Will the real Maroon please stand up. This shot taken at Loughborough on the GCR, shows three Mk1 coaches all painted in different shades of BR Maroon. Long time painted ones are a much deeper 'blackberry' shade, whereas more recent paintjobs are a distinctly lighter more 'cherry' colour. Mischievous people might say they are the same shade as they use for their 'crimson' on the red and cream repaints....
But, these different shades of maroon are probably only reflecting how it was 50 years ago;
consult any book with colour shots taken back then and you will find quite an array of maroons, ranging from very 'pink' shades, through 'browns' to virtually 'purples'. Obviously on some shots the passage of time has affected the negatives/slides, and the various makes of film recorded colours differently; even so you cannot argue when you can see several dinstinctly different shades in a rake in the same shot. I think this goes to show, despite official instructions, that the colour of maroon varied from BR Works to BR Works, and also from outside contractors.
So I suppose it means you can paint your models in any old shade of maroon (Humbrol 19, even?) and get away with it!
It doesn't only happen at Loughborough, you can find different shades being used at Shackerstone
Here 4939 is behind Griddle Car 1104, which although faded is quite a different shade.
When it comes to model paints, those which were/are available as BR Maroon (Cherry,Southern Pride,Phoenix,Railmatch) were all virtually identical, being the darker 'blackberry' shade; Bachmann Mk1's dont match up, and curiously the shade Lima used is very close to the shade you see in the vast majority of colour pictures- they obviously went ot a lot of trouble to try and get it what they thought was 'right'.
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