Liveries!

Swindon didn't do too bad a job with VoR locos though, FfR engines are generally green and would a copper capped chimney look that out of place...???
Anyway, being a GER man, there is only one blue that looks right, please see the Y14 for the full display.

 

I imagined this if they took over the quarry trains too in Wales . I have an idea of making it in model form

 

"Jaffa Cake" seemed to have a faint echo of LSWR carriage colours.

 

I think that was the idea.

 

Funnily enough I found some photos of it today at the 2018 NNR spring gala, it really is a work of art, as is another 0-6-0 Caley 828.

 

The WLLR locos have been in lined green and lined black at various stages in the preservation era, but unlined is the only authentic version. I never realized until reading the comments under that doctored photo on Facebook that Countess was never painted black by BR, and The Earl only black for the last six months of operation. As Joan (red) and Countess (green) are going to be soon out of service, it occurs to me that with Zillertalbahn and 699.01/Sir D always in black, it might be worth painting The Earl green after its overall at the VoR, just for the sake of variety. (SLR85 in the queue should also historically be black too).

On a wider point, do visitors notice or care about such things? I was thinking also about the VoR which has gone down the GWR authenticity route, enthusiasts are very happy, but is there a danger that to the casual tourist, three indistinguishable green locos mean that every train looks the same? I wonder if there would be any negative impact, has anyone ever done any market research to see if any of this matters?

 

I know I've seen a number of people with only a passing interest in steam demonstrate quite an attachment to a particular named locomotive that they've seen/ridden behind. This also applies to cases like the DSR where the majority of their fleet has been named in preservation. Such an example cropped up on Facebook today when the DSR made a post about 4277 and one commenter said that "we requested Hercules as the train to pull our wedding party!". Nowadays in the VoR's case returning visitors might have some trouble identifying which one was the "Prince of Wales" that they travelled behind many moons ago.

 

In answer to your question........

Not photoshopped. The Earl really was painted in lined B.R.passenger green when photographed at Llanfair in 1969. God! was it that long ago!
Ray.

 

One thing with liveries which always amuses me is how there seem to be fashions in liveries which mean we lose variety at any point in time.
So you get all the Castles in GW livery, and then later all of them in BR livery (or whatever).
Not much difference in that particular case, of course!
E.g. the moment, we have three Jubilees (Red Fives) on the mainline (or nearly), none of which are red (Kolhapur is red but shut away). At one point they were all red!
Two Scots, previously neither in BR green, now both in dingy green (and even if people don't share my predilection for seeing them in red a la 6170 British Legion, they were handsome in LMS 1946 livery; the black Jube would also look better in this livery IMHO).
All the Black 5s apart from the National Collection example are in the BR livery (very handsome too, that's not my point), although one is being restored to LMS condition.
Whereas both whole Crabs were black for decades, then went red almost simultaneously!
Not intended as criticism of each particular decision, but the net effect is rather faddy.

Sent from my Pixel 3a using Tapatalk

 

.......and, if you look at photos from the 60's and 70's there was virtually nothing in B.R. livery. Like you say times and fashions change.
Ray.

 

Look how many Austerity 0-6-0's were dressed up as faux BR machines a few years ago compared to now (GC excepted)

 

Those of us who were around in the 60s when the whole railway system was being run down just wanted to forget it and preserve something of a more positive age. A new generation want to recreate something they see pictures of and want to recreate something they missed. They think it was the glorious age of steam but it really wasn’t, more like a wake.

 

At some point I'd like to see what the proposed-but-never-used green and blue variants of 'Jaffa Cake' would have looked like -- the blue version would probably have been used on VEPs, and the green one on EPBs and 455s.

 

Is that correct? My impression is that the love of BR era liveries in steam, just like BR blue in the diesel scene, is very heavily rooted in nostalgia for what people knew "back in the day".

Personally, being born after BR steam ended, I'm always keener on pre-nationalisation liveries as being just more interesting, while in the diesel scene, BR blue (which I remember just as sectorisation bit being a run down, weary, drab view of the railway) is one I always like to avoid, whether for the BR green era or the subsequent liveries.

