Quote from: Chris Morris on December 05, 2016, 10:45:49 AM
I don't know when it first got there but I can recall seeing a Thompson buffet car in blue & grey livery in Cornwall back in the seventies. I guess there will always be oddities that you wouldn't expect to see.

Not sure about Thompsons but I know there were a couple of blue/grey Gresley Buffets that regularly worked west-country services in the 1970s. Here is one at Reading.

I remember the Gresley Buffets in the 70's.
They were the smoothest ride in a rake of Mk1s by far. I hope they passed into preservation.

Jerry

Quote from: Chris Morris on December 05, 2016, 10:45:49 AM
I don't know when it first got there but I can recall seeing a Thompson buffet car in blue & grey livery in Cornwall back in the seventies. I guess there will always be oddities that you wouldn't expect to see.

Indeed Chris.  And these oddities are most helpful to us modellers.  Way back in my teens when I first started buying Railway Modeller each month, there were a run of photos, and comments under the "Prototype for Everything" banner.  The example you quote could have been on one of the Cross Country "expresses".

Quote from: Portpatrick on December 05, 2016, 10:56:50 AM

Quote from: Chris Morris on December 05, 2016, 10:45:49 AM
I don't know when it first got there but I can recall seeing a Thompson buffet car in blue & grey livery in Cornwall back in the seventies. I guess there will always be oddities that you wouldn't expect to see.

Indeed Chris.  And these oddities are most helpful to us modellers.  Way back in my teens when I first started buying Railway Modeller each month, there were a run of photos, and comments under the "Prototype for Everything" banner.  The example you quote could have been on one of the Cross Country "expresses".

Just spotted the Gresley Buffet is a Western region allocation as it has a W Preffix. Probably allocated to Old Oak Common carriage sheds as we definetly had one on a couple of excursions out of Didcot.

Quote from: newportnobby on December 05, 2016, 10:02:13 AM
Dependent on where on the Western Region you locate your layout you could potentially have SR green coaches mixed in as well

Indeed!  There used to be a Wolverhampton to Margate service (and vice versa) on Saturdays which saw SR and WR stock swapping places between regions, the stock would work local trains in the week and make the return journey the following Saturday. 

Coaching stock for inter-regional trains could be quite well traveled.  The linked photo is interesting (I think); Eastern Region Gresley coaches, in a train from the South Coast but photographed in Birmingham behind an ex-GW engine.

http://www.warwickshirerailways.com/gwr/gwrt1048.htm

And don't even start on parcels workings where Syphons and other pre nationalisation stock, could be seen well into the 1970s and perhaps into the early 1980s if memory serves correctly.

Quote from: johnlambert on December 05, 2016, 01:19:03 PM

Quote from: newportnobby on December 05, 2016, 10:02:13 AM
Dependent on where on the Western Region you locate your layout you could potentially have SR green coaches mixed in as well

Indeed!  There used to be a Wolverhampton to Margate service (and vice versa) on Saturdays which saw SR and WR stock swapping places between regions, the stock would work local trains in the week and make the return journey the following Saturday. 

Coaching stock for inter-regional trains could be quite well traveled.  The linked photo is interesting (I think); Eastern Region Gresley coaches, in a train from the South Coast but photographed in Birmingham behind an ex-GW engine.

http://www.warwickshirerailways.com/gwr/gwrt1048.htm

Thanks for that, John. Great pic. Looks like I can mingle more than I thought

Quote from: Big bad John on December 05, 2016, 01:20:47 AM
I know virtually nothing about liveries apart from some dates I read on wiki about changes. Following this thread is confusing me now. I will be starting a new layout after crimbo set around 1960/63 western region I had thought that I would get all mk1s in maroon. Now the question is would crimson/cream and chocolate/cream liveries still be around at that time on the western region and would It be only mk1s or would there be other types of coaching stock from earlier days. Sorry for what may seem draft questions but I only took interest in Railways this year so are very much in my infancy on the learning scale.

