Striped painted platform edges in Scotland?

[Cowley]

Would anyone know when the practice of painting every other coping stone edge white started and finished in Scotland?

There’s a photo taken by Barry Adams here which shows what I mean. This is at Thurso in 1984.

37025 26/04/84

37025 at Thurso with 2K11 the 18.00 Thurso to Georgemas Junction on Thursday 26th April 1984. At Georgemas the coaches will be shunted onto the rear of the 18.00 Wick to Inverness.

www.flickr.com

I can’t find any photos taken later than that, but I have seen the same effect at various stations, including Inverness.

 

[AndrewE]

Would anyone know when the practice of painting every other coping stone edge white started and finished in Scotland?

There’s a photo taken by Barry Adams here which shows what I mean. This is at Thurso in 1984.

37025 26/04/84

37025 at Thurso with 2K11 the 18.00 Thurso to Georgemas Junction on Thursday 26th April 1984. At Georgemas the coaches will be shunted onto the rear of the 18.00 Wick to Inverness.

www.flickr.com

I can’t find any photos taken later than that, but I have seen the same effect at various stations, including Inverness.

Given that it's in Scotland it will be an economy measure: it halves the amount of whitewash that has to be bought - and maybe the man-hours needed to apply it!

 

[Cowley]

Given that it's in Scotland it will be an economy measure: it halves the amount of whitewash that has to be bought - and maybe the man-hours needed to apply it!

Being a painter myself, I’m with you on the saving of materials, but I’d argue that the extra cutting in would take longer than doing a continuous stripe…

 

[midland1]

Did not the practice start all over the UK in WW2 to save paint?

 

[hexagon789]

I don't know when the continuous stripe became the norm, but I believe the idea with the broken markings was to provide contrast in snowfall.

 

[Cowley]

I don't know when the continuous stripe became the norm, but I believe the idea with the broken markings was to provide contrast in snowfall.

Those were my thoughts when I saw it first.

I wondered if a memo went out in the mid 1980s to say that everything had to be standardised across the country after that?

 

[Rescars]

Those were my thoughts when I saw it first.

I wondered if a memo went out in the mid 1980s to say that everything had to be standardised across the country after that?

There is normally a lot less snow in the part of the country where national edicts come from!

 

[Sir Felix Pole]

Did not the practice start all over the UK in WW2 to save paint?

I believe painting white lines (striped or otherwise) was introduced in WW2 to assist passengers in the blackout - it wasn't a feature before the war.

 

[Sun Chariot]

I don't know when the continuous stripe became the norm, but I believe the idea with the broken markings was to provide contrast in snowfall.

The link @Cowley shared in post 1, also has a photo taken at Crianlarich: 37 014 taken two days later. The platform has a continuous white line.

Thurso, being coastal, is surely less likely to see heavy snow, than inland Crianlarich? So the dashed white line would have logically been at Crianlarich / unbroken white line at Thurso.

The plot thickens....

 

[The exile]

I believe painting white lines (striped or otherwise) was introduced in WW2 to assist passengers in the blackout - it wasn't a feature before the war.

I also have a feeling that it had become a lot less common by the early 80s - so maybe this was the beginning of a revival.

 

[Sun Chariot]

I wonder if it was a route-specific practice? Thurso had it, Invergordon had it. Does any reader know of any others on the Far North?

 

[Cowley]

I wonder if it was a route-specific practice? Thurso had it, Invergordon had it. Does any reader know of any others on the Far North?

I think Dingwall had it and definitely some of the curved platforms at Inverness.

 

[The exile]

I wonder if it was a route-specific practice? Thurso had it, Invergordon had it. Does any reader know of any others on the Far North?

No sign of it on a Culrain photo from 1978 but, just to confuse the issue, they appear on a photo at Aviemore a couple of days before. Can’t upload either, I’m afraid.

 

[Sun Chariot]

I'll check my own 35mm shots from 1988 and 1990. I've one at Georgemas Jcn - grey cells think it might've had the same.

 

[Cowley]

No sign of it on a Culrain photo from 1978 but, just to confuse the issue, they appear on a photo at Aviemore a couple of days before. Can’t upload either, I’m afraid.

Yes there’s quite a few photos of Aviemore with the stripes now I’ve had a look. Well spotted!

 

[Rescars]

Were the lines actually painted? I recall seeing a special "L-shaped" brush for whitening platform edges which lived in the bucket of whitewash. That was in the 1970s on the WR, where the lines were certainly continuous.

 

[sprinterguy]

The link @Cowley shared in post 1, also has a photo taken at Crianlarich: 37 014 taken two days later. The platform has a continuous white line.

Thurso, being coastal, is surely less likely to see heavy snow, than inland Crianlarich? So the dashed white line would have logically been at Crianlarich / unbroken white line at Thurso.

The plot thickens....

In terms of coastal locations, Mallaig also had the dashed white line from at least the mid sixties to the end of 1980s, but only on the landward side of the island platform. The seaboard side, primarily used by passenger trains, had a continuous white line throughout this period.

Older photos suggest that there was a continuous white line along both platform edges at Mallaig around the mid-1950s.

A couple of photos at Thurso in 1981 show that there was a continuous white line extending out of the train shed as far as the usual length of of passenger stock awaiting departure, with a dashed white line extending further up the platform past the full brake and loco. The photo of 37025 in 1984 in the opening post also seems to show this arrangement. A dashed white line is present all the way to the buffer stops in a photo of Thurso from 1963, but wasn't there in 1957. An extended continuous white line is present in photos from 1985 onwards, when replacement platform lighting was installed.

 

[Ashley Hill]

I can’t find any photos taken later than that,

The white lines at Thurso were solid by 1991. Here’s my photo of a 156 in the platform.
4

 

[D1537]

I have photos from various stations on the Aberdeen-Inverness line from 1983 and Nairn at least still has the stripes.

 

[Ashley Hill]

I have photos from various stations on the Aberdeen-Inverness line from 1983 and Nairn at least still has the stripes.

Nairn, gone by 1991. Here’s my photo of a McDuff changing tokens at Nairn.

 

[Cowley]

I have photos from various stations on the Aberdeen-Inverness line from 1983 and Nairn at least still has the stripes.

Ah. This is useful. I’ve found two photos on Flickr by Gordon Thomson showing Nairn with aforementioned stripes in 1986 here:

Nairn - 28-06-1986

ScotRail Inter City liveried 47430 arrives at Nairn with an Aberdeen to Inverness train. Shot with an Instamatic camera.

www.flickr.com

And, although a bit of a grainy shot, by the same photographer in 1987 here:

Nairn - 18-05-1987

26039, with a short ballast train, waits to cross an Aberdeen to Inverness train at Nairn. Taken on a roll of bad film, converted to black & white to try and improve.....

www.flickr.com

It looks like it had gained a solid stripe by 1988.

Was this the last hold out I wonder..?