaster, and also one should remember that this colour was mixed on site up until 1939 so varied anyway.

Another factor was the instability of varnishes during the prewar period, in that they did tend to darken and yellow with age which inturn would have had an effect on the green base coats.

Personally I use very slightly different shades on all my Green locos, keeping the tins for repairs etc carefully marked. I recently did a repair on a loco painted in 1974 with Humbrol authentic and the paint, well stirred, was just as last opened.

I wonder if there are any colour photographs from the pre-war period which show colour variation between locos? Even if the photos themselves have deteriorated, or were never of the highest colour quality, variation would still be apparent possibly.