Model Railway Forum

Hi,
I have acquired a RTR GWR Autocoach on which the roof is painted a cream colour. However, every picture I can find of the prototype seems have a grey roof. Can anyone shed any light on this?

Thanks

David

Sure somebody will be along to confirm right or wrong But I think you will find that when they were out-shopped from workshops they were white but they did not stay white for long. Lots of other coaches from other companies had white roofs but same thing. They did not stay white for long.

Soon be grey.
The roof paint includes White Lead and this, in conjunction with various chemicals in the loco exhaust turns the roof grey.

Now that's interesting - the picture shows a white roof on the Autocoach but grey on the other coach plus this one is in the crimson lake livery; mine is cream & brown.

I don't think that exhaust chemicals would turn the roof a uniform grey, it would be varying shades depending on location and distance from the engine.

Here's a couple more images to confuse the issue
It seems only the models or the red livery have white roofs

What Postman Prat says is a fact. They did turn grey almost as if they were painted.

It may well be so but a load of the pictures I have found are factory fresh paint jobs and they are grey. More research needed Ithink

Cheers

David

You’ll probably find that a lot of colour pictures are refurbished coaches on heritage railways. Not sure they use lead paint any more. No matter what colour a roof is they all ended up dirty grey or black.

I always painted them a grubby colour when I got one.

That does sort of make sense but begs the question of why the heritage railways would paint in a non-standard colour. We'll see what turns up elsewhere

Maybe they use what they are allowed to use. Health and Safety etc.