CIE corporate colours over the years

[Junctionmad]

Has this been detailed before on IRM,? I'm trying to understand the progression of CIE colours on buildings and signal cabins etc from the 60s onwards

 

 

thanks

 

 

dave

[jhb171achill]

Not sure about buildings, though I think locos and rolling stock are well covered. Gimme a minute till I have me dinner and I'll put down a few thoughts.

[jhb171achill]

There. Dinner swallowed. Now, let's see....

 

Until the early sixties, CIE had continued the GSR's station colours, just like its grey loco livery. This was usually a dark green, not unlike what they would put on carriages and buses; the GSR had this at an early stage lone before it adorned anything on wheels. As far as I can gather there was no connection - dark green was a popular colour for woodwork back in the day. Upper panels and windows were a cream colour - possibly white in some cases, though the pigments in older paints tended to "yellow" them a bit, so things painted white didn't stay that way.

 

Green and cream was to be seen in faded form on many an unrepainted building or doorframe well into the 1970s and even 80s on long-disused water towers.

 

Around 1961-5, various experimental liveries were tried out. In West Cork and on the Valentia line at a few stations, a bright red and cream scheme was introduced. In the case of the former, this was very famously applied just before closure! I don't think it extended to more than a few stations. Red made an appearance on at least one of Limerick station's many signal cabins. Dublin termini and Great Victoria Street got various pastel shades of light blues and greys, details being available in various contemporary copies of the "Irish Railfans News" (see RPSI website).

 

In the mid sixties, CIE introduced a very attractive and fresh looking scheme of black, white and about three shades of grey (no, not fifty). This was added to in main termini by the familiar black and white tiles still to be seen. For students of station livery, please note:

 

NO PLATFORM EDGE YELLOW LINES existed ANYWHERE at this time, and white ones were exceptionally rare too! Let alone nonsensical signs about minding trains passing at speed - on platfortms at termini! Or that huge and occasionally mis-spelt signs exhorting us to mind the gap............ in those days, common sense ruled over puerile inanity!

 

Back to paint. The "shades-of-grey" station paint scheme became absolutely the norm throughout the rest of the sixties, the seventies and eighties. By 1990, a bright but garish scheme of red, white and (predominantly) blue was in place. In the interim, Dublin area station and adopted the DART colours from about 1984/5 by degrees, which many still carry. I think - but couldn't be sure - that Lansdowne Road at least kept the grey a good bit later.

 

I'm not sure exactly when the light grey and cream seen now was first introduced. The first time I saw it was on the DSER, though I can't be sure it wasn't on the main line first. I am sure someone here will add more accurately, but I would think this maybe appeared about ten / fifteen years ago.

 

While on the subject, the UTA policies might be of interest.

 

The NCC painted stations maroon and cream. The GNR had two separate paint schemes. One related to the Eastern District, one Western. The West was the INWR lines (Derry - Dundalk and branches and Bundoran), Cavan / Belturbet to Clones at least, possibly Portadown. The Western District had shades of brown, cream and tannish colour red - still to be seen - for the moment - in the innards of the ex Bundoran Junction signal cabin at Downpatrick. Their Western district had green and cream, like the GSR and CIE, often (like GSR / CIE) with the two separated on internal walls by a half inch black line. (Internally; GSR / CIE / GNR: black skirting boards, green lower panels, thin black line, cream upper panels, cream or white ceiling).

 

The derelict Tynan station (see internet, don't trespass!) STILL retains its original Western District paint inside and out (what's left of it!).

 

The UTA started painting everything in the same type of dark green, but with a slatey white sort of colour externally, cream inside. Often, many features were picked out in red, especially on the Derry Road and NCC, less so GVS - Dundalk. I'm not sure they bothered repaiting the Warrenpoint line stations at all, as I remember a very derelict Dublin Bridge Station in Newry, post closure, in GNR paintwork.

 

On some stations, the UTA used a light turquoise blue with - I think - light grey or white for a short time in the late 60s.

