The Engineer's New Coat

Optical connections The Engineer’s new coat uppose your boss David Baker ponders whether the eminent locomotive engineer announced to you that black is white. Would William Stroudley was colour deficient you agree if that was the price of keeping Stroudley was clearly talented the first place. The obvious answer to your job? Or suppose it and, in 1861, landed his first big the latter conundrum is that Stroudley wasS your employee who made this appointment as manager of the was colour deficient. This may be bold statement. Would you humour Edinburgh and Glasgow Railway’s so, but there appears to be no other him if you knew he was vital to Cowlairs Works. In 1865 he anecdotal evidence of him being the company’s success? There is moved to Inverness as locomotive involved in colour-related disputes; a 150-year-old mysterious case of superintendent of the Highland neither have any of his medical ‘yellow is green’ that still divides Railway, becoming their chief records been unearthed that might opinion around the world as to how mechanical engineer the following shed some light on the matter. Did it came about and how the engineer year, a post he held for four years Stroudley, one wonders, ever try the concerned got away with it. in all. One of the changes to the Holmgren Wool colour test, when it The man at the centre of the locomotive stock that he introduced came into use in 1876 after a Swedish controversy is William Stroudley in his time at Inverness was the one railway crash? (1833-1889), one of Britain’s foremost that was to cause all the controversy. Other theories have been advanced steam locomotive engineers. He It was a new livery, one of his own for Stroudley’s naming of IEG, designed some of the most famous devising, to be called ‘Improved with the assumption that his colour and longest-lived locomotives, some Engine Green’. vision was normal. One is that, of which are still running on heritage The problem was that Improved to get the board’s approval for the railways. His beginnings were Engine Green (IEG) wasn’t green. change of livery, he described it as ‘an relatively humble, as one of three sons It has been compared with gamboge improvement on (the existing) Engine of William senior, a machinist in a (a dark mustard yellow pigment), Green’. Proof of this might be found paper mill at Sandford-on-Thames, or a golden yellow ochre. As much in board meeting minutes. However, near Oxford. His first employment argument continues as to the precise the National Archives of Scotland was with his father at the mill but, in nature and description of the colour (NAS) hold Highland Railway 1853, he was given the opportunity and whether modern reproductions minutes of meetings of shareholders, to train as a locomotive engineer with exactly match the original, as directors and committees for the the Great Western Railway and later surrounds the question of why period 1865-1870, but no references with the Great Northern Railway. Stroudley so named his new colour in to IEG can be found therein. The 26 | Optician | 14.01.11 opticianonline.net Optical connections NAS also has minutes of meetings of intentionally sardonic: Stroudley was the Canadian Railway Museum. the board of directors and committees just fed up with endless shades of It has also resulted in his engines of the Edinburgh and Glasgow green. He did persevere with green, being popular with model railway Railway encompassing the time however, for his goods locomotives. enthusiasts; and as these aficionados Stroudley was at their Cowlairs The dark olive green, or ‘Goods can be very particular about the Works, ie for 1860-1865; again there Green’, was apparently produced by accuracy of every detail of their is no inkling of Stroudley’s possible adding black to IEG. It was reputedly models, one will find heated debates nascent thoughts on livery colours. based on the colour of an ivy leaf about the exact shade of proper IEG In an article entitled, Could given to Stroudley by his gardener. raging worldwide across the internet. Stroudley tell Yellow from Green To see why Stroudley’s influence It is said that the best match for (Evans, Model Engineer, July 15 1964, and the argument over IEG has IEG can be seen on a model of pp521-3), the author muses (assuming become so widespread, one needs the locomotive Como in Brighton Stroudley to be colour-deficient): ‘But to look at what he achieved in his Museum, which was reportedly it is reasonable to suppose that one time with LBSCR. Being a great painted at the LBSCR’s Brighton of his assistants would have pointed advocate of standardisation, he first works when the colour was still in out the true colour; from what we introduced a new class of locomotives, use. Gladstone, and the A1 Class know of him, Stroudley was not an eventually comprising 36 engines, Boxhill (also on display at York) are unapproachable man by any means.’ which successfully managed LBSCR’s in a version of IEG. On the Bluebell His biographers, though, tend to express traffic for many years. Railway, there are other notable contradict this reading of Stroudley’s A prototype of this B1 class, Terriers still running: Fenchurch, the character, being generally of the No 214 Gladstone (pictured), oldest; and Stepney, who featured opinion that he was somewhat of was completed in 1882 and, by in one of Rev W Awdry’s original the typical Victorian autocrat. More 1927, when it was withdrawn for Railway Series stories, Stepney the probable was that no one dared to preservation, had covered 1,346,918 ‘Bluebell’ Engine, sharing an adventure contradict the boss out of fear for his miles. It is now on display at the with Thomas the Tank Engine and job. National Railway Museum in York. friends. Stroudley’s influence was to become In 1872 he introduced the ‘Terrier’ Stroudley died in 1889, after more widely felt when he moved to class tank engines which were contracting a severe chill that the other end of Britain to become largely used for London suburban progressed to pneumonia while locomotive supervisor of the London, services, some being still in active use conducting a test run of one of Brighton and South Coast Railway into the 1960s. Stroudley’s engine his locomotives at that year’s Paris (LBSCR). He soon introduced his designs dramatically improved the Exhibition. A further testament to IEG livery here too. According to his performance of locomotive stock, his fame is the newspaper reports biographer H J Campbell Cornwall, and he was awarded the George of a crowd numbering several in William Stroudley, Craftsman Stephenson medal of the Institution thousand that attended his burial in of Steam (1968), the Highland of Civil and Mechanical Engineers for the Woodvale cemetery in Brighton. connection led to an alternative name his 1884 paper The Construction of Unless new information comes for the colour, of ‘Scotch Green’. But Locomotive Engines (Min Proc Instn to light from as yet undiscovered there is yet another theory for IEG Civ Engrs, 1884/5, 81, 76, Paper No archive sources, it would appear that which is that because, on Stroudley’s 2027). Stroudley took the secret of IEG with arrival at LBSCR, passenger Stroudley’s fame and the reliability him to his grave. ● locomotives were a dark Brunswick of his engines led to several examples green, and before that had been a being preserved, one Terrier class ● David Baker is an independent dark bottle green, the name IEG was engine even finding its way to optometrist OPHTHALMIC opticianonline.net 14.01.11 | Optician | 27.

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