Terrier liveries

Whatever one may think about some of the liveries chosen by preserved lines down the years, they are of historical interest and it's just as legitimate for a modeller to accurately recreate the Bluebell in 1980 as in 1960 or 1890. IIRC, Stepney ran with a Rev. Awdry-style face painted on the smokebox for a short while. I wouldn't chose to reproduce that on my models, but someone else might and it would be quite "prototypical" for that loco at that point in its life. Railways changed in 1968, but history didn't stop...

 

Indeed, I wouldn't disagree - which was why I posed the question! To take one example, Stepney has spent more of its life as an A1X in Stroudley livery - probably 48 of the last 50 years - than in any other combination of form and livery. So while my preference would probably be to see Fenchurch in that livery (which would be "prototypically" accurate for an A1), I guess it ain't going to happen.

Interestingly on the Bluebell, we are having a mini-spate of engines outshopped in liveries they wore when first preserved, recognising that their preservation existence is just as valid a part of their history as any other. - e.g. Stepney in simplified black; Bluebell in Blue, 178 as "Pioneer II". Just don't mention the Dukedog with nameplates - it gets the photographers upset, despite it also being an engine that has run in that form longer than it has without them.

Tom

 

Just cottoned on that that is essentially LSWR livery, but labelled FYN rather than LSWR. I'd guess that, when the LSWR sold her on (she had been LSWR 734), the FYN either requested, or implemented themselves, a minimal repaint, no doubt as an economy measure.

(Interestingly, but a bit OT - at least one T9 was superheated by the Southern Railway, but remained in LSWR livery as the conversion / rebuild was done with so little disturbance to the paintwork that it was kept rather than repainted - the superheater was fitted in 1925 but it wasn't repainted until 15 months later in June 1926. Similarly, two of the O2s that went to the IoW in SR days were equipped with airbrakes, Westinghouse pump and tank-mounted air cylinder but remained in LSWR livery and weren't repainted into SR livery for about a year).

Tom