Western Region building colours

[Earl Bathurst]

Hi

Im am looking for some information on the colour which would have been used on western region buildings. I am in the middle of painting a kit and need some help when it comes to the colours. Does anyone have any pictures of station buildings or other buildings which i could use for reference when painting my kit. Thanks for the help.

Scott

[Kris]

You're going to be wanting light and dark stone. Do a quick google for pictures of the WSR, SVR, SDR etc to see what it looks like.

[chrisf]

Are you though? If the question had been 'GWR' I would have agreed light and dark stone but surely some buildings received chocolate and cream in BR days - usually as a sign of impending closure!

 

Chris

[steve fay]

I would agree that if BR then chocolate and cream is the colour.

This tended to apply to main line stations alot of smaller stations retained the light and dark stone so a combination of faded light and dark stone with BR signage would not be unusual.

If the station buildings had a lot of timber in there construction then these tended to be paintedwith a bit more regularity, signal boxes etc.

[Karhedron]

Yes, chocolate and cream (particularly on the woodwork) was the common colour scheme in BR days. This site may be of help (BR days are down the bottom).

 

http://www.stationco...x.php?p=1_5_GWR

 

On a personal note, I like to use acrylics for buildings. I usually use Games Workshop paints as they are very good quality (if rather oddly named). I use Scorched Brown for WR chocolate and Bleached Bone for Cream which seem to work well. The finished result looks like this.

 

[The Stationmaster]

I would agree that if BR then chocolate and cream is the colour.

This tended to apply to main line stations alot of smaller stations retained the light and dark stone so a combination of faded light and dark stone with BR signage would not be unusual.

If the station buildings had a lot of timber in there construction then these tended to be paintedwith a bit more regularity, signal boxes etc.

Signalboxes were on a completely different painting cycle from station as they were done by the S&T Dept painters when they came round on their signal painting session - complete with their posse of ancient coaches which served as their living accommodation and stores/workshop vehicles. Painting and maintenance of signalboxes on the WR didn't officially transfer to the Civil Engineering until c.1984/85 although prior to then it appears that some 'boxes were repainted into various new style schemes (e.g grey) at roughly the same time as stations went into new colours and might possibly have had the exterior work done by non-S&T painters?

[stewartingram]

Ever so slightly off topic? On the London Underground, the Hammersmith & City line has just has Latimer Road platforms extended ready for the new "S" stock trains. Speaking to the building site manager at work there a few weeks back, he was proud of the newly repainted buildings, largely wood, in what he described as true GWR colours, for which they apparently did a lot of research to find the right shades. Are they correct? Personally I don't know, but someone else here might. Looks nice though.

 

Stewart

[Karhedron]

Any photos?

[coachmann]

I remember my first visit to Afon Wen (Cambrian Coast line) from Bangor and the delight at seeing thre station decked in brown and cream. Stations on lines losing bags of dosh were often left untouched and remained in GWR light & dark stone up to closure in te late 50s/early 60s. Some ex MR signalboxes were brown & cream in the Midlands but I suspect these were ex-LMS colours rather than a switch of boundaries to the Western Region.

[Tim V]

The poster hasn't actually said what period, I believe the Western Region lasted from 1948 through to the late 80s, and had a number of different colour schemes?

[Earl Bathurst]

Hi the period is 1950/1960 which i model. The building which i am painting is the Town Scene big station and need to work out where the chocolate and cream would have been painted

[Karhedron]

Hi the period is 1950/1960 which i model. The building which i am painting is the Town Scene big station and need to work out where the chocolate and cream would have been painted

As a rough guide, doors, door frames and guttering would normally have been chocolate. Planking or boarding would probably have been cream. Can you provide a picture of the model?

[coachmann]

Pictures are a pre-requisite if you are to get things right for your area. I could quote how things were on the Cambrian Coast but this wouldn't automatically make it right for other parts of the Western Region.

[The Stationmaster]

Pictures are a pre-requisite if you are to get things right for your area. I could quote how things were on the Cambrian Coast but this wouldn't automatically make it right for other parts of the Western Region.

I would think the only WR painting which stood much chance of detail consistency was that done by the S&T Dept who only had a couple of painting gangs covering the whole Region but even then some peculiar variations sometimes appeared (e.g Clink Road Signalbox) . Structure painting at other than loco depots and associated CM&EE equipment (e.g water softeners and some water towers) was done by District or Divisional gangs so you could probably expect reasonable uniformity within their area but possibly not between areas where small variations in colour on detail would be apparent. Plus of course styles changed a bit over the years or the gang simply copied the way things had been done in the past at that location and thereby continued some previous slight diversion from standard. One big advantage at stations - if you can run appropriate pics to earth - is that the date on which painting was completed was usually painted somewhere on the structure.

 

And as Coach says the best advice is to look for pics of stations in the area and period you are modelling.

[Highlandman]

I am also modelling BR(WR) and came across the same problem. But I found this website, www.stationcolours.info which was a great help for most regions and came with pictures. But a quick search on google will also help.

 

You could also try http://southhamsrailways.co.uk/ It has some useful pictures and more are being added. I hope this helpsand good luck with the model.

[The Stationmaster]

I am also modelling BR(WR) and came across the same problem. But I found this website, www.stationcolours.info which was a great help for most regions and came with pictures. But a quick search on google will also help.

Strangely it mentions WR 'chocolate and cream' as being done with matt paint which it very definitely was not. True the paint weathered off to matt relatively quickly but from what I can recall on a number of stations round here in the late '50s it was applied as gloss.

