One other quick note: The Plum & Spilt Milk livery made a brief return in 1948 as an experimental livery under British Railways, not only on former LMS routes but weirdly on the Southern Region. It proved highly unpopular though and was quickly changed to the more familiar Southern Green for, well take a wild guess, and Carmine & Cream or Maroon for the rest of the system.
In 1948, the display of possible coaching stock liveries did result in a big vote for the GWR's 'chocolate and cream' (which looked a little strange with the deep chocolate below the cantrail on ex-LMS carriages). I do remember the startlingly bright carmine (and cream) of the standard BR livery which, private railway companies rarely seem to match. When, in the late 1950s, regions were allowed their own liveries, the paintshops at Doncaster assembled their team to start painting the 'varnished teak' (a scumbled effect) onto their metal carriages...a great shame that did not occur.
@@johnjephcote7636 When the Paddle Steamer Waverley was built in 1947 the steel deckhouses were scumbled. This is high maintenance paintwork so come nationalisation in 1948, they became brown soon after and sometime later still became white- certainly by the time the Caledonian Steam Packet Co was reformed to run the nationalised Clyde fleet of ships (from LNER to British Transport commission to CSP Co. is quite a another story). When she was rebuilt for the Millennium, the deckouses were scumbled again. This was beautiful and a joy to behold, but because of its specialist nature, it was almost unmaintainable beyond cleaning, particularlly by the volunteers. It did last a good 10 years before the deckhouses became too shabby to bear and now they are simply, but very pleasingly, brown.
Was it not the case that carmine and cream was rolled out nationwide and the regional liveries followed later following requests from the regions? I forget which region got their local livery first.
There's an extra element to the debate here - while the restaurant is clearly the Plum & Spilt Milk, the LNWR livery is frequently called Plum & *Split* Milk (as in 'divided'). And while there is no definitive source on which is right, the further back you go the more common the references are to Split rather than Spilt. Which makes a sort of sense - 'split milk' is the old term for what we now called skimmed milk...which has the same distinctive white-with-a-hint-of-blue colour as Wolverton Coach White. Right back into the 1890s you can see people muddling it up with 'Spilt Milk' (it's an easy typo and everyone knows the phrase "don't cry over spilt milk" which primes our brains to read and repeat what isn't actually there). It makes sense when you think of it - spilt milk doesn't have a noticeably different colour to milk in any other stance, so why would the nickname refer to spilt milk over another sort? And even in the 19th century it was more correct to say 'spilled milk' rather than 'spilt milk', although again that was not universal in those days and depending on region and dialect. So you can see how the descriptive nickname 'split milk' would become 'spilt milk'. Finally, it's worth pointing out that the name for the LNWR's livery being at the Great Northern Hotel isn't entirely erroneous. When British Railways was experimenting with carriage liveries in 1948 one of the schemes it trialed was a version of the LNWR Plum and Split/Spilt Milk but with a slightly more creamy-coloured white - closer to the 'custard' of the adopted Blood & Custard/Carmine & Cream scheme than the white-with-blue of the LNWR. A set of coaches was prepared in this new scheme and run on a daily Kings Cross-Edinburgh service alternating with another set in a Chocolate & Cream livery that was similar to, but different from, the Great Western's famous livery. So that form of Plum & Split/Spilt Milk did appear at Kings Cross.
Interesting ... how far back do you have to go to find "split milk" in references? My dad was a railway enthusiast from the 1920s onward and always referred to it as "plum and spilt milk", and the books and magazines from that time also seemed to say that.
