Mike Sheardown
Western Thunderer
Hi Mike
What research material do you have loco driver/fireman uniforms. I've noted a lot of railway related web sites pay a great deal of attention to locos and rolling stock (naturally) but scant information regarding the colour of staff uniforms (and other ancillary items for that matter).
All I've come up with is that post-nationalisation loco crew are usually in blue as your crew at the top of this thread show and pre-nationalisation/pre-group crew tend to have black or dark grey uniforms. The latter extrapolated from black and white photos knowing orthochcrome black & white film was not red sensitive.
Now to repaint my SR loco crew from blue to black uniforms.....
Hi Dave,
Yes, this has been an ongoing problem for me too, since as you say, there is precious little information on the colour of uniforms and/or clothing worn by loco crew.
To this end, a lot of my conclusions are really based on semi-educated guess work, so please do take all of the following with a hefty pinch of salt – i.e. non of it is necessarily correct, but it is the best I can come up with, and it is also what I’d do myself when painting figures of a particular period.
I agree with ‘DG’s’ post above, as there seems to be quite a bit of photographic and artistic (i.e. paintings) evidence, that during both the Grouping Period (i.e. Big Four – 1923 – 47), and Nationalisation Period (i.e. BR - 1948 onwards), that blue cotton drill was widely worn. This typically took the form of bib and brace, with matching jacket, and as ‘DG’ says, these faded with use and washing from a dark purple type blue, to a very pale cobalt type blue. Often, you would see lighter coloured jackets over darker bib and brace, where the bib and brace had been replaced due to having worn out before the jacket (typically with firemen who would hang their jackets up to fire).
To these, you could also add black steel toe-capped boots, black Grease-top cap, shirt (white?) and possibly a tie from home (?) and, a much thicker and warmer very dark blue or black over jacket for cold weather.
In addition, I’ve also seen examples of crew mixing these clothes with their own, the most common being to replace the grease-top cap with a flat cap, which wouldn’t have been as sweaty as a grease-top, and/or an old sports jacket instead of the blue cotton drill one.
So with regard to your SR crew, I’d be happy with them in the blue clothing you’ve already given them, as it matches with the above.
However, it’s the Pre-Grouping era that I find most challenging, as I can find hardly any written or (modern) photographic evidence to act as a guide as to the colour of clothing. I even bought a book on ‘Railway Buttons, Badges and Uniforms,’ which I thought would answer all my questions, but would you believe it, in the various chapters on uniforms, the guy who wrote it talks about the style, the number of buttons, the type of cloth, but, hardly ever mentions the b***** colour !!! – what a banana??!!!
So unless I discover evidence to the contrary, regarding the particular company's crew I’m modelling, I feel that various shades of black, grey, brown and white are probably a reasonable reflection of the type of colours worn. Also, it is this period where the crew seemed to make even more use of their own (old?) clothes, again, particularly the use of flat caps and even bowlers for head gear, so further variation is likely.
Some additional ‘semi?’ factual information to add to the above is:
Almost all companies issued their crews (and guards?) with red neckerchiefs, because these could also be used as danger signals should the need arise. Interestingly, at least one company banned the use of red or pink (??) material of any kind – presumably, because it could be mistaken for a danger signal??!!!
The white jackets sometimes seen in old photos of this period, were indeed white, and made from a material called fustian, which was a hard wearing fabric made from a combination of cotton and wool.
The LNWR used a dark bottle-green fabric for the jackets, coats and caps of many of it’s station staff, guards and shunters (often with grey trousers), and whilst there is no (?!!) mention of engine crews, I would find it reasonable to assume that they may well have been issued with same??
In the book I referred to earlier, one of the few references to colour of uniforms applies to the dark blue fabric used for all grades of staff on the LSWR, and whilst again there is no specific mention of engine crews, I find it reasonable to assume they may have been issued with it too. I'm particularly grateful for this, as it gives me a clear steer for the LSWR crews I'm doing currently, the first being the driver above.
Anyway, I hope the above is helpful, but like I said, a lot of it is guesswork on my part, and I for one, would value any further info and/or corrections from other WT ers.
Cheers
Mike
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