Chromatic blue, rail blue what's the difference?
Some say it's the same colour, I don't know!
Just asking cos I have a JLTRT Western to do in it.
I'm sure someone will have a definate answer
Chromatic blue seems to be a recent myth, probably born out of poorly processed colour pictures of the day, or as is more likely badly mixed paint, I've read that Stratford didn't stock blue paint for many years and it was a mix of what ever green and yellow they had, resulting in some odd shades of blue on some locos. I've a photo in one of the Ian Allen landscape books that shows a class 25 in Derby works with a very odd shade of blue, the rest of the photos colour tones look ok but the blue is most odd, so there do seem to be odd coloured blue ones around.
The same applies to BR Brunswick green, Crewe always seemed to be a darker shade than some of Doncasters pacifics, but then some A4's look very dark, I think it's all a bit subjective.
Officially, I think there are only two blues, BR blue and BR Electric blue, the later was applied to Al1-AL6, EM2 and Glasgow blue train units....or a very close shade.
Here's an interesting photo, an AL3 is dead in tow to Domcaster works, this is the period when AL3 were stopped pending transformer rectification by the manufacturer, ironically the AL3 class were also stored at Bury alongside the EM2 before sale to Holland.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/12a_kingmoor_klickr/5855601281/sizes/l
And
E3031_E3098_E3027_Bury_1969 by
robertcwp, on Flickr
None the less it does show a good comparison between electric blue and BR blue.
25kV electric on Woodhead Line by
cabsaab900, on Flickr
The photo does also shown that you can mix DC and AC locos, but only one powered please
EM1 often went to Crewe from Manchester and in early days along with the AL3 I think AL5 went to Doncaster on occasion via the Woodhead route.
Heather, sorry for the
totally irrelevant waaaaay OT, I'm more than a bit passionate about juice jacks
I'll stop now and let y'all get some peace and quiet LOL