@@iankemp1131 I have editions of The Railway Magazine from the late 1890s/1900s and there are references to both Split and Spilt milk in there - frustratingly neither occurs consistently or often enough to be able to say which was 'correct' in that period, but (without going through and counting) I'd say that in the 1890s 'Split' was more-used. There would be a linguistics dissertation in there somewhere - go through all the issues and tally up the appearances of Split v. Spilt and then see if it was certain authors using one or the other, or if professional railwaymen used one and enthusiasts the other, or those working for the LNWR or lived in/around its territory used one more than people with less of a direct connection and so on
@@jozg44 Thank you, very interesting to have this contemporary evidence from the time! Great that you have these original sources, now over 120 years old! I have my Dad's old Railway Magazines but they only date back as far as 1936 :) I guess if some of the widely published railway authors of the time started using "spilt milk" (e.g. Ahrons, Rous-Marten, Cecil Allen, Casserley?) it would then have become assumed as the norm.
Another Very interesting episode Monsieur Hercule Hazzard. “The Blood & Custard Restaurant” Sounds like a a good name for a murder mystery evening venue.
Back in 2019, I was the doorman for the Great Western Hotel and Plum and Spilt Milk. Always wondered why it was called that, like you said I just thought they were being "trendy". A guy fractured my orbital bone with a headbutt one evening, so I had to finish my shift with one eye swollen shut. Wish I could have had a bit of locomotive trivia instead.
1:33 The red crosses on the side of the train in the picture were not part of the LNWR livery. It is presumably an ambulance train, such as were used for bringing wounded WW1 soldiers home. The location looks like Shap, in Westmoreland
This short video is why I like your collection. This one must be considered a gem as it provides information which nobody would probably have ascertained any other way.
The immediate reason that white paint appeared a bit off was that the varnish applied to protect the paint caused the white to appear less than snowy. Putting to use some basic investigatory skills (ie, one's favoured search engine) answered the question of the week, why a restaurant in the GN Hotel was named after the LNWR's coach livery. It appears that the hotel/restaurant owners are not familiar with railway history. This from their website; "The maroon and cream colours adorning the dining carriage of the first Great Northern Railway were just so gorgeous, we named our flagship restaurant after them. Plum + Spilt Milk."
They may be talking about Pullman Dining Cars. The first ever UK dining car was provided by the Great Northern on the first of November 1879. It was on the London and Leeds route. The carriage was a Pullman and it may have been called "Prince of Wales" (sources are a little conflicted on this). Whether Pullman livery could be called "Plum + Spilt Milk" is questionable. Looks more like "Espresso + Cream" to me.
I never used to pay attention to carriage liveries, but this video has fascinated me. I like the look of the pre-grouping coaches, so elegant and with the perfect types of colours.
Six wheeler carriages in the Plum and Spilt Milk livery remained on the Dundalk, Newry and Greenore Railway until it closed in 1951, along with other distinctively LNWR features. One of the carriages is preserved in the Irish Railway Collection at Cultra.
There has to be a "Crimson Lake" restaurant in the middle that serves smaller portions than everyone else but insists "well you can just eat two meals instead of one big one"
I pointed this out when my partner and I visited King's Cross some years back. Something to do with a fandom of theirs. Invisible railway platforms or some such. I did point out to them then that it was clearly a restaurant in the wrong place but that being in the wrong place at the wrong time was entirely fitting for something themed around British railway culture.
The 'Blood and Custard' brings back memories of the model Layout my father and I built in a spare bedroom, later the loft in a smaller house (ice on the rails in winter), I was the Landscaper building hills, embankments, cuttings and tunnels out of chicken wire and papier-mache with hidden access panels in case of a derailment (sheep as handles). There were 12 B&C coaches, the rest Southern Green as they were the Southern Electric Multiple units, oh and a Brighton Belle Pulman set, with working table lamps when running (made from tiny car LED oil warning lights).
British Railways did briefly bring Plum and Split Milk back in the very early days on Nationalisation. 9 coach sets were painted in this livery and another 9 were painted in Chocolate and Cream. It mainly to see what colour scheme the public prefered. In the end, neither was chosen and BR went for Blood and Custard.
The Western Region did manage a few rakes of Chocolate and Cream for named expresses IIRC. With green locos at the head, the trains almost looked as if BR was a bad dream.
