Choosing the wagons...

[NeMo]

Two different chocolate-and-cream liveries!

GWR chocolate-and-cream livery was abolished in 1948, at nationalisation. Coaches were quickly repainted into British Railways colours, which through the 1950s was crimson-and-cream.

However, in the late 50s/early 60s the different regions were allowed to have their own, regional colours. The Southern Region did their coaches in green, and the Western Region did their coaches in chocolate-and-cream. Of course, these coaches had British Railways emblems on them, not GWR emblems. But otherwise they did indeed look quite similar (though not identical).

So ignore overlaps of a few years either way, you basically have...

Pre-1948  GWR chocolate-and-cream
1950s = British Railways crimson-and-cream
1960s = British Railways chocolate-and-cream (WR only) as well as maroon and green coaches
1970s = BR blue-grey

Cheers, NeMo

So, NeMo, the chocolate and cream is later livery then crimson and cream? I thought the chocolate and cream was old GWR livery and crimson and cream are later BR's... I mistake...

[Chris Morris]

NeMo is spot on. Chocolate and cream was introduced on Mk 1 coaches in 1956. These coaches were used in rakes on the top expresses such as the Cornish Riviera. Maron was used for lesser services. At some point in the early 1960s the central authorities decided the Western Region were being too different and rum our has it they ordered the chocolate and cream sets to be broken up and mixed with maroon coaches until they could be repainted.

[wooster]

Chris, during research i turned choosing period from 1964-65 to 62-63, as I want to make a scenes with steam and diesels working side by side and even in the head of one train, assisting each other on steep grades. It was common practice for the beginning of 60's, and not for the 64-65.
22 and 42 I'd bought is w/out SYP and I would like to renumbered 22 to D6320,27 or 32, as they had no SYP and Headcodes until 1964 (some fotos says 1965 still plain green with disks, but probably it was date mistake? Anyway, 1964 is enough).
Class 42 is "Magpie", split from Farishs set, had no SYP.
Another noticeable mark of a early 60's I'd found -wagons data letters must be unboxed

[Chris Morris]

Class 22s may well have been slower to receive yellow warning panels than the Westerns and Warships so there may well have been a few around in 1964.
Magpie was built in 1960 and painted green. She received her warning panel in September 1962. She was painted maroon in December 1965and blue in October 1970.
According to my reference book (Modern Locomotives Illustrated) the last Warships to receive yellow panels were as follows:-
D821 Greyhound Feb 1964
D845 Sprightly Feb 1964 (although she had a trial panel and white window surrounds from August 1961)
D856 Trojan May 1965 . This is so far out from the others that I wonder if it is correct.

[wooster]

Thank you Chris, I finding this info about 42s. Became clear that I need to renumber Magpie to Greyhound, to use it with Westerns in her early livery.
Can you help with Western - I want one in maroon, I think they all must have SYP, as they appear in 1962? I saw the foto w/out SYP, but fotos seems to be a factory made...

[Thorpe Parva]

Thank you for the answers. So, is it correct to add RU to RFO, or, the RFO coach must assist by some sort of special car with only kitchen?
Also, is it correct to have only RU coach in express named trains with First class coaches in it, or the RFO mUst be in train with FK coaches? (RFO for FK and RU for others and working as a kitchen for RFO)

My understanding is that the RFO requires a kitchen car RK. For both First & Second Class dining you could have RFO+RK+RSO. I'm sure that others will know more about this and can comment if my understanding is not correct.

[wooster]

Well, the correct coaches composition of named expresses can be find is documents, I think (but I still could not ) On facebook page was some info from Carriage Working Programme, but for 1971-72.

[johnlambert]

Here are a couple of colour photos of Western Region express trains.  It should give you an idea of how the coach liveries were mixed.

8th July 1962 - one crimson & cream brake coach behind the engine and the rest of the train is maroon.
http://www.warwickshirerailways.com/gwr/gwrhb2209.htm

No date on this one except that it must be before September 1962 (because the engine in the photo was scrapped by that date) with two chocolate & cream coaches in the middle of maroon coaches.
http://www.warwickshirerailways.com/gwr/gwrhb2232.htm

Here's a named express in 1959, all chocolate & cream coaches
http://www.warwickshirerailways.com/gwr/gwrms1316.htm

I hope these are helpful.

[Chris Morris]

Full details of Westerns livery can be found at http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/54225-western-liveries-1961-1977/   

[Newportnobby]

6. The headcodes do have a meaning. The first two digits"1A", "6M" etc signify the type of train and direction. 1 = express passenger, 2= local passenger, and the others refer to types of freight. The letter indicates direction - A=up train, B= down train, V = train finishing on Western Region but startin in a different region. The good news is that on Wst Country branches the headcodes didn't seem to get changed and a reasonable percentage of photos of class 22s in the West Country show them to have incorrect headcodes for the train they are pulling. Most, maybe all, long distance mainline trains appear to have correct headcodes.

@Chris Morris
That's very helpful, Chris. Maybe in a separate thread you could either expand on that or suggest a website those interested could bookmark as, although I can't change the headcodes supplied on most of my diesels, some understanding of them may help me 'concoct' a story around them.

[johnlambert]

Here's the train formation for The Intercity in 1959; a Western Region express that ran from Paddington to Wolverhampton.

1 Brake Second
4 Second Corridor
1 Restaurant car with kitchen (second class)
1 Restaurant first open
3 First Corridor
1 Brake Composite

[wooster]

Found on RMweb about "Cornishman":

The summer 1961 from Wolverhampton was BSK,SK,SK[ not used from 8/61],CK,CK,RU,SO,SK,BSK for Penzance

It also had 5 coaches that were detached at Newton Abbot for Kingswear comprising of SK,CK,SK,BSK,SK[Fridays only]

[Chris Morris]

6. The headcodes do have a meaning. The first two digits"1A", "6M" etc signify the type of train and direction. 1 = express passenger, 2= local passenger, and the others refer to types of freight. The letter indicates direction - A=up train, B= down train, V = train finishing on Western Region but startin in a different region. The good news is that on Wst Country branches the headcodes didn't seem to get changed and a reasonable percentage of photos of class 22s in the West Country show them to have incorrect headcodes for the train they are pulling. Most, maybe all, long distance mainline trains appear to have correct headcodes.

@Chris Morris
That's very helpful, Chris. Maybe in a separate thread you could either expand on that or suggest a website those interested could bookmark as, although I can't change the headcodes supplied on most of my diesels, some understanding of them may help me 'concoct' a story around them.

Probably the best explanation is at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Train_reporting_number
Other interesting pages http://www.2d53.co.uk/Headcode/Headcode4.htm and http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/gansg/3-sigs/bellhead.htm
This is also interesting http://headcodes.mrol.com.au/default.aspx

[wooster]

Add a little bit of info... found an article in Hornby Magazine #95 5/2015 - The Western at Westbury by Mark Chivers, were is a couple of examples of passenger and freight formations of 1960's. Very interesting...

[Bornin1980something]

I'm interesting, does Peco wagon kits have a decals in a kit?

It's better than that; the wagons referred to are ready to run.