 

Certainly some of us developed a deep-seated hatred of BR and that included its liveries, I for one did and retain it to this day. Many others, certainly from the spotting fraternity in particular, possibly look at the past with a different, rose-tinted view and are now trying to relive a past, remembering only the good days.

 

It's interesting that I have always taken a view of railway preservation of wishing to see things I never saw in the past, not of trying to recreate memories of what I did see. My formative railway memories were in the 70s and 80s, and I have no desire to recreate those times - hence no interest in diesel preservation for example.

There is also probably for me at least a desire to recreate times when there was real pride in the railways: for that reason, I find the BR era especially post modernisation plan a baleful era, and have little desire to see it recreated. For a BR standard, that is the only possible livery; but for older engines, I have no desire to see them in BR livery when non-BR liveries are equally applicable and commemorate a much more positive period.

Others may take a different view of course.

Tom

 

Speaking for myself, if you own it, it's up to you what colour you paint it. So long as there's no intent to deceive folks into thinking you've got the only surviving Maryport & Carlisle 9F (or whatever!), or swear blind malachite is an historically correct livery for a J70 (if only we had one over which to argue the toss!), what on earth is the issue? It's a coat of paint, for Bob's sake! Why aren't folk as sniffy over (let's get real here) vastly more significant mechanical alterations? Perhaps Talyllyn should be given a lift up flat smokebox door, shorn of it's cab and trailing wheels, or (and this'd really go down well with crews!) get it's original Giffard pattern injectors back? Or continuous brakes and the cab centre removed from Merddin Emrys ? Why build an "1863 England" when Princess is sitting around idle .... and it wouldn't even need the inauthentic dome (sneaked in due to the inconsiderately inauthentic behaviour of the locos 'as built'). Oh right, the 1863 built loco's 1893-1946 condition is 'authentic' .... and we're not supposed to notice the (surely heretical) removal of the definite article from it's moniker.

You've situations like the IMR, where several discount Ailsa green as 'inauthentic'. What hogwash! There's NO one in time at which there's more or less justification for any livery worn by any long lived, substantially unaltered loco or class. To pretend otherwise is nowt more than the hectoring of someone seeking to force their views on everyone else .... often employing some right dodgy, not to mention inconsistently applied logic to justify doing so. Ailsa's regime was as much a part of the story of the IMR as the preceding private company, or the current nationalised operation. Ditto the Avon Valley, Bluebell, Chasewater ....... well, you get the picture.

Sometimes, I think we might take a leaf from the Irish GSR, paint the whole ruddy lot grey ... and stuff anyone who doesn't like it! Liveries change, locos get modified, even ( whisper it quietly into the shadows) renumbered! Deal with it ..... or don't!!

Right, I'm off to write to a TOC with remaining Pacers ..... I quite fancy seeing how one looks in full L&Y finery. What about a lovingly applied name? J.A.F. Aspinall perhaps?

[Stomps off, muttering darkly under his breath ...... ]

 

Now there's an interesting idea. I wonder how a 159 would look in full LSWR salmon pink...

 

One of those times I wish I knew how the hell to use photoshop! ​

 

Is it though? As an engineer, I can say it's actually a surface coating, there to protect the material below from contamination and deterioration from the surrounding atmosphere and its contents. So why were so many engines turned out in beautiful colours instead of more durable black? Why, in the early days in particular, did the companies apply often intricate - and expensive - lining? Why, if it's just a coat of paint, did Bob Essery and David Jenkinson produce a very thick book about liveries, then decided that this was inadequate and brought out another book in FIVE equally thick volumes, and all these just to cover the LMS engines? Why is it that almost every book I can think of covering a locomotive class has a section, often a whole chapter, on liveries?

No, 'It's just a coat of paint' just doesn't begin to do it justice. It's the first thing anyone sees, and you know what they say about first impressions: they're the ones which last. That's why we get people, even on here, wondering how many Jubilees were painted maroon in BR days. They know they were. They've seen one.