A 7mm scale model of St Ives
goods shed in GWR colours

A preserved signal box at Didcot Railway Centre; the perfect re-creation
of Great Western Railway building livery.

In other words, you can't be dogmatic about the paint colours used on buildings; all you can do is give a general guide to what is a reasonable match for a typical application. The colour of the undercoat also made a difference, especially when the top coat was a reddish shade that tended to be translucent. For instance a red lead undercoat gave a different final finish from a grey undercoat, even though the top coat was identical.

Pigments were expensive and white lead was cheap. Victorian railway companies counted every penny, and, unlike their locomotives, they didn't see stations as places that needed to be a colourful advertisement. Generally they used whatever colour of paint was cheapest; normally these were shades of buff and cream. A darker colour was usually adopted to contrast with the buff or cream paint, with a slightly more expensive red lead as the base. When you consider how much paint it must have taken to paint a Brunel wooden overall roof, you can see why they used the cheapest paint possible.

The GWR should be the simplest of companies to deal with, as the colour scheme it used for its buildings didn't change significantly from the time of the earliest records to the formation of BR in 1948.

In the Victorian period no one took much notice of the colours of the buildings, but there is no reason to believe that the colour scheme used by the GWR in later years was any different to that adopted in the earliest days of the company. They used a colour called Stone No 1 for large areas of planking, awnings, etc, an approximation of the colour of Cotswold stone, the material used in a lot of the early stations. This was a warm buff shade that looked most attractive. To accentuate the warmth of Stone No 1, a darker reddish brown colour called Stone No 3 was adopted for doors, framing of timber buildings and ironwork.

In essence that was it; the two colours, Stone No 1 and Stone No 3 were used until the end of the GWR as an independent company. However, you wouldn't think so looking at some models, because a third colour has reared its head and muddied the waters. In 1976 the Historical Model Railway Society published Great Western Way, a book detailing the liveries of the GWR in as much detail as was then known. Residing at the back of the book was a sheet of colour patches that included Stone No 1 and Stone No 3. However, Stone No 1 was now shown as a brown-grey shade, and this has appeared on models of GWR buildings ever since. Later editions of the book changed the caption to Stone No 2, but the damage had been done.

In reality Stone No 2 was the undercoat used on all buildings and the brown-grey hue, illustrated in Great Western Way, was its correct colour. It was only ever an undercoat and was never used as a top coat under any circumstances. The top coats were always stone No 1 in conjunction with stone No 3, the warm buff and the reddish brown colours respectively.

How can I be so certain about this? I have studied many colour photographs of GWR stations taken in the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s and every single one shows the correct buff coloured Stone No l. Now I accept that colour reproduction wasn't perfect on those early pictures, but if the sky is blue and the grass is green, then the rest of the colours won't be too far out either. Once twenty or thirty such pictures have been put together and an average taken, then a pretty good idea of the colour is quite possible. In addition, many stations were never painted by BR; look at colour pictures of Newent or Barber's Bridge on the front cover of GWR Branch Line Stations Volume 2, and you are looking at Great Western Railway building colours. Pictures of the Chard branch are the same, these buildings were never repainted by BR; in fact when I photographed Hatch and Ilminster stations in the 1980s they were still in GWR colours. Finally, if you visit The Didcot Railway Centre you won't find any railway buildings painted grey nor will you see this on the models at Pendon Museum. They are all in the correct shades of Stone No 1 and Stone No 3 just as they should be. After all, can you really imagine the GWR painting its buildings grey?

For modellers things couldn't be easier; you just buy a tin of P21 GWR light stone and P22 GWR dark stone from Precision Paints. I am naturally biased, as I did the original colour match for these shades when they were first introduced by Cherry Paints at my request. Later the range was sold to Precision. Following the introduction of these colours, I have painted every GWR model with Light and Dark Stone, and no one has complained yet.

The GWR introduced one variation to the scheme in 1931 when they began painting guttering and drain pipes in a shade of maroon that resembled the old Coach Lake. I did wonder if they had stocks of this left at Swindon and had to find a use for it. Although it did add some variation to the look of the buildings, it only ever appeared when stations were repainted, which could be well into the 1930s.

Window frames were always white, and that was that. Notices on stations, running in boards and poster boards were always black with white borders and white lettering. There were exceptions; some early enamelled signs were royal blue with white lettering or vice-versa. These could be long lived; Cullumpton kept an enamelled running in board until the end, and Hungerford had enamelled station notices. Footbridges were painted in the two shades of stone, but other metal bridges were a mid grey. Fencing was light stone, and platform barrows dark stone with white lettering.

