Londonderry and Lough Swilly Railway Carriage livery

[Colin R]

Hi Guys
 

I am in the process of adding a few L&LSR coaches to my fleet and I am thinking what livery did they have in the early days.
I have read that it could have been based on the LSWR of salmon pink and a shade of brown, with a dull red on the ends.
I have to admit that sounds very interesting, but I was wondering what are your thoughts on this?
I didn't want to go for either the all over black or grey liveries but something a bit brighter.
 

Colin  

Edited July 29, 2018 by Colin R

[jhb171achill]

If the all-encompassing GSR loco grey was dull, the LLSR all-grey was worse!

The CDR used all-black for carriages at one time, followed by black with cream upper panels - very funereal.

The LLSR was, I think, cherry red and white rather than salmon pink; perhaps an inspiration to Forbes on the CDR when he introduced their red and CREAM in 1932. I'm not sure of salmon pink - that's more likely to have been recorded (IF it was) from an old withdrawn thing that had faded to that.

I'm away at a family reunion and will check for sure when I get home tomorrow. I'm sure there was another earlier livery too - I'll check.

[tommy]

jhb171achill.......sent you a message......

[Andy Cundick]

The original Lough Swilly livery was to quote The Railway Magazine article on the line for November 1899,"The carriages are painted almost exactly like the LSWR" so Salmon Pink it is.Just as well as at the moment by coincidence is Swilly No 23 and L&B No1 both being painted in that livery(Dam fiddley).An article in the Irish Railway Record on the line by S Carse and D Murray (No21  Autumn 1957.)Also states that the Swilly coaches were originally in LSW livery whereas the Burtonport stock was supplied in Crimson lake with white or cream panels(I suspect they would have been white but the varnishes of the day turned them cream).I seem to remember reading somewhere that the their were painted vermillion,looking at the works photos that would certainly be the case.Hope this is of some use,Andy.

[jhb171achill]

Crimson and white was indeed what was in the back of my mind. But early on the LLSR proper changed, as you suggest, to brown & salmon, as below.

No hard information on the very first LLSR carriage livery has survived, but the LSWR livery was indeed brown (lower; probably a dark chocolate shade) and a salmony pinkish colour above that with roofs originally white, but these would have weathered within a single trip to a lightish grey!  Below are details, though the lettering and lining might have been different.

http://early-lbscr.co.uk/lswr1520/Livery specification for 1520.pdf

I can't help feeling that the ends were more likely to be brown, but I have no hard information on this. 

I suspect that the all-black livery came into being about 1910. Lining on the black paint was in red, which probably looked quite smart, if somewhat funereal, when new. In post-war times, or maybe from the 1930s, everything was plain wagon grey.

(Irish railways have always seemed to have a love affair with grey! Today its the De Dietrichs and 071s....)

 

[Colin R]

Hi John I can only guess at this but, I was once told it was popular to paint the ends of carriages in a red lead colour as it was cheap, not sure if this is correct but a photo of a L&LSR carriage when new looks to have 3 colours on it, when I get around to it I might just do one coach in this scheme just to see what it looks like.

regards

Colin

[jhb171achill]

This seems to have occasionally been done by the CDRJC, but I’m unaware of it ever being done by any other line. If any others did, I would think the Lough Swilly would be a prime contender!

Given the amount of stuff painted grey over the decades, I can’t help feeling that grey paint must have been cheap too!