BR Departmental - Olive/Grey/Dutch changeover

[Lacathedrale]

Hi there,

 

I would like to include some departmental stock in my N gauge collection and I'm wary of using the Era nomenclature to determine liveries. There's a bit of confusion at that point with diverging liveries for stock and locomotives. Can anyone help me sort this out?

 

Locomotives (for Departmental trains):

BR Blue (to 1988)

BR General Grey (1988-1990)

BR Dutch (1990+)

 

Given the short lived nature of the BR General Grey scheme for locomotives, is there a register of what was painted in that livery?

At sectorisation, is an internal-use train almost certain to be allocated a grey/dutch liveried loco?

 

Wagons:

Olive (to ???)

BR Grey (????)

Dutch (from 1981?)

 

Was BR Grey ever applied to a meaningful number of departmental wagons before it was superseded by the Dutch livery? It seems the Seacows were the first dutch liveried wagons and they were introduced around 1981? Before the locomotives started being painted in grey at all...

What time would we see a tipping point from olive to grey, and from grey to dutch?

 

 

Thank you!

[C126]

Just to add to your difficulties: there were black 'Grampus' wagons as well.  I remember trains of them to Newhaven Harbour Tide Mills ballast waste sidings, filling in the lagoons for the port authority in the 1970's in my childhood.  Had no idea a 'grampus' was a fish till years later.

[Steven B]

For locos Rail Express 117 (Feb 2006) and 126 (Nov 2006) will give you a complete list of locos that were painted in general grey and Dutch livery including dates into and out of the paint scheme.

 

Mixed up liveries were common place. Even into the 1990s you'd still see BR Blue (original and large-logo), BR Rail-freight grey, freight sector, Intercity, NSE and Provincial liveried locos used on engineers trains. If anything, this became more common as the sectors were each allocated track to maintain - you'll find Intercity branded engineers wagons for example.

 

For wagon liveries, certainly by the end of the 1980s you'd probably be looking at the majority of re-built and/or air-braked wagons being in Dutch but there were a lot of heavily weathered olive ones still in use.

 

This 1991 photo shows a general grey liveried 37 with a rake of vac' braked wagons in recently painted Dutch and older olive liveries.

Departmental Grey Growler At Burton Salmon. by Neil Harvey 156, on Flickr

 

As far as making up a train is concerned, I don't worry about liveries but do try to get brake-types and function matching within the same train. A spoil carrying, vac' braked grampus is very unlikely to be in the same train as a fresh ballast laying, air-baked seacow for example.

 

Steven B.

[Lacathedrale]

Thanks both - what about the early 80's, just for clarity's sake?

[young37215]

The 80's were much the same as the 90's in terms of wagons, liveries were a mix of whatever was available with any old black,olive green, dutch and even a few red liveried wagins found in use. It is the braking capability that determined what worked with what, not the livery. For what it is worth I think you'll find that Dutch livery predates the all over grey.

 

I recommend that you invest in the Key publications Modelling BR engineers wagons volumes 1 and 2. These will answer the vast majority of questions and provide a lot of useful information to assist with suitable wagons for any era from the 70's through to the end of the 20th century

[The Pilotman]

4 hours ago, C126 said:

Had no idea a 'grampus' was a fish till years later.

It isn’t a fish, it’s a mammal. Well, two actually; the name is used as an alternative for either the well-known killer whale or the less well-known Risso’s dolphin. 

[Mike Storey]

I agree with others. Although only on the Southern, I was an Ops Supervisor on quite a few weekend engineering works for much of the 80's (nice bit of overtime), and I do not recall seeing almost anything other than black or olive green  P/Way wagons (occasionally, faded Railfreight red for some opens transferred to ballast work). Most were so dirty or rusted, or both, that the original colour had receded.  I do think S&T red and yellow vans/opens were appearing, but the Dutch livery was notably absent, apart from one rake of gleaming hoppers in Tonbridge West Yard one weekend in, perhaps, 1987, but they weren't on my job, or anyone else's from what I could see!

 

[Lacathedrale]

Thanks Mike, that's a very helpful pointer - we're all aware about the transition of locomotive liveries from say, BR Blue to Sectorisation - but easy to forget the same in humble engineering stock. Funny though - the Era system classifies black as Era 6 (60's?) and olive as Era 7 (70's) absolutely, but I guess that's the potential start date, rather than the end date.

 

[hmrspaul]

17 hours ago, Lacathedrale said:

Thanks Mike, that's a very helpful pointer - we're all aware about the transition of locomotive liveries from say, BR Blue to Sectorisation - but easy to forget the same in humble engineering stock. Funny though - the Era system classifies black as Era 6 (60's?) and olive as Era 7 (70's) absolutely, but I guess that's the potential start date, rather than the end date.

 

Black is 1950s, brief period of Gulf red early 1960s and then Olive green from c1964. 

Era's seem good in Europe but whomever invented the UK ones didn't seem to know much about BR liveries. 

 

Paul

[Rivercider]

On 09/06/2022 at 13:46, Lacathedrale said:

Thanks both - what about the early 80's, just for clarity's sake?

Assuming from your signature that you are interested in the Southern Region then remember that the SR had become a fully fitted railway by then. Engineers trains would be formed of either all vacuum braked stock (with vac piped vehicles in the middle if required), or all air braked (with air piped formed in the middle if required). There were a few brake vans still about but tended to be used with dangerous goods traffic, like nuclear flasks,

 

cheers

 

cheers

[hmrspaul]

On 09/06/2022 at 13:46, Lacathedrale said:

Thanks both - what about the early 80's, just for clarity's sake?

100's of Southern Region departmental wagons taken in the 1980s on my site. 

 

Paul

[Trog]

On 09/06/2022 at 13:38, Steven B said:

For locos Rail Express 117 (Feb 2006) and 126 (Nov 2006) will give you a complete list of locos that were painted in general grey and Dutch livery including dates into and out of the paint scheme.

 

Mixed up liveries were common place. Even into the 1990s you'd still see BR Blue (original and large-logo), BR Rail-freight grey, freight sector, Intercity, NSE and Provincial liveried locos used on engineers trains. If anything, this became more common as the sectors were each allocated track to maintain - you'll find Intercity branded engineers wagons for example.

 

For wagon liveries, certainly by the end of the 1980s you'd probably be looking at the majority of re-built and/or air-braked wagons being in Dutch but there were a lot of heavily weathered olive ones still in use.

 

This 1991 photo shows a general grey liveried 37 with a rake of vac' braked wagons in recently painted Dutch and older olive liveries.

Departmental Grey Growler At Burton Salmon. by Neil Harvey 156, on Flickr

 

As far as making up a train is concerned, I don't worry about liveries but do try to get brake-types and function matching within the same train. A spoil carrying, vac' braked grampus is very unlikely to be in the same train as a fresh ballast laying, air-baked seacow for example.

 

Steven B.

 

Although of course if you were installing a drain you might want a few Seacows next to the loco, for maximum control while unloading with Grampus wagons behind for the gravel and spoil. The vacuum brakes on the Grampii being worked using the vacuum blow through pipes on the Seacows. Sealions being dual braked would be simpler, but the BR Civil Engineering department was often forced to be creative in its unending mission to get a quart of ballast out of its pint sized wagon fleet.