Apart from the stone colours, Precision Paints also have GWR Coach Lake in their range that can be used for guttering on a post-1931 model.

The first paint scheme used by the Cambrian Railways was brown and cream, inherited from the Mid Wales Railway. However, in the late 19th century it adopted an attractive scheme of pale cream and green, the latter colour matching the livery of the coaching stock. The cream was used on planking, canopy valencing and the green was used on doors and ironwork. The green was described as Bronze Green, presumably the same as was used on the coaches. It is possible that the cream was actually white, as on the coaches, that had yellowed with age due to the effects of varnish and weathering.

Poster boards and station signs were green and white, poster boards having 'CAMBRIAN' in full across the top. Station barrows were green, lettered in yellow.

To paint a Cambrian model I use a jar of Tamiya white with a drop of yellow added for the cream, and Precision Cambrian Railways coach green.

Brecon & Merthyr Railway

The B&M painted all the woodwork on its stations in a colour described as Salmon Brown. This does not appear to have been a particularly dark colour, and I would reproduce it using either Precision LSWR coach salmon or SR light stone. The outside framing on wooden buildings was painted black, and window frames were white. Notices were all enamelled in dark blue with white lettering, and this included running in boards and signal box nameboards.

The TVR used a very yellow looking buff colour for the majority of the paintwork in its buildings, but ironwork on canopies was painted white with the lower three feet or so of the canopy pillars in black. This may have been a harder wearing paint for these vulnerable areas. Doors on station buildings were varnished oak, so a very dark brown would be appropriate on a model. Poster boards were black with white lettering and edging, as were other station notices. For the buff, Tamiya Dark Yellow seems to be as good a match as any.

Other Welsh railways

Nothing seems to have been recorded about other Welsh railway companies, but if you have other information, please email me.

Midland & South Western Junction Railway

I suspect that the directors must be turning in their graves, but the GWR article seems to be the best place to deal with the M&SWJR. The paintwork on buildings was painted in buff for the planking and valencing, and a mid brown for the framing and ironwork. Canopy valencing often used both colours alternately to give a striped effect. Poster boards appear to have been brown, with cream or buff lettering and edging. Presumably this also applied to station notices. For models, I use Precision Paints GWR light stone for the buff and Tamiya Flat Brown for the brown.

If you want to see what colour a Severn and Wye building was, do not go to the Dean Forest Railway as they have used a hideous scheme that bears no resemblance at all to what was actually adopted. It appears that they have copied the incorrect colour patch from Great Western Way, and if their buildings are meant to represent the GWR it looks ghastly; whichever scheme they are meant to portray.

For the S&W we have to rely on black and white photographs plus a snippet of hard information that tells us that the insides of buildings were painted pink. The information doesn't say how bright a pink, but perhaps that's a good reason to model them with the doors shut. The company was always hard up and would have used the cheapest paint it could obtain, that meant buff / stone and brown. Looking at pictures suggest that is what the buildings look like. I would use Precision GWR Light Stone with Tamiya Flat Brown for a model.

Station running in boards had painted lettering rather than cast letters; the board was buff / stone and the lettering was black shaded in red. See the photograph of Parkend in The Severn & Wye Railway Volume 1 by Wild Swan. For the record, the Severn Bridge had cream painted girders with a chocolate brown colour for the piers, so it is possible that this was the S&W scheme for buildings, but to my eyes the colour of the walls is too dark to be cream.

I know it was independent, but I couldn't think where else to include it.

The BCR station at Bishop's Castle was recorded in 1955 as being painted in white and red oxide. It is probable that the white was actually a very faded cream. Window frames were white, and fencing cream.

British Railways Western Region

Just before it ceased to exist, the GWR was thinking about introducing a brown and cream paint scheme for buildings in place of the two shades of stone. This combination became the standard scheme for the BR Western Region. Unlike some regions, the Western repainted the majority of its stations during the 1950s so that the brown and cream became synonymous with the area.

The cream could vary from almost white to a deep Cornish ice cream colour that suggested that it was still being mixed on site. However, the brown was more consistent being a very dark colour that dried dead flat. The cream was used on areas that had been in light stone, planking and valencing, and the brown replaced the old dark stone. Window frames were now cream rather than white.

The British Standard references for the two colours are BS381C No 369 Biscuit and No 414 Golden Brown; neither description is really suitable when you look at the colours. Part of the problem was that the paint dried with no trace of a shine and the matt surface attracted dirt more than a gloss surface would have done. The matt finish was characteristic of lead based paints.

I mentioned at the beginning that some stations retained GWR colours right up to closure, possibly they had been repainted just before nationalisation. The Chard and Newent branches were two of these survivors.