Liveries!

Naah .... that's one of the things which stops Hewlett Packard kit ..... though not as consistently well as cat puke.

 

I dunno, keeping my HP printer going can sometimes be as expensive as the things I am a fan of

 

Here's one for the "authentic livery" brigade: the L&Y trust saddle tank 752 has just been restored in BR livery with a BR number it never carried, because it was sold into industry by the LMS.
Anyone up in arms?
They're doing it to Pug 19 too, which also never made it to BR...
(I don't like it because there's currently no operating loco in L&Y livery, and I think it looks better in L&Y livery, but that's completely separate from any authenticity argument).

Or does the authenticity thing only work backwards chronologically?

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I should clarify that I am delighted to see 752 back in service, a very handsome engine, and we have all too few L&Y locos. A great achievement by the L&Y trust and the ELR. Hope I get to see it after all this is over...

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Not really to my taste, though not unique. (Stroudley E1 ran, or was at least displayed for a while, as BR 32110 despite being sold out of service in 1927 and never being owned by BR. "Fenchurch" is another loco currently displaying a number (672) with which it never ran).

My difficulty with it is that to know that a plausible, but incorrect livery, is indeed not a part of the loco's history generally requires a reasonable degree of knowledge, that few people have. For example, Fenchurch grates on me because I know it is wrong, but I suspect most people wouldn't if they weren't well versed in Southern history - by the same token, I know relatively little of L&Y history and therefore could easily see a loco in a fictitious BR livery and assume it was an accurate depiction of its history. More subtly, I believe there have been BR-built locos to pre-nationalisation designs running in those liveries: again, that feels that it would readily deceive if you weren't really well versed in the specific history.

I have less problem with locos like "Bluebell", or the KWVR Ivatt tank, running in liveries that are clearly connected with their current or then owners: that is clearly a simple continuation of history, with each new owner adopting their own livery. But if you are going to paint a loco in a livery that purports to be historical, then my view is that it should be a livery appropriate to that specific loco. It's not as if in many cases there is a shortage of genuinely historic liveries.

Tom

 

Tom - when you pointed out the Fenchurch livery you me before I went and did some reading up on it. Given the liveries it did carry wearing 672 is an odd choice.

I guess it looks more archaic than Stepney in terms of the wing plates so it gets away with it better? Even so, I’m not sure it would be right to put it back into that livery after an overhaul.

 

I seem to recall a magazine article suggesting that the engine had been temporarily renumbered as 51456 for transportation over BR metals when it was in the early stages of preservation. Is there any truth to this idea or has my memory of said magazine gone haywire?

EDIT: Apparently my memory's not too bad! I found this snippet elsehwere on the internet;
"It did briefly run as 51456 in 1968 when it was towed by rail from its last workplace at Parsonage Colliery near Leigh to its first preservation base of Yates Duxbury paper mill at Heap Bridge near Bury."

 

Well, it's a consistent and logical position!

I'm really massively relaxed about the "leading people astray" issue.
Yes, people may be deceived. But only if they extrapolate a loco's history from its current appearance or a recent photo: and this is always a silly thing to do.
I doubt buy that people will see a photo from 2019 (say) and think it's 1927... For a start, it's probably in colour! And there are so few places you can actually take a photo without obvious discrepancies in the background.
A moment's Googling will correct any misunderstanding anyway, and do will even a cursory reading of any books on the subject.
I'm afraid I don't believe the reports of people being seriously misled by e.g. Galatea. Wondering, and asking the question, maybe. But then they'll immediately be informed in response. The guy in the pub who claimed to remember it is simply imaginary or a fantasist. Presumably he also remembers Lord Nelson's, Peppercorn A1s and the Duke all on the S&C in the fifties...

Which doesn't mean I don't agree with some of your conclusions. Why paint a Terrier which didn't carry SR livery in it when we have several which did (and indeed some are in it now)?
But where we've only got one (e.g. FS) I am completely relaxed about painting it in a livery which it's classmates carried and which it carried in very similar form: i.e. Apple Green (without smoke deflectors).
And I'm also completely relaxed about masquerading as lost classmates and indeed about carrying fictional liveries like Galatea, the rebuilt MN in BR blue, etc.

