The LNER Encyclopedia

Hi,
I am a Swiss guy living in Geneva and loving British Tin Plate trains in 0 gauge (ACE, ETS, Hornby etc) . So, please accept a question from a stranger that may sound a bit stupid to your British ears:

Have the Riddles 07 (WD) Austerity 2-8-0s ever been painted in the famous LNER apple green when they have been sold to the LNER after WW II? I am asking this question because one of the UK retailers for tin plate model trains is offering this engine (based on the Czech made ETS model) in apple green.

The loco looks great in apple green but is apple green a prototypical color for the Riddle 07 (WD) Austerity 2-8-0?

Please help. Thank you in advance

Best wishes from Switzerland

Helmut

Hallo Helmut and welcome.

I do not believe that any of the Austerity locomotives were painted apple green by the LNER. However many of them were a shade of khaki green when owned by the War Department. This may have caused confusion to someone not familiar with the liveries.

The LNER did decide to paint all locomotives apple green after the war but ceased to exist before more than a relative handful were so finished.

I think the model is probably a flight of fancy / what-if, or perhaps a mis-interpretation of a b&w photo of the khaki.

However, there definitely were some one-off oddities in the BR era. For example, it had some nostalgia liveries. One of the more famous of which was probably the York J72 station pilot which was painted in NER green. [a modern equivalent would be Union Pacific's "Heritage" diesels finished out in the liveries of long-absorbed railroads]

Also early in BR days they experimented with liveries. The experiments included at least one LMS Black 5 which was finished out in LNER green!

I'm not aware of any O7 ever receiving either of these treatments, but it might give you room for your own flight of fancy....

Thanks , Richard,
it is now up to me as a UK railway fan with Swiss passport to take the difficult decision whether I can allow myself a "fancy" or whether I risk to be ridiculed by my continental fellow railroad fans.
Best wishes from Geneva
Helmut

No worries, Helmut. You could refer your railway buddies to this thread and, anyway, as the old saying goes: "It's your railway."

G'Day Gents

Something in the back of my mind, is telling me that a couple of WD's were painted green, for use on the Hong Kong & Kowloon Railway, Did read that they had been used on passenger trains to the Chinese boarder, but had all been withdrawn by the middle 50's.

manna