Liveries!

I would hope that they also had a basis in history.

When I started in preservation way back in 1968, we - most of us, anyway - were trying to recreate history and believed we could run the trains and work the lines entirely on a volunteer basis. Once running started, we soon learned the dreadful truth that paid staff were needed, voluntary donations were insufficient and the railways had to offer entertainment to the visiting families. So the 'leisure & entertainment' factor moved in, but I hope it's alongside the history recreated objective of those early preservationists, not instead of it.

 

Not really the case - many of the busier lines are a mixture of 'travel for travel's sake' and 'leisure travel' i.e. to reach and spend time at a destination. A consider amount of travel on the National Network is undertaken for similar reasons!

Incidentally, I think that picture of 80135 was in its 'rather too pale' green period - this isn't:


Having run over 18,000 miles in one 12 month period, 80135 is certainly a very hardworking 'museum piece'!

Steven

 

Whatever happens with 80135, I would imagine that painting her in black would get very confusing, what with her sharing running lines with 80136! I remember her in BR Green which I always thought was very attractive, although I do quite like the idea of her maybe going into an LMS-esque Maroon for a period of time, although that would probably be stranger and more difficult to get used to long term.
Anybody know what the situation with 80135 currently is and when we might expect to see her back?

 

Er, no. When a crew was allocated a loco, they were told the number, not, 'You've got the green one!' or whatever.

Locos were often allocated to sheds in a numerical sequence, at least when new. It was later they were often split up. And they would all be the same colour. Armies of spotters had no trouble telling them apart.

 

Perhaps it wouldn't be an issue for the enthusiasts among us, but, referring back to comments about partially catering to the general public for days out, one could make a case that painting two locos that look the same and are almost numerically identical in different colours will add a nice bit of variety and a nice extra touch for 'joe public'. Plus, there are enough Black 4MT tanks about, if nothing else I like something a little different!

 

On the other hand there are a few stories of loco crews prepping the wrong but similarly numbered engine in both real days and I think eve once or twice in preservation too!

 

34027 and 34072 at the NYMR springs to mind!

 

Oh yes, but the colour had nothing to do with it. 'Piccolo' Pete Johnson once had a Stanier Pacific on a humble parcels from Crewe North around the West Midlands. He was given the number of the Black Five, say 5238, he should have had, but couldn't find it. The peeved running foreman then came out and also failed to find the Five, but did notice Pacific 6238 was there - it should have gone out on the Perth half an hour previously. He checked, and yes, the Perth had left on time. Pete often wondered how its crew had fared taking 14 bogies from Crewe to Perth with a Black 'un!

 

Spoilers! I'm part way through his at the moment, second only to Harry Gasson's books IMO.

 

That was the other story I was thinking of!

 

Sorry!

 

Deleted - I've duplicated a post.

 

That's good to hear. Will 499 have a stovepipe chimney, Urie smokebox door and other pre-grouping details? I would go a long way to see it in truly original condition.

 

More progress from the paint work of BR standard class 4 no. 75 027.
Thanks to the frequently updated Heritage Painting facebook page it`s possible to studie the progress. Excellent work and very interesting to follow! https://scontent-arn2-1.xx.fbcdn.ne...=6399b550a981f160c975647bac9839c7&oe=5B5DC481

Knut

 

Quite so.

Heritage railways exist to provide entertainment for visitors NOT fulfill a public transport need or transport commercial freight - which was the case when said lines were operated by British Railways.

Thus it follows that the locomotives (and rolling stock) are similarly now primary employed to entertain and please the crowds - not merely act as a bit bit of machinery only necessary to shuffle stuff from A to B.

As much as the purists might turn their noses up at the idea Heritage railways are in direct competition with Shopping Malls, Megaplex Cinemas, Stately homes, Sporting events, etc when it comes to attracting visitors. Most such visitors want to entertained and have fun - not lectured in the finer details of railway operation.

So rather than muttering thinly disguised obscenities, stop living in the past and wake up to the modern realities of Preservation / Heritage operation.

 

As well as 813 and Warwickshire, two more SVR machines that never belonged to BR

 

There is a delicate balance to be struck, heritage railways are very much in the entertainment business. They are not really a way to get them from point A to B although having a definate destination such as Bridgnorth or Cheltenham is a distinct advantage, however, they are not the cheapest, most cost effective or quickest way of getting There, so must provide something else to entice people in.
Bright, cheerful liveries attract kids, so attract the families that our hobby depends upon, however, education and the museum aspect of our operation also dictates there should be some authenticity too.
In the early days, people were keen to put the recent past of BR days when everything was black (and often filthy and run down) behind them and as it had only been 30 years before, people remembered and wanted to re-create those halcyon days if the pre-war era, with its green, red and garter blue liveries. Moving on from that, we reached a time from probably the late 80s onwards, remembered, perhaps with the aid of rose tinted specs, the grime and glory days of BR, and so BR liveries, weathered engines etc made a comeback. We are now into an era where the majority of the people you are trying to attract don't remember steam, but those bright sunny liveries of pre-1948 have a very attractive pull factor (hence why the companies used them) so I suspect We will see more colourful (although hopefully authentic) liveries over the next two or three decades.

 

BR liverys are authentic liverys as locomotives worn during service and just because of the negative views of BR does not make them bad liverys. The Big Four did have black liverys too. BR had its green and blue liverys which are colourful too. Bring born 1997 the only of memories of steam I have is on heritage lines and I like all liverys equally but. I just find the BR period more interesting in some ways and for a model railway it works the best. As you not too limited on what you can run and preservation is about remembering all parts of railway history.

 

You are quite correct but being around at the birth of what I call mass preservation in the 60s it does tend to go in cycles. When locos were being saved directly from BR which was in retrenchment at the time with steam on minimum maintenance and lines being closed on almost a weekly basis the last thing we wanted was to recreate the depressing time we were living in. As a member of the Bahamas Loco Society I was happy for it to come out of Hunslets in 1968 in LMS livery despite the double chimney. Over the years we now look back on that era, as Olly5764 has said, with rose tinted lenses and the decision to put Bahamas back in BR green was never questioned. The SVR are fortunate as whatever livery a loco is in they have a set of coaches that looks right behind it. The exception is the Southern but they have no Southern locos so that's not too important. The pendulum may well have now swung back to the grander age of railways, I don't really care as long as it's authentic, but BR red jubilees or LMS red 8Fs no, it's really doing a disservice to history

 

I think you are missing the point that some preserved railways provide a form of leisure transport - i.e. it is not just for the sake of the ride that people travel but, as @olly5764 points, having a destination to 'make a day of it' too. Nevertheless, I don't for a minute doubt that the steam train ride is a vital factor in the passengers' decision to travel because, again as @olly5764 also says, other means of 'transport' are quicker and cheaper.

However, the real point is that there is much usage of the national network that falls into a similar category - it isn't an essential journey, there are alternative, possibly quicker and/or cheaper ways of doing it but people choose the train as part of a leisure 'experience' In that, you are totally spot on about who the competitors of a preserved railway are - as always defined by the late, great John Leech at the SVR.

Steven