(4)3924

I know it is dangerous to mention liveries on here, but...
I remember reading that (4)3924 at the KWVR was actually built under Midland Railway auspices as their 3835 Class (almost identical to later LMS 4F).
Would 3924 have ever worn MR crimson lake, or as a post-war goods type would it have been turned out in some sort of austerity black?

 

To quote Henry Ford: Any colour you like, as long as it's black!

 

Livery apart, 3924 only appeared in its current configuration as a BR engine. The chimney, steam dome, safety valves and tender were all changed over time and the piston valve tail rods and covers (on the buffer beam) were removed. A nod to its history is to be found in its brass Midland power class number on the upper cab sides, but that's about the nearest to 'Midlandisation' you'll get. If it aint broke, don't fix it!

David

 

Hows about 'Works photographic grey'?

 

LMS Policy was all engines were to be painted house Maroon.
The 1920's recession ended both the luxury of repainting, the cost of Maroon paint over Black..and maintaining it.

so if history had been slightly different it could have been Maroon.. and therefore could have been Maroon in BR livery too...

Then again if we hadn't had a recession in the 1920s we may not have had a war, may still have had an LMS today.

Sadly it wasn't and Black it was and is.

 

I believe the tender body was rebuilt, if they had gone for a Johnson style tender it would have looked more Midland and a bit different from the other preserved 4Fs.
Dave

 

If I am not mistaken the Midland colour was Crimson Lake, maroon is a very different colour.

 

I spent a good month researching the various shades of - to be crude - red that the Midland and later LMS used, for a simulator project I was working on. I came to the conclusion that Crimson Lake and Maroon are likely to be the same colour, but with Crimson Lake having more coats over a - presumably dark - undercoat. I could be wrong, I'm certainly no expert, but I ended up just calling them 'pre war' and 'post war' and then adding the word 'maroon' or 'red' as the whim took me!

 

According to that Midland expert, the late David Jenkinson, M.R. Crimson Lake and L.M.S Crimson Lake were one and the same although there is a feeling that the shade appeared darker in later years. By the late 40's the paint was described as "maroon" but in reality was the same shade. I read somewhere ( probably in one of DJ's books) a description of the Midland painting process but can't find it at the moment. IIRC it began with 2 coats of red oxide followed by one of gloss Crimson Lake and then one of gloss mixed 50/50 with varnish. Later this changed to red undercoat followed by gloss. I believe that the resulting change in appearance gave rise to the idea that Crimson Lake and Maroon were different shades. Ray.

 

Out of interest, what differencs in design are there between 43924, a Midland 4F, and 44027/44123/44422 which were built by the LMS? THe basic dimensions (weight, cylinder size, driving wheel diameter, etc) appear to be identical. I certainly can't spot any obvious differences, but others may be more observant.

 

In the briefest terms there were no major differences. The more obvious ones were that the Midland 4F's were RHD and had splasher beading, the LMS ones LHD and no beading. Over the years tail rods disappeared, chimneys were changed (lower to improve RA) and Deeley tenders gave way to Fowler ones. The last, Stanier, batch also had slightly different cabs. In a bit of a rush now but if anyone's interested I can look up the dates/lots and post later. Ray.

 

So did 3924 emerge in Midland black? If so, what did Midland black look like? Or did she never wear Midland livery?
Note - I haven't actually advocated painting her crimson lake/maroon/red/brown (in some lights) - I'm just wondering whether any of the Midland 3835 class did wear
crimson lake in Midland or early LMS days?

 

That applied only to express passenger engines, not goods, and even then Crewe tended to ignore it.

Originally, all engines had LMS on the cab side in a vermillion panel with inset corners. The number was on the tender sides, which worked well enough on ex-Midland lines where engines and tenders were married for life, as it were, but not on the ex-LNWR. But to get back to the 4F, It probably carried its Midland livery for a while: black with its number on the tender and the Midland coat of arms on the cab sides. It might have had this first LMS livery (there's a photo of 3922 with it, but it isn't known if all 4Fs got it), possibly by simply painting out the coat of arms and substituting the LMS panel, until the change came in 1928, when the number was transferred to the cab side and the familiar LMS letters went on the tender. These were gold, later yellow, and shaded black, which doesn't show up on a black engine, or red.

 

The Midland started releasing goods locomotives from shopping/building in black as of 1907, iirc. Obviously engines would normally remain in red until their call to works after 1907, but as far as I know, other than works grey for the official photo, 4Fs (the Midland "Big goods") were black all their lives.

 

Are you really old enough to remember that???

 

I feel like it, sometimes!!!

 

Remember that 43924 was built in 1920.

The economy in 1920 had been absolutely devastated by the war (the first one), and the transition from wartime economy with its emphasis on war materiel production to peacetime economy . There was no way that elaborate paint schemes requiring multiple applications of expensive paint (and then skilled labour for lining out) would have been applied to goods engines. Black's cheaper. It's a freight engine, one of hundreds of them (The midland is the 3rd largest freight hauler and No. 1 when it comes to coal). It goes black.

So LMS policy wasn't for everything to be painted maroon, or even crimson lake. Passenger engines were to be crimson lake, goods engines black. Some weird things happened (some LNWR eight coupled goods tanks received red, other LNWR types should have received red but didn't). Later revisions were to reduce the number of red engines.

 

Thanks Ray. That's a pretty thorough summary. As I expected, the visible differences are pretty minimal.

 

Just thought I would have a look in LMS Locomotive Profiles No 10 The Class 4 Goods Engines by Wild Swan Publications to see what it said about liveries. To my surprise, on the first page about liveries is a photo of 3924 taken in 1922 at Kentish Town.
Also not all LMS built 4Fs had L.H. drive. 44027-44206 and 44302-44311 had R.H. drive.

 

No, early LMS builds of Midland designs were right hand drive, the left hand drive came in the late 1920s(?). Same with 2Ps and Compounds.

To go back to Tony May's point, in the first flush of youth the LMS intended that all engines likely to work express passenger would carry crimson lake so oddities emerged: Fowler 2-6-4T; Horwich Crab and the afore-mentioned LNWR-type 0-8-4Ts. Surprisingly, these were allocated to passenger workings on the Manchester - Buxton route and possibly in the South Wales valleys. It didn't last, and from 1928 at least, all these reverted to black.