Western region 1960-63 generally speaking. Maroon would be the predominant livery. Certain WR named trains would be Chocolate and Cream Mk1's There would still be a lot of stock from the Big Four. and even the occasional pre group vehicle on secondary services. Southern region would be predominantly green with a mix of the original Malachite green but predominatly the new slightly darker BR stock green. There would also be some crimson/cream vehicles about but not many and probably none on the Southern. Suburban stock would be a mixture of unlined Crimson and lined maroon and Green on the Southern Region but remember all the BR Mk1 suburban coaches operated by the southern were 64' long and not 57' as on the other regions. I hope this is of assistance and is probably all the info you need.

QuoteI know virtually nothing about liveries apart from some dates I read on wiki about changes. Following this thread is confusing me now. I will be starting a new layout after crimbo set around 1960/63 western region I had thought that I would get all mk1s in maroon. Now the question is would crimson/cream and chocolate/cream liveries still be around at that time on the western region and would It be only mk1s or would there be other types of coaching stock from earlier days. Sorry for what may seem draft questions but I only took interest in Railways this year so are very much in my infancy on the learning scale.

I think I'll start a new thread about western in the early sixties as I have been doing some digging around on the web and it's raised more questions than answers and not all related to prototypical train's. It seems the area I had in mind may overlap western and LMS so I'll do some more researching before any more planning.

Quote from: Chris Morris on December 05, 2016, 10:45:49 AM
I don't know when it first got there but I can recall seeing a Thompson buffet car in blue & grey livery in Cornwall back in the seventies. I guess there will always be oddities that you wouldn't expect to see.

There was one Thompson Buffet Car, W9135E if I remember correctly, allocated to the Western Region during the early/mid 70's. It was mostly used on lesser weekend West of England Trains.

Dodger

Quote from: Chris Morris on December 05, 2016, 10:45:49 AM


Just spotted the Gresley Buffet is a Western region allocation as it has a W Preffix. Probably allocated to Old Oak Common carriage sheds as we definetly had one on a couple of excursions out of Didcot.

It was on a regular late Friday afternoon working off Paddington to Cheltenham in the 1970s and, presumably, other trips during the week. It was treated just like any other buffet car and certainly was not confined to "specials".  A rail enthusiast friend, working in London, would come home (to Swindon) every weekend and always made a point of joining that train just to ride in it.

Quote from: dodger on December 05, 2016, 09:15:02 PM
There was one Thompson Buffet Car, W9135E if I remember correctly, allocated to the Western Region during the early/mid 70's. It was mostly used on lesser weekend West of England Trains.

I think W9135E was a Gresley rather than a Thompson vehicle. See this photo of it at Exeter you can see the distinctive domed roof profile. Thompson stock has straight roofs all the way to the end.

Another late-lasting Gresley Buffet had a regular run on the Harwich Parkeston Quay-Manchester so-called North Country Continental train. Though I travelled often on this train, I didn't take any photos of this vehicle, but I think it was blue/grey. As this was its only diagram, with a regular crew, it had several non-standard decorations and fittings inside!
Some late surviving Thompson sleepers were also blue/grey, with three passing to the WR in 1967/8.

Martyn

Nothing in 'N' gauge sadly, but Hornby released a Blue Grey Gresley buffet in 4mm a couple of years ago for something like £49

I feel that a layout should be reasonably coherent. On Cromford for example I keep everything midland region and in the steam/diesel transition era. I will never be able to exhibit it as it's a fixture, but have toyed with the idea of building an exhibition layout of Monsal vale which could utilise my own stock. Even though it's of an actual place I don't think its necessary to be 100% accurate, after all who would know or even care if the midday train from Manchester to Derby had seven coaches instead of  eight or if the pick-up goods was hauled by a 3f instead of a 4f as long as it looked believable.
One type of layout, at an exhibition is the "toy train" type where a totally eclectic mix of locos and rolling stock runs side by side with no attempt at realism, except, perhaps, for those which are demonstrations of eg. Hornby tinplate, and are a working collection rather than a model railway.
A couple of questions though. Did trains, apart from empty stock, run Pullman coaches in the same train as non Pullman passenger carrying stock. Did the rooftop line run other pullman trains apart from the Midland Pullman DMU.