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New Princess Coronation Colour Scheme


mikep7

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In today's Engine Shed, we're treated to "decoration samples" of the forthcoming Princess Coronation class locos and Hornby have the red/maroon colour completely wrong, yet again. The Hornby.com website has a photograph of 46256 ex-works at Crewe, a photo I pointed to some months ago so well done for including it, it should have served as a benchmark. Why then does Hornby then choose to paint the new model in a ridiculously dark maroon that in no way represents the true colour ever used? Yes I know photographic and printing techniques may distort colours but there is just no comparison between the actual 46256 as it was built and the new Hornby model if that's how you leave it.  I'm now off to cancel my pre-order or at least make it provisional on the colour being closer to what it should be. Having waited months already for my model I can't express how cross and disappointed these colour mistakes make me.

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 They seem to have used LMS maroon, and not BR Red.

 

However you have to admit they looked really good in that colour!! Much better than that gaudy shade BR used! Here sister loco  Duchess of Sutherland departs York in that colour in September 2009. True -  6256 never wore LMS maroon.

 

/media/tinymce_upload/bf3fd3edfc9a71f2935807308987a643.jpg

Not wishing to be too picky, but when 6256 was built she emerged from Crewe in LMS lined black, subsequently she was painted BR lined black in 1948, BR lined blue on 1952, and lined dark green in 1954. she was not painted BR red until 1958 and again in 1959.. She only wore red for 5 years. Talk about a Chameleon! 

 

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If the red/maroon used is anything like that used by Hornby on City of Lancaster it will be totally wrong.

 

However, I think the "deliberate error" referred to in the blog is the vertical red stripe on the axlebox of the pony truck on Sir Bill. It should be horizontal, as painted on the tender.

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46256 received its LMS-style lined maroon (as chosen for the latest model) in 1958 so we needn't concern ourselves with periods before that. I would just ask folk at Hornby to search online for red Duchesses from the late 1950s into the 1960s and no dark, dull maroon will be found. This is the photo Hornby themselves have on the page describing the new model of Sir William A Stanier FRS/media/tinymce_upload/15215caf905c033dd42056c293e1a691.jpg

and here's another below, and both are a zillion shades different from the proposed model photos in Engine Shed  Within the bounds of photography and printing colour limitations, all I had hoped for was a model looking vaguely like how it ran in practice when potential buyers (like me) would have seen it, say in the late 50s or early 60s, not a maroon colour used for other preserved LMS locos or some other maroon the production guys think would be apt. Just the "right" colour Hornby - please.

/media/tinymce_upload/a08aab32726ad4d5bf6436cd271132aa.jpg

Duchess of Hamilton, which many enthusiasts will have seen "in the flesh" was similarly painted when first restored at the NRM and before its streamlining was added. None of these are dark maroon shaeds, QED?/media/tinymce_upload/58312e7d760f46c9388fb2d766cf0153.jpg

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 They seem to have used LMS maroon, and not BR Red.

 

However you have to admit they looked really good in that colour!! Much better than that gaudy shade BR used! Here sister loco  Duchess of Sutherland departs York in that colour in September 2009. True -  6256 never wore LMS maroon.

 

/media/tinymce_upload/bf3fd3edfc9a71f2935807308987a643.jpg

Not wishing to be too picky, but when 6256 was built she emerged from Crewe in LMS lined black, subsequently she was painted BR lined black in 1948, BR lined blue on 1952, and lined dark green in 1954. she was not painted BR red until 1958 and again in 1959.. She only wore red for 5 years. Talk about a Chameleon! 

 

Certainly was a chameleon. Hornby have chosen the post-1958 livery one suspects as it has LMS-style lining and given it's a re-tooled completely re-worked model, costing us all £160-odd, you'd have thought the colour might matter as much as everything else. I've posted some photos elsewhere on this thread.

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 Perhaps the Engine Shed team would care to comment.

 

Memory is a dangerous thing, but the BR Princess and Princess Coronation locos I saw in the early 1960s were to my mind and memory a brighter red than the LMS maroon as applied to Duchess of Hamilton now in the NRM and the Duchess of Sutherland I photographed in 2009.

 

However colours do vary over time  -  see below, both are in BR carriage maroon

 

/media/tinymce_upload/672b6df7701bafef48c8ba06e92565fa.JPG

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 Hi Mike7

 

That 2nd photo of Hamilton is beautiful !! I don't recall seeing an ex-works Coronation but I didn't visit Carlisle very often (I was a poverty stricken schoolboy spotter from Newcastle). City of Carlisle was often the Upperby standby loco and, although not ex-works, she was normally pretty clean (by the standards of the day) and came close to matching the Red shown on Hamilton.

 

On todays railway the EWS red is quite attractive in Bright sunshine - in dull weather it's drab.

 

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