BR steam liveries

Thankfully now history

 

I normally like a blue engine, but I make an exception for this one.

 

Too right.
Not one of the Lakeside and Haventhwaite Railway’s brightest ideas. However, I recorded it for posterity.....and as an example of a livery that was totally unsuitable for that loco

 

It looked terrible

 

As a small boy in the seventies, I rather liked it and wanted the Wrenn version (as applied to the former Hornby Dublo Std 4 tank). I also liked the Wrenn LMS red version, which, for the pedants, certainly couldn't be described as maroon or crimson lake!

On a more serious note, the 'rules' for BR liveries were set out quite clearly, once they'd been established but that did not stop localised variations by the individual painters. Lining styles varied, as did numeral sizes. In respect of the latter, I got it wrong, when specifying the cabside transfers for 35018 and hadn't noticed until it was pointed out on a thread on this forum.

The BR/BTC liveries were, however, a pretty impressive roll-out of a corporate image, even if rather dull, before such things became established by BR's own 1965 rebranding, which is the benchmark for such things.

 

Until it’s recent revarnish I don’t think the cabside numbers on 35028 were correct either

 

Not the 1960s but 8700 on 84E Tysley 01/06/1958.

 

That is the prewar 'shirtbutton' livery, so its survived well.

 

Was it St Rollox that used larger numbers on cab sides and used to line out the back of the tender? Don’t know whether it’s just me but 44871 seems to have larger cab side numbers than 45212 and 45407.

 

Yes it was St Rollox and 4871 had the larger numbers, 5407 doesn’t but has the Scottish blue background to the front numberplate

 

I'm glad to see I wasn't the only enthusiast not using the BR 4 in front of former LMS loco's ,this was never done even by loco men in the 50s,i'm only just geting into the habit,!,other regions 3 for southern and 6 for LNER were treated the same. The ST Rollox big numbers were bigger than on 4871,I think.Please see attached 5730 Ocean(rare machine for East Midland spotters ) and 57432 taken at 66A Polmadie on 17/08/1958 for comparision.

 

On the Central section of the Southern, it sometimes went even further! There's a picture in one of my books of 32588, an E5 radial tank at Rotherfield on the Cuckoo Line. Only the final three digits of the smokebox number plate had been cleaned, with both the BR-added "3" and the SR-added "2" scarcely visible. In other words, its home shed (probably Eastbourne) still thought of it in terms of its LB&SCR number - 588.

 

One wonders, for consistency, should a zero really be placed in front the numbers of those identical copper capped things from Swindon?


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I got a real filthy look from the Late Roy Swain when I referred to the Liverpool street Buckjumper as 68619, and a rtetort of 8619 if YOU please. Another Stratford Locoman spoke the number as Eightysix nineteen. Although being a Cockney it was more like AAeesic nine een

 

There was an interesting point I noticed when I looked up the boiler record of the boiler currently fitted to the Wainwright H class. The clerk at its first post-nationalisation repair dutifully lists the locomotive number to which it was fitted as 31521, after which each subsequent repair lists the locomotive number as the old SR numbers, even as late as July 1961 when the boiler is recorded as being repaired while in locomotive 1263).

Tom

 

Now that's just silly!

The post-nationalisation re-numbered added multiples of 10,000 to each number, not merely placing prefix digits on the number. The broad gauge locos were given the series upto but not including 10,000, because the locos had cast numbers on the sides - either that or the plan was conceived by a Swindon man.

But you know that.

 

Go back far enough and there would've been people arguing that proper Western engines didn't have numbers, just names.

 

Even after the end of steam at Carnforth ( 17th August 1968) , they referred to LMS engines with just four digits...............

 

Pleased I'm not the only one. I worked at Edge Hill, admittedly but not too long after steam finished and the LMS numbers were always used in the mess room. And oh yes, the names were NEVER used, just the four-digit number.

 

And some Charlies just had part of the number cleaned, giving C10 &c.
Pat