60007 (4498) Sir Nigel Gresley Overhaul

Happily we can settle this by way of photographic evidence. Thanks to a director of the LNER doing something remarkably at odds with the public wartime "there's a war on, you know" sort of feeling:



I would say the SNGLT have got the shade more or less bob on, there doesn't seem to be a remit for a matt colour (bear in mind it is easier to clean a gloss finish than a matt one in any event).

No, I do not believe the LNER used anything other than paint on their locomotives during the war. I would firmly put the tar idea in the apocryphal story category.

 

Blue paint brush inbound.......

 

TBH, it's a comment I've always been taken as no more than a disparaging reference to one of thousands of 'austerity' measures, in this case being a reference in one of the histories of the Bulleid pacifics which stuck with me. This was scarcely a tendency confined to locomotive paint (or even to railways). I would cite an alliterative name by which certain wartime tinned meat products were widely known, but we'd likely have the animal rights brigade up in arms .....

A 'streak' in black certainly makes for a memorable sight. Pity we're unlikely ever to see one alongside a similarly painted LMS streamliner. Incidentally, has anyone ever seen a GW express loco (King, Castle) in austerity livery?

Wonder why WWI austerity was grey, where WWII was black? Any ideas, folks?

 

Could it be because the perceived threat of aerial bombing was much greater in WWII than WWI? I don't know my military aviation history, but would not have thought that an aircraft's bombing capability was huge in WWI, so the visibility issue hadn't been as massive a problem as it was in WWII with enemy aircraft loaded with thousands of pounds of bombs, and which were much more capable of chasing a moving train.

Just my quick thoughts, I may be totally wrong.

Richard.

 

There 's a comment in "Midland Wagons" that the MR bought large quantities of battleship grey, ex Admiralty, at the end of World War I, which they mixed with black and whatever other dregs were lying around; the resulting mix was called "smudge" and used for wagon painting.

(Depressingly, I did a google search for "smudge colour" and found that your poncy upmarket paint manufacturers of the Farrow & Ball kind now have a beautifully curated series of greys, including "smudge", pantoned and CMYK'd to within an inch of its life when the original was the dregs of whatever was knocking round!)

The SECR painted locos austerity grey, having changed from an austerity green. AIUI, the green colour and the yellow numerals both darkened considerably with atmospheric lead, to the point that the identity of locos became very hard to determine, especially at night. (The large tank-side or tender-side numerals had been designed to be easy to distinguish for control purposes). Grey with white numerals was an improvement. There seems to be considerable debate in modelling circles as to what shade that grey was, though I suspect the answer is that it darkened with time.

Tom

 

Shades of colour depend on a lot of factors, there was correspondence in the Historical Model Railway Society journal about why LMS lake was not as rich as the Midland version despite the paint spec being the same. The simple answer was the Midland used brown undercoat while the LMS used grey. There was also a story about a short lived Midland goods engine brown in the early 1900s. There was no such thing, a shortage of engines meant that they were turned out after overhaul in varnished undercoat to get them back into traffic faster, three top coats and lining would have added around two to three weeks to the overhaul time.
I would suggest wartime black was something of the same thing, black was needed for smokebox and frames so just slap it on the rest of the engine and get it back working. The exception was, not surprisingly, the Great Western. Swindon just couldn’t bring itself to paint its express passenger engines in anything but green, just forgoing the lining for the duration of the war.

 

In a lot of the videos and shots of the tour to Bath, (and including what I saw for myself while lineside) there seems to be a lot of steam coming from behind the right side cylinder. Nothing from the left.

Hopefully not a major issue, and can be easily rectified

 

I always thought the idea was less to prevent the trains themselves getting hit (although every loco taken out was one more headache that they didn't have before) and more that if the enemy can see the trains, they know where the tracks are, and that's what you really want to avoid getting hit.

 

There was no effective aerial bombing in WWI - the few Zeppelin raids were no more than a foretaste of what was to follow later. Aircraft didn’t have the range, or payload.

I would be interested to know whether black was consciously chosen for camouflage purposes in WWII, or whether it was just an easy simple cheap choice based on what was already in widespread use.


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The chances of a train being hit by the odd Zeppelin were remote to say the least, I’m sure it was just for for cheapness. The grey used on some engines was probably just undercoat.

 

The SR did some desultory experiments during the early years of WW2 to try to disperse steam, since it is the steam that is most visible from the air. (They tried three chimneys on a King Arthur). They never went far, I suspect because the gains weren’t sufficient for the expense.

Although it would be wrong to downplay the individual impact of specific bombing raids, by about 1942 Germany was only really able to mount raids that were a nuisance rather than a strategic threat. (By contrast, I saw a statistic that the Germans needed 42 supply trains per day into northern France to keep their armies supplied to mount a defence against the allied invasion, but the rail network was so degraded that by D-Day they could only supply six trains per day).

Tom

 

Those six trains would run the risk of a ‘cab rank’ attack by rocket firing Typhoons. They were deadly, my father in law told me about watching an attack in the distance on an armoured column, they would take out the lead and rear tank first and then dive down in turn to finish off the rest of them.

 

Latest Locomotive Engineer report here, outlining the daily work to keep her running satisfactorily.

The 'Sir Nigel Gresley' Locomotive Trust Ltd

 

5051 in 1980. Unlined and shirt button on the tender. There wasn't time to finish it before the 'Phoenix' and 'Sunset' tours with the Vintage Train to Stratford!


Not even a shirt button here! Early 1980 at Swindon.

 

Turning blue, from the LSG Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=196144499585783&set=pcb.196144572919109

 

Wonder if they spray or hand paint????

 

Hand.

 

Saw in a NELPG newsletter once, that WCRC, had started to spray paint, certainly 62005, was mentioned, for quickness, after overhaul.
Does not seem to be any ventilation, if it was spray at LSL, but it would need heating to get a real paint adhesion, and finish.

 

I must admit to admiring the black livery hence the SVR images of it black during the 2022 Autumn Gala will now be a much valued part of my collection. I wonder what chance of seeing 4498 as 60007 in Green in BR livery at some future point ?