Quote from: MalcolmAL on December 18, 2014, 01:00:00 AM

but between then,  the standardised coaches of the early 50's that you describe,
and the Maroon of the 57-64 period
what would the colour scheme have been ?

As pointed out above, Crimson/Cream would be the earlier coaching stock livery for 1948-56.

I would also expand on that a little, as excursion stock would quite uncommonly have been the nice shiny new coaching stock of the day right up into the '60s. This makes the choice of Mk1 coaches in the set a bit of a weird one as they didn't really start to be cascaded down until the Mk2 coaches started displacing them, by which time this version of the 4F (original Midland Railway build) was becoming extinct. Thats not to say it didn't happen, but it would have been the exception rather than the norm. More often than not excursion stock and football specials were made up of whatever was spare and serviceable in the coach sidings, usually ending up being the stuff that they didn't want to put out in the normal service trains. With the loco carrying late crest, I'd have thought that a factory weathered Crimson/Cream pair of Staniers (an open second and a brake second) would be more appropriate to cover up into the early '60s as these were increasingly being retired from frontline service at the time. Better yet, one Maroon and one Crimson/Cream. From the research I've been doing into formations for my clubs exhibition layout I've noted that a heck of a lot of non corridor (suburban, non gangway) stock found their way into excursion trains too.

Might be worth mentioning that (particularly in the 60s) trains often ran with a mixture of carriage liveries so it wasn't unusual to see (on Midland lines) a real mix of blood/custard and maroon carriages in the same train. Same on Western Region where trains could have been maroon, blood & custard and chocolate & cream (all mixed up).   Maybe even throw in an SR green example or two !
And yes corridor and open carriages could appear in the same trains.

Quote from: port perran on December 19, 2014, 08:55:05 PM
Same on Western Region where trains could have been maroon, blood & custard and chocolate & cream (all mixed up).

I've even seen a photo of a Western Region train with all three coach liveries present, albeit only one Crimson/Cream coach.  If I'd seen that on someone's layout I would have assumed it was "Rule 1" in action.