This preservation lark is educational, and has some serious purpose, but it's also always been and always must remain JGF!!!

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The word plausible is significant. The L&Y saddle tank livery is plausible as other members of the class reached BR service. A Caledonian blue Fairburn tank or a fire engine red Jubilee are not plausible. It’s the same with 60103, it was never an A3 when numbered 4472 bit in apple green it represents a typical A3 in 1930s condition. With double chimney and trough smoke deflectors it represents nothing in other than BR green.

 

I thought building a new LBSCR loco and painting it BR livery was a bit odd ... now genuine pre-grouping locos that never worked a day for BR, and have their own unique and interesting history, are being made to look like everything else as well? What’s next for the treatment? Talyllyn? Rocket?

 

I wonder what the reaction would have been if 752 or other locos sold into industrial use were restored in their industrial liveries, there is I think a sense that the colours or numbers of industrial lines are not necessarily considered to be 'proper' liveries, so better to paint a loco in the livery of a 'proper' railway company that was never carried.

 

I know I'm a complete heathen, but I thought the Caledonian blue Fairburn tank was quite fun.

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I think there is great justification for using the former industrial liveries (assuming the details are known).

Back in 1982 I bought an 04 diesel, soon after arrival at Buckinghamshire Railway Centre it was repainted into BR green livery as D2298.
Sadly I had to sell it on to the Quainton Railway Society in due course.
I was a little disappointed that after an overhaul the loco went into BR blue, a livery I don't believe it ever carried before withdrawal in 1971 or 1972.
Although the loco is now out of service due to engine failure, I would support painting into Derwent Valley Railway livery as "Lord Wenlock", the condition in which it arrived at Quainton. Especially since it was in service there for more than ten years, a similar amount of time to its BR service.

 

“Fenchurch” was sold into industrial service (belonging to Newhaven Harbour Co.) and ran for a period in the 1970s in that livery : very smart it looked to. I’d like to see it restored as an interesting part of the loco’s history.

More recently, 178 ran for a few weeks (when first overhauled) in industrial guise as “Pioneer II” before reverting to its current identity.

The faux J94s are another group that I’m not keen on: let them be what they really are. Far rather see a bright industrial than a dingy black fake J94.

Tom

 

In the case of Talyllyn, I'm more exercised with sticking one of those ridiculous TTTE faces on the smokebox door than painting it "Skarloey Red" .... and for the record, 'authentic' or not, I really liked the old loco in lined black. Given the TR Co. is the self-same legal entity which has continuously owned and operated the line since it's inception*, I'd contend any livery the company chooses to paint it's kit is 'authentic'. So there!

...... and please note that newbuild H2 will appear in Southern "composite loading gauge" guise, rather than original LBSC condition ..... and the alterations, to cab and boiler fittings, were quite noticable.

*unless the 'authenticity police' are going to try to claim the three TRPS directors on the TR Co's board somehow merit lower regard than the two representing the Haydn Jones estate.

 

Absolutely!

Vale of Rheidol is an interesting case, in that it has been a summer only tourist railway since 1933, under, I think, four different owners, but mysteriously the GWR green and (rather hideous) BR blue are “authentic” but the (rather lovely) yellow and red of the 80s and 90s are not.

 

Plausible is not the same as authentic. As a stickler for detail I'm surprised you're not up in arms about a loco carrying a livery and number it never carried during its pre preservation working life.

 

I'm with you on that. Two genuine J94s exists so I'd be very happy to see those steam and let the faux J94s revert to their industrial guise, especially as there is a wide range of liveries they can carry between them.

 

I never said it was. I have never seen anything wrong with representing the historical development of a locomotive class and I think its great that we still have occasional renumbering but it should be done with care. e g Galatea is visually wrong as Alberta.

 

Take your point about the lack of operating L&Y liveried locos. Would also be interesting to see it carry it's 5 digit LMS number as there's precious few of them around.