 

CIE either continued the old GSR bilingual enamel signs, or made their own black on white ones from the mid 60s. A few old pre-1925 ones remained, now black letters on white. Now, of course, there are a number of varieties of station signs, the latest a pleasing continental style white on blue. the UTA painted station signs yellow with black lettering.

 

If I think of anything more I'll post. Many of the colour railway books of the last ten years will show up a lot of this in great detail.

[minister_for_hardship]

Can't say I was a fan of the grey scheme, made my own local station look rather dowdy and depressing, esp. coupled with the semi dereliction which was the norm at the time. Of course we have gone to the opposite extreme now, traditional station architecture marred with needless galvanised cattle mart fencing and gates, palisade fences better suited to prisons or industrial estates, ugly galv lamp standards and plastic Lidl-esque light fixtures, etc.

[Junctionmad]

Jonathon , as usual yourva mine of information , thanks

[jhb171achill]

Jonathon , as usual yourva mine of information , thanks

 

I'll delve and see what else I might have.....though many colour books will tell the story better than I!

 

Can't say I was a fan of the grey scheme, made my own local station look rather dowdy and depressing, esp. coupled with the semi dereliction which was the norm at the time. Of course we have gone to the opposite extreme now, traditional station architecture marred with needless galvanised cattle mart fencing and gates, palisade fences better suited to prisons or industrial estates, ugly galv lamp standards and plastic Lidl-esque light fixtures, etc.

 

Couldn't agree more - old stations looked well, they were well proportioned, well designed and well laid out. Modern ones couldn't be more ugly - and large areas of concrete (the most unattractive building material in all humanity's nine million years of evolution) just becomes a canvas for the intellectually challenged scumbags who scrawl "artistic" graffiti all over them.

 

No matter what era I would model, I would use a prototype station like Lisburn, Malahide, or Athy - not Adamstown & Cherrywood M7 Parkway Train Station Halt, for sure!

 

Rant over, for now.....!

Edited March 1, 2017 by jhb171achill

[jhb171achill]

I've had my medication now, so I can continue....

 

The BCDR used a scheme of some sort of darkish olive green, which the DCDR has now appropriately adopted as its house style for stations. Like the GNR in many cases (but not all) it painted station signs in red on white, latterly anyway; though possibly black and white originally. The olive green was offset by off-white or cream, but station fencing was often, if not usually, painted a silvery-grey, which eye-witnesses liken to galvanised paint or lead paint as applied to water columns to prevent rust. jhb171Senior recalled this on wooden fencing at various locations on the system, which he covered in its entirety on several occasions (always on the footplate; on asking him what colour seating cushions were, some years ago, the answer: "Haven't a clue. was never IN a coach on the BCDR....").

 

The MGWR used pillar-box red and cream on stations. The GSWR probably used dark green and cream, though I can't be certain. The County Donegal used a rusty red colour - like the GNR's Western District, and a sandy beige, again like GNR Western District, but also light green. Until a few years ago at least, and possibly still, the badly faded remains may be seen on the former Castlefinn station building.

 

The Clogher Valley, MGWR and WLWR often - but NOT always - used navy blue enamelled signs on stations, with the MGWR also using miniature versions on platform seat backs.

 

No company ever used enamel on signal cabins, and no company ever called them "signal BOXES"; this is a trans-channel term. It is a shame that the new museum at Whitehead appears to have signage relating to signal "boxes"....

 

While most railways simply had the station name on a cabin, thus "DOWNPATRICK" or "MALLOW", the MGWR was more long winded, thus: "MULLINGAR SIGNAL CABIN" or "MULTYFARNHAM SIGNAL CABIN".

 

The level of realistic detail on model locos and rolling stock these days is often enhanced to a spookily realistic extent by weathering, and many here are as artistic as Leonardo himself when applying it. Da Vinci, that is, not De Caprio, or any bottle-tanned soccer player.

