Mitchells & Butlers Cape Hill Brewery Van Liveries - Real or "Photoshopped"?

[RDowse]

Hi All,

I'm hoping to tap into the forum's vast knowledge of wagon/van liveries. I came across this image of a train being prepared at the Mitchells & Butlers Cape Hill Brewery and noted the two M&B liveried vans behind locomotive Boniface. I'd not seen any with this livery before.



However, I then found this photo which is identical apart from the M&B livery is missing and the vans look just like the others making up the train. So was the image above "photoshopped" for publicity?



But on the same page of the booklet that features the image above of the vans without the M&B livery we have the image below. The liveries are back, but again looked to be "photoshopped". Note that the locomotive is now John Barleycorn, so although these photos appear in the same publication, I'm not sure if this was the same train or not. It looks to be a similarly staged photo but the location has obviously changed and the relative heights of the vans is different compared to the photos above.



So my questions to the forum are:
1) Did M&B ever have their own livery on wagons or vans?
2) Was it common practice to apply fictional brand liveries to wagons in photos? I find that very impressive considering I think these were done in the 1930s and that must have been quite an effort for a bit of marketing.

Thanks in advance.

 

[pdeaves]

2) Was it common practice to apply fictional brand liveries to wagons in photos?

Photos have been 'touched up' since almost the dawn of photographic time. I have seen some really obvious examples, some are quite subtle. So yes, I would say it could well be common to apply a livery not seen on the original photograph.

 

[Gloster]

A look at the entry on the warwickshirerailways.com site says there were four M&B locos in all: Beatrice and Boniface, which were secondhand, and two called John Barleycorn, one of which replaced the other, bought new; this is presumably the second. (On the site you want LMS, then Birmingham New Street to Harborne, then the introduction page (towards the bottom) and also Rotton Park.

If you look closely at the vans you can see that the writing continues unbroken over where the door is, which would not be the case in reality. As far as M&B having vans in their own livery, I would say probably not.

 

[randyrippley]

I've got a vague memory that in the 1970's Wrenn released a "Bass, Mitchell & Butlers" wagon based on one of the Hornby Dublo models they inherited. I think it was a tan coloured open wagon with a tent top. If my memory is right one hopes it was based on a real prototype.
Of course a wagon with that branding would be much later than the photos

 

[Gloster]

I've got a vague memory that in the 1970's Wrenn released a "Bass, Mitchell & Butlers" wagon based on one of the Hornby Dublo models they inherited. I think it was a tan coloured open wagon with a tent top. If my memory is right one hopes it was based on a real prototype.
Of course a wagon with that branding would be much later than the photos

A lot of the model railway vans with colourful liveries were entirely fictitious, purely aimed at catching the eye of the punters. This is not true about open wagons, particularly coal and mineral ones, where there were plenty of prototypes.

 

[racyrich]

The only 2 photos I could find of M&B wagons were the 2 you posted originally.
English Breweries In Old Photographs (by Ian P. Peaty) has the apparently touched up picture by the warehouse on page 114, while the picture with John Barleycorn in the rail avenue appears on page 63 of Brewery Railways (also Peaty).
So I am no help to you at all!

 

[Taunton]

Indeed retouching was common, it was an acquired skill in the darkroom. It was normal for formal portrait photos etc to have skin spots etc faded out, you apparently almost expected it from a professional photo studio. Much easier in black/white than in colour. In the first photo it appears to have been done for the ballast in the foreground as well.

Railway goods wagons stood around unattended on their journeys a lot, of course, and although padlocked a brewery-livery wagon coming outwards from its origin would be a target for theft; even if unlabelled the private user wagon numbers would get known, so unlikely they used anything other than plain railway wagons. Didn't apply to open wagons, of course. However, many industrial premises did also have their own wagons, for internal use, moving items around the plant, or just for storage, and these were commonly liveried up in the company scheme, and generally kept clean and bright, but didn't venture beyond the factory gates. Quite a number of these, inevitably with minimal mileage, have made it to museums or heritage lines, but they never ran out onto the system.