[Il Grifone]

I can remember Clifton Down station in Bristol being painted chocolate and cream in the early fifties, (1954 IIRC - for a visit by Her Majesty). Basically chocolate for framing and the lower part of columns and cream for panelling (cf dark and light stone). I recall the chocolate being a milk chocolate shade, lighter than the GWR coach colour. I can confirm the gloss. This was the synthetic paint era - lead was no longer fashionable (not to say it wasn't still used).

[wagonman]

The buildings at my local station (Lavington) were definitely brown and cream in the late '50s/early '60s. That was the period during which the usual procession of Kings, Castles and Halls, became Warships, DMUs and just the occasional, and increasingly woebegone, Hall.

[Rugd1022]

Afternoon Scott,

 

Just to add to what's been said above, here are a few Wills kit's I've been having a go at for a possible WR diorama / layout, using Humbrol enamels... Oxford's original station buildings were pretty much in this sort of state before they were replaced in the early 70s so this is the look I've gone for...

 

 

 

[David C]

Evidence from colour photos of the 1950s/60s also shows that quite a few places were painted white or slightly off white (not cream) and the chocolate was much more milky than that used on coaches post 1957 and on the GWR. A lot of signal boxes were completely white e.g Cardigan and Kingsbridge with no chocolate at all.

 

I too model BR (W) in the mid 1950s. The SB is white whilst the other buildings have milk chocolate doors with white frames. The water tank is still in very faded light and dark stone and hasn't been re-painted.

 

David C

[DaveF]

Here are three photos in BR days of (parts) of Western Region signal boxes and a couple of the awning at Tetbury.

 

Some of them also have engines in them!

 

I know some of them have been on RM Web before but they might not be easy to find so I hope no one minds my re-using them.

 

 

Bideford Class 22 Torrington to Taunton Aug 64 J155

 

 

 

Saltash Bridge (Devon) Class 42 up goods Aug 60 J017

 

 

 

Taunton Silk Mill crossing Class 42 D827 Kelly down goods Aug 66 J577

 

 

 

Tetbury 1664 July 1963 J060

 

 

 

Tetbury W79978 August 1959 J012

 

 

Hope they are some use. remember though, colour films do change colour with time!

 

David

[Gwiwer]

For the 1950's - 60's the BR scheme would be chocolate / cream as others have noted. However take note of the more knowledgeable members above and consider for yourself whether the traffic levels at your proposed model locality might be insufficient to justify money having been spent. In which case faded and flaking GWR stone colours might be more appropriate.

[The Stationmaster]

For the 1950's - 60's the BR scheme would be chocolate / cream as others have noted. However take note of the more knowledgeable members above and consider for yourself whether the traffic levels at your proposed model locality might be insufficient to justify money having been spent. In which case faded and flaking GWR stone colours might be more appropriate.

Alas it didn't usually work like that in many cases Rick - hence the well known story about places being painted months or even a few weeks before closure. The painting gangs worked to a programme which was for some - especially the S&T blokes who covered the entire Region - akin to the job on the Forth Bridge in that once they got to the end of the programme they started again at the beginning. The civils obviously worked a bit differently as far as I can make out but some Districts/Divisions were notable for getting round all their stations (as far as I can tell from what I remember and photos) in the 1950s while others clearly didn't - probably because their total budget wasn't up to it or in some cases (as you suggest) places had been taken off maintenance - but in order to save money rather than other reasons).

 

Another thing worth noting is that repainting often seemed to go nad-in-hand with re-signing, which also went on over an extended period. But towards the latter half of the 1960s it all began to change and as overall planning of maintenance minor work budgets came in (to replace programmed gang work in some departments) short life places were definitely left off for the simple reason that they weren't given budget approval on Minor Works lists.

[Douglas G]

I think if you want to recreate the real thing you do need to work from photos, which inevitably means getting some books. The following two books would be of help:

 

The changing railway scene: Western region by Laurence Waters. Ian Allan, 2008.

 

British Railways Western Region in colour by Laurence Waters, Ian Allan, 2005.

 

Other Ian Allan colour pictorial books are also worth getting, e.g. the ones by Peter Gray. I pore over these to get the little details and correct "scale" colours that help bring a model alive.

 

As already noted, the colours in photos vary according to exposure, film quality etc. But it does look like there was considerable variation in both the chocolate and the cream used. I find Humbrol enamel 160 is good for the Western Region brown but couldn't find a match for the cream, so I mixed my own using a tin of Humbrol matt white and adding yellow and brown drop by drop until I got a good match.

 

Douglas

[coachmann]

The way I heard it, if painting gang got wind a branch was up for closure and the various structures were down for repainting hadnt been done, they would rush down there to paint everything. But unless one is modelling such a branch in its final weeks after closure notices had been posted, the 'norm' would still be as things had stood for most of its BR life.

 

Some lines simply didn't have any money spent on them if they were real loss makers and the BR executive was doing all it could to remove passenger services. As regards Western Region brown and cream, the logical thing is to start with those colours then weather them down according to how the modeller wants them to appear. I recall they were well-kept brown and cream at Afon Wen and other stations on the Cambrian down to Towyn from the mid 1950s up to the early 1960s, the reason being that most stations had quite a numerous workforce and they had the time to keep things spick and span. As the railway climate deteriorated the railway men lost heart and it showed. Obviously where the old GWR colours survived, probably applied pre-war, there was little one could do to revive the paintwork.