Question about GWR 5700 class pannier tanks

For modelling purposes this. What colour and livery did they have in BR days? I am guessing unlined black, but Swindon had a habit of applying green to random types which other regions didn't do, so did this happen to the 5700s? If so, would it be lined or not?

 

A tiny handful in BR lined black for Paddington empty stock duties I believe.

 

If memory serves correct that would have been 9700-9711 which were allocated to 81A Old Oak Common for ECS and local trip workings. Don't forget also the locos sold after withdrawal to London Transport and re-liveried into LT maroon and IIRC saw service over joint BR/LT lines.

 

If you really want green there's always NCB.

 

The condensing tanks, 9700-9710, were all plain black livery. Old Oak's pannier 8771 was lined out. There is a good photo of it in Pannier Papers No. 4.
Also, there is a photo of 9741, at Stafford Road, in green livery, circa 1948/49. This is in Pannier Papers No. 2.

 

Thanks for the correction; although I had seen examples from the 97xx batch I couldn't remember whether they were lined.

 

The Swindon policy of green livery after the regions got some autonomy wasn’t random. It was restricted to passenger and mixed traffic engines only, so 64xx and 74xx Panniers were green but 57xx and 94xx remained black. For some reason the 22xx 0-6-0s were treated as mixed traffic engines.
As an aside it also meant the Southern Schools could be repainted in correct express passenger green. They were originally black because some bureaucrat at BR headquarters decided that a mere 4-4-0 couldn’t be classed as an express passenger loco.
It’s long out of print but if you can find a copy, the Ian Allan book, British Railway Liveries 1948-1968 is very useful.

 

Fair point, but types which on the LMR would have been black seemed to be green on the Western. The standard class 3 tanks for example. As you say, the 2200 0-6-0s were classed as mixed traffic and were green, presumably, Swindon might have done Derby 4s green!

 

The other regions has a different policy, the ER and SR didn’t change the policy for engines but the SR went for traditional green for coaching stock. The LMR repainted some of its Stanier Pacifics red but all of the Scottish ones remained green

 

Yes they did and the WR reverted to chocolate and cream for their coaches, but later followed the other regions to do them maroon.

The southern didn't and theirs went straight from green to blue/grey

 

I'm not sure that's quite right; my understanding was that the WR only painted some of their coaches in chocolate and cream, mainly for named express trains, but continued using maroon for everything else, and there was no "reverting" to maroon before blue and grey was introduced.

 

We sometimes saw a lone chocolate and cream coach in a rake of maroons on the WCML through Lancaster. There must have been a 'through coach' to/from the WR - Scotland?

 

That’s correct as far as I know. The original intention was to keep the chocolate and cream stick on the main express workings but they often strayed onto lesser trains. The changes weren’t instant, I remember seeing blood and custard coaches in the early 60s

 

That's basically my understanding. All the carriages repainted in chocolate/cream from 1957 were Mk1's with just a few odd exceptions. IIRC the exceptions were Hawksworth inspection saloons and a couple of pre-nationalisation dining cars.
Ray.

 

Lots of references to the working if you look at enough photo books. I think I remember it was a Plymouth to Glasgow through coach that was added at Crewe. There is a photo (somewhere in one of my books) of a Duchess with the said through coach waiting on a non-platform road at Crewe prior to attachment to a Scottish express.
Similarly, we used to see it when spotting at Wigan and Preston in the early 1960's, not sure when it died out but a read through the books will give the answer.