 

Stations and so on are often neglected, so if accuracy is striven for in a model station, it is as well to remember that many stations in the past, especially on minor lines, might have seen the arrival of The Paintbrush as a major local event. Peeling and faded paint were a lot more prevalent than many a black and white photo would allow us to see. Thus, weathering of buildings (and tyres on cars in the car park!) is as good as obligatory to create an accurate image.

 

I have no information, alas, on how the DSER painted their stations, despite living nowadays in DSER territory.......

[Junctionmad]

One only has to look at that carbuncle that is Waterford station to see the" new" Ireland design aesthetic !!

[Junctionmad]

Ps I'm modelling in the 80s , well 1980 as the centre year. Basically CIE was broke and the standard of track was awful , sumner of 80 most of Claremorris station was essentially a field of grass Everything was patch and mend and run down.

 

Sheesh ,now I'm depressed. Maybe I should go back 20 years

[Noel]

Ps I'm modelling in the 80s , well 1980 as the centre year. Basically CIE was broke and the standard of track was awful , sumner of 80 most of Claremorris station was essentially a field of grass Everything was patch and mend and run down.

 

Sheesh ,now I'm depressed. Maybe I should go back 20 years

 

That's what I keep telling you JM, back to the golden era of the 1960s, when Black'n'Tan was deriguour (imho the nicest livery the baby GMs ever had). I do agree with MFH and JB, I never liked the drab grey stone block work used in Irish stations, always preferred the warm bright brick colours used on many UK stations and here in places like Bray and Dundalk. I will be going against convention and using brown, beigh and red coloured brick for station buildings on the layout for a more attractive visual look.

[minister_for_hardship]

No company ever used enamel on signal cabins, and no company ever called them "signal BOXES"; this is a trans-channel term. It is a shame that the new museum at Whitehead appears to have signage relating to signal "boxes"....

 

While most railways simply had the station name on a cabin, thus "DOWNPATRICK" or "MALLOW", the MGWR was more long winded, thus: "MULLINGAR SIGNAL CABIN" or "MULTYFARNHAM SIGNAL CABIN"......

 

 

 

To be fair, this was probably one of a *very* small number of cabins officially called 'boxes'.

 

A few cabins carried bi-lingual enamel signs, that at Mallow (South) appears to have been in place up until recently until replaced by what looks like a replica. Claremorris and Birr might have had bilingual enamels on the cabins there, but can't confirm.

Others carried painted on tin versions of the enamel bilinguals (Bantry, Killeagh, Midleton, Youghal & Cherryville Juct, and possibly Mogeely/Limerick Check/Limerick Station come to mind)

The MGWR cabin at Ferns Lock seems to carry an off-standard MGWR enamel nameboard in the O'Dea collection photos.

 

Re the GSR era bilingual signs, at a few locations these were painted over in white and the letters picked out in black (the opposite way round to the enamelled colours) to match the newer signage. Mallow is one place that that happened.

 

Edited March 1, 2017 by minister_for_hardship

[minister_for_hardship]

That's what I keep telling you JM, back to the golden era of the 1960s, when Black'n'Tan was deriguour (imho the nicest livery the baby GMs ever had). I do agree with MFH and JB, I never liked the drab grey stone block work used in Irish stations, always preferred the warm bright brick colours used on many UK stations and here in places like Bray and Dundalk. I will be going against convention and using brown, beigh and red coloured brick for station buildings on the layout for a more attractive visual look.

 

I thought the grey stonework could have been improved by a more inspired paint scheme other than grey. Probably the cheapest colour they could find...other than black. The GS&WR rarely entertained red brick, except the odd place like Emly or Drumcondra and for constructing SM's houses on the West Kerry branches. The West Cork had a mixed bag of stone, red brick and corrugated iron buildings possibly reflecting the mixed bag of companies that eventually made up the CB&CSR and the D&SE had farm shed style station buildings and signal cabins.