Regarding the locomotive, it does appear to be the same one, with the name retouched. Industrial locos, unless ordered at the same time from the same production batch, were hand-built, and almost always exhibit some amount of difference from one another. But these seem to be identical. Yes, specifically posed, the loco having been eased to have the coupling rods "rods down", as favoured in loco photographs, and the driver standing to attention in the cab.

 

[DelW]

So my questions to the forum are:
1) Did M&B ever have their own livery on wagons or vans?
2) Was it common practice to apply fictional brand liveries to wagons in photos? I find that very impressive considering I think these were done in the 1930s and that must have been quite an effort for a bit of marketing.

Thanks in advance.

Looking at the second van in your last photo, the "M" of Mitchells & Butlers appears to go off the left edge of the van side and onto the van's end panel. This obviously couldn't have happened on the real vehicle, so I don't think there's any doubt that the lettering was added to the negative. The perspective of the lettering in the first photo looks unconvincing to me as well.

 

[Gloster]

I reckon that the second photo is a manipulated version of the first, but the third is taken at a different occasion: just look at the driver’s stance. As M&B had a John Barleycorn, I would have thought it more likely that they would have used a picture of it than manipulating one of another loco.

 

[zwk500]

I reckon that the second photo is a manipulated version of the first, but the third is taken at a different occasion: just look at the driver’s stance. As M&B had a John Barleycorn, I would have thought it more likely that they would have used a picture of it than manipulating one of another loco.

Other way round, I think - the 2nd photo (with the first two vans in railway colours) is the real one. The 'original' has more shadows and you can make out the sleepers in the nearest siding. The 'retouched' one has the ballast smoothed out (almost looks like a cotton bud or something has been used) and the diagonal bracing of the wagon has been covered over when applying the 'fake' livery. Unfortunately it's not clear if it's exactly the same photo being retouched (with wagon doors open).

The third photo I agree, is a different train. the 2nd wagon in particular is not right. The livery is retouched, as @DelW points out. I'm' not sure about the loco - either it's actually genuine or a great deal more care has been taken on retouching the name than was taken with the wagons, which is entirely possible I suppose.

 

[Gloster]

Other way round, I think - the 2nd photo (with the first two vans in railway colours) is the real one. The 'original' has more shadows and you can make out the sleepers in the nearest siding. The 'retouched' one has the ballast smoothed out (almost looks like a cotton bud or something has been used) and the diagonal bracing of the wagon has been covered over when applying the 'fake' livery. Unfortunately it's not clear if it's exactly the same photo being retouched (with wagon doors open).

The third photo I agree, is a different train. the 2nd wagon in particular is not right. The livery is retouched, as @DelW points out. I'm' not sure about the loco - either it's actually genuine or a great deal more care has been taken on retouching the name than was taken with the wagons, which is entirely possible I suppose.

Sorry, you are quite right. I got confused having been up longer than usual today.

As far as the third is concerned, I think the photo has been taken from just a little bit further round, although not much. Of the order of about 5 degrees more from the loco’s centre line.

 

[Bevan Price]

According to the Industrial Railway Society's handbook for the West Midlands, Mitchells & Butler had locos called "Boniface" and "John Barleycorn", both similar, built by Barclay, but not identical. Boniface was older and John Barleycorn built in 1951. The railway, about 1000 yards long was opened in 1907 and connected to the LNWR Harborne branch; the latter and the brewery railway were closed in 1962 and both locos were scapped.

There had been an earlier "John Barleycorn", a rather primitive design, withdrawn many years earlier; it was said to have been set aside for preservation, but was eventually sold for scrap.

 

[Gloster]

Being that the wagons and the dress in the third photo don’t look very 1950s, it make me wonder if they have put the name of the first John Barleycorn on Boniface for some reason. Could this have been to celebrate the arrival of Boniface before they had settled on a name?

The reference to a loco called Beatrice came from one of the photo caption on the warwickshirerailways site, but in the introductory text only one loco is mentioned, with Boniface coming from Glasgow around 1929.