Thank you everyone for the brilliant responses, I certainly now have a lot to work with 

 

Hello folks!

I have just checked the Rails website and found that Graham Farish do produce maroon Mk.1 coaches with maroon ends... however, these are models of WCRC-owned vehicles. I also noted that the current maroon Mk.1 suburbans have black ends...

Quote from: Cols on January 16, 2025, 03:55:17 PMHello folks!

I have just checked the Rails website and found that Graham Farish do produce maroon Mk.1 coaches with maroon ends... however, these are models of WCRC-owned vehicles. I also noted that the current maroon Mk.1 suburbans have black ends...

The ends of these coaches got very dirty in use. A bit of weathering and no one will know what colour the ends are supposed to be.

WCRC are modern day renditions of maroon. Not 1960s at all.

Best to get maroon ones from EBay

That's a very good point, Bob G., I have not compared the maroon of BR in the 1960's with the WCRC maroon, though the WCRC colour does seem to be ever so slightly different... a tad redder perhaps..?

A few more bits of information.
From photos crimson and cream coaches became very rare after around 1959/60. The Western Region chocolate and cream rakes of coaches were ordered to be split up around 1962. From then on they were mixed in with maroon coaches and odd chocolate and cream coache was seen in rakes right up until 1967/8ish. Coaches seem to have been repainted into blue/grey quite quickly. By 1968 there were quite a few all blue/grey rakes but there were also a lot of rakes with maroon coaches mixed in. Britannias and Jubilees were seen hauling rakes of blue/grey coaches over the Settle & Carlisle line during their last summer of working this line. Most of the trains would have bene diesel hauled by this time.

There were significant inter regional north east - south west working right from the early days of British Railways; in fact there were some pre-nationalisation.  I have read in one book that most of the coaching stock held in the sidings at Paignton overnight was from the north east - that would have be ex-LNER coaches at that time together with some ex-LMS as well. During the early 1960s these north east-south west rakes would increasingly have been mk1 coaches. These trains would have been hauled by ex-GWR locos (or by 1961/2 diesel hydraulics) as far as Bristol where an ex-LMS loco would have been put on the front. At one time ex-LNER B1s were used on these trains as far south as Bristol. By around 1963/4 these services were mostly hauled by 45/46 diesels north from Bristol.