Edited March 1, 2017 by minister_for_hardship

[jhb171achill]

The large bilingual black enamel signs with white lettering were a GSR product. None of the earlier companies had anything bilingual. On some lines, including obscure narrow gauge places like Schull, Ballydehob, Moyasta or Mohill, these new signs appeared very quickly (though Ballinamore had its original navy enamel C & L sign until the end). On other GSR lines, the standard GSR enamel type never appeared; Abbeyfeale had its old wooden WLWR sign right until after closure, having survived ownership by the GSR and CIE.

 

Older wooden ones which did survive over the years, in GSR times and early CIE times were all painted black with letters and rims picked out in white. From the mid 1960s when the new plastic CIE ones appeared, with both languages in the same Roman font, older ones (like at Mallow above) were repainted with colours inverted, i.e. black on white instead of white on black.

 

Old yellow UTA signs were still to be seen at Antrim, Ballymoney and Dunmurry Halt well into the 1980s. NIR had otherwise repainted all station signs - be they BCDR, NCC or GNR origin - I maroon with light grey lettering - same colours as their railcar livery of the day. (Incidentally, maroon with light grey, á la BR, not white or cream). Any that NIR made themselves in the late 60s and 70s were on narrower wooden boards painted maroon, with light grey lettering as before.

 

Then they brought in those ghastly metal things which looked like old iron bedframes with letters welded on....

 

Is it me, or has design just gone, utterly gone, from any modern railway scene? Is there nothing at all with any sense of artistic merit or proportion in it?

[Phil3150]

The large bilingual black enamel signs with white lettering were a GSR product. None of the earlier companies had anything bilingual. On some lines, including obscure narrow gauge places like Schull, Ballydehob, Moyasta or Mohill, these new signs appeared very quickly (though Ballinamore had its original navy enamel C & L sign until the end). On other GSR lines, the standard GSR enamel type never appeared; Abbeyfeale had its old wooden WLWR sign right until after closure, having survived ownership by the GSR and CIE.

 

Older wooden ones which did survive over the years, in GSR times and early CIE times were all painted black with letters and rims picked out in white.

 

Photos of Mohill in the fifties show a simple "MOHILL" board with a white frame attached to the front of the station building. Any idea of the timescale for the bilingual sign or was there another board elsewhere on the station?

 

Cheers

 

Phil

[jhb171achill]

All bilingual signs were post-1925. The GSR ones were black with white lettering, usually contained within a wooden or concrete framing and surround but sometimes screwed to dies of station buildings or signal cabins.

 

The English-only one you mention, Phil, would be C & L origin possibly, but possibly also very early GSR. Most C & L were navy blue enamel with white letters, same as the MGWR, and obviously were English only. So, in terms of time scale, any time really. The line was opened in 1887 and closed in 1959. By the end, many GSR enamels were in place, but not all stations had them.

 

I have an idea that Mohill had a bilingual sign too - if you are certain the photo you speak of was in the 50's - and beware the very frequent inaccuracy in dating old photos - then there was probably one pre-1925 C & L example and one GSR (obviously post-1925).

[Junctionmad]

Is it me, or has design just gone, utterly gone, from any modern railway scene? Is there nothing at all with any sense of artistic merit or proportion in it?

 

while its no excuse, the railways were the " googles and microsofts" or their day and they had the money and a sense of grandeur. today , they are basically broke and everything is done on the cheap

[minister_for_hardship]

while its no excuse, the railways were the " googles and microsofts" or their day and they had the money and a sense of grandeur. today , they are basically broke and everything is done on the cheap

 

Depended on what part of the country they served. Lines like the Schull & Skibb had very homely structures.

 

If you've even been inside an old station before modernisation, the lion's share of space was given over to first class passengers, and they usually had a separate Ladies' Waiting Room, sometimes those rooms were divided into classes depending on overall size of station. The SM's family had rather poky living spaces, but nothing compared to the 2 roomed cottages that LC keepers (and the then customary large families) had to inhabit. Still, they were better than the thatched mud-walled hovels that the majority of the population lived in.

Edited March 6, 2017 by minister_for_hardship