It did look cheery in the dull 1950s but BR's adoption of LNWR lining on black for their locomotives, lasted right through to 1968 and always looked good, especially just after 'shopping'.
Thank you for a nice memory jogger, my father used to talk fondly about coaches with Plum and Spilt Milk livery. Perhaps Apple Green would be a more appropriate name for the restaurant at the Great Northern Hotel, but, then again, that sounds a bit breakfast-ish . . .
British Rail found it even harder to keep its ‘Monastral’ blue clean *after* steam, indeed as I recall it just got gradually more filthy and dilapidated as time passed…an appropriate allegory for British Rail itself. The sight of an employee with a oily rag trying to uncover the class number on a locomotive to make it visible was common enough at any mainline terminus. The Rag & Dishwater might work as a restaurant name 🤔but then again…
Not only BR. Post-privatisation I recall seeing a Central Trains class 150 unit which was so unkempt that someone had drawn 1960s-DMU whiskers in the dirt on the yellow warning panels at one end, and it ran around like that for weeks!
"Blood and Custard" - in his latest adventure, Hazzard of Scotland Yard journeys into the outer reaches of the Northern Line to investigate a dozen clowns found drowned in an emulsified mix of egg and milk with "I waz the one wot done it" written in blood on the walls. Could it be possibly be murder? Had his arch enemy Dr Marshall struck once more?
If we're going with restaurants named after coach liveries, then Chocolate & Cream could work for a dessert parlour! Incidentally, LNWR plum & split milk was briefly used by BR in 1948/49 when they were experimenting with new liveries. At least one rake of LNER coaches received the livery and was regularly used on the non-stop "Capitals Limited" between Kings Cross and Edinburgh, so maybe the restaurant name isn't as inappropriate as it seems.
It's nice to know that references to the L&NWR are still cropping up a hundred years after it was destroyed in the Government-Sponsored Great Railway Disaster of 1922. Thanks for this video, Jago.
The grouping was much-needed though. There were far too many companies cannibalising each other's traffic and few if any of them were truly profitable. Add in the effects of the war in terms of lack of maintenance...
Another interesting episode from Mr.H. but, on this occasion, I found the comments section particularly interesting. I'd be curious to know; how many viewers had never heard the word "scumbled" before - I certainly hadn't. It's a great word and I intend to use it as soon as I get the chance.😂 𝑺𝒑𝒍𝒊𝒕 milk is a new one on me too. I'm familiar with the "spilt" version but have wondered why spilt milk is different in colour to any other milk. Split makes way more sense and sounds very period correct too. An expression can evolve over time so, while I would suggest that "spilt milk" is normally used nowadays, I'd guess that, originally at least, the split milk variant would have been the 𝑐𝑜𝑟𝑟𝑒𝑐𝑡 one. While we viewers are lucky to have this channel, the reverse is also true in this case.👍😁
'Blood and Custard' was originally the carriage livery of the LNWR's allies, the Caledonian, but the West Coast Joint Stock was 'Plum and Split Milk' so that livery was carried north from Carlisle by Caledonian engines.
According to my late father whose father worked for the Lancashire and Yorkshire and then LMS after grouping the London and North Western were referred to as the 'Lazy and Never Washed' with your reference to the 'spilt milk' part of the livery showing the soot from the locomotive (and the general industrial air in the cities) it isn't difficult to see why it got the moniker.
Another US notation;the PRR,used Tuscan Red,on its passenger rolling stock,and the NYC,used Gray and Green,on its lightweight cars,and the green was used on the EMU,stock! The Long Island used PRR tuscan,and later used gray and orange,so there were a variety of colors to be seen,in and around Metropolitan New York!! Add the New Haven,and the sundry New Jersey rail lines,you'd have a album full of photos that couldn't be seen today!! Thank you,Jago,for your foray,into coach and gastronomy areas,never seen by the public!! Thanks again 👍 ☺️ 😊 😘 🤗 🙂!
Another food related livery nickname came in the 80s/90s when some Southern region and some Manchester area EMUs were painted in a brown and orange colour that was at once dubbed "Jaffa Cake"
@@LancashireLass I liked the Pacers, but I don't think they came out in brown and orange Maybe you are thinking of the grey and light red stripe from their North Western days
@@Trek001 The brown and orange indeed were GMPTE colours used on their buses too, but I think most of the Greater Manchester Pacers had the Blue / Grey / Red Stripe with a GMPTE logo on them, I think they went out of area to places like Warrington ?
The Greater Manchester brown and orange is not to be confused with the Jaffa cake livery of some Southern emus. The Jaffa cake livery had three colours; brown for the chocolate topping, orange for the jelly filling and biscuit colour for the biscuit base.
@@highpath4776 I could probably look this up if I was a proper geek rather than a wannabe... I think the Jaffa Cake look was what they had when they first came out in the 80s, then the grey with a red stripe was a 90's upgrade - it may have said "Regional Railways" as well as the GMPTE logo. Anyway, I'm going to shut up now.
'Whites fading to yellow' is something we still have today (in the world of guitars), as those laquered in a nitrocellulose varnish will be affected by ultra-violet light and discolour. For some reason, they consider this good for sales. (Make an image search for 'vintage white Gibson guitar') I don't know whether the train companies used nitro, but when this happens to guitars, it's actually just the lacquer that discolours. When it chips away over time, the original paint underneath is revealed to still be unaffected.
BR certainly used nitro cellulose varnish on their early MK1 coaches, resulting in a disastrous fire when embers from the loco lodged in a lavatory downpipe and smouldered away until it reached through to the air and the lacquered interior.
Even good ol' Dulux and the likes used to have an issue with their 'diamond white' gloss paint fading to yellow; something about not having lead in the mix...
Plum and Spilt Milk is a rather elegant LNWR livery, the Great Northern, from Kings Cross were famous for their varnished teak coaches, which had no paint at all. The LNWR was however, a rather slow railway. Maximum speed of passenger trains was never more than 45 mph for a very long time. Richard Moon, their chairman from 1861 discouraged fast running. It took the "Races to the north" to stimulate the LNWR to run faster.
I love to be informed about "those odd little things" (at least on this channel, the way Jago presents it is so enjoyable), therefore a few extra, 👍👍👍❗
Other liveries outside of railways have had there popular names. Triumph motorcycles were once painted a colour officially known as Amaranth Red, but it was familiarly referred to as Hammer and Thread.
This video has left me thinking "Blood 'n' Custard"; My latest family friendly phrase when annoyed or that's the name for my new restaurant next to a railway station!?
The Spanish Flu wiped out the LNWR top brass to such an extent that they had the merge with the LYR in 1922 and gave the Midland a free run at taking control of the LMS, otherwise the LNWR would have been the dominant partner at Grouping, one of the great "what ifs" of UK railway history. (LNWR was a major shareholder in the Caledonian Railway, for example)
Ah! I did wonder how the Midland managed to pull a fast one and influence the LMS so much. Grief. Could have seen off the stupid "Small Engine Policy" for a start, and built more Super Ds rather than the Austin 7s that never performed reliably. Maybe Hughes or Fowler would have gotten their Compound Pacific instead of the Royal Scots?
I allways enjoy your videos, the narrations you provide are very, well good and worthy of national TV. Please keep these coming and next time you go on a trip north of the capital please do a video of the birthplace of the modern railway (not in alphabetical order) 'The Stockton and Darlington Railway'. All the best Jago
I visited that restaurant once, I only had a beer, probably a small lager of some sort. Unmemorable but fine, I would probably recommended it for this purpose, although it may have changed.
Nothing to cry about here. Another excellent and interesting video! Question for Jago: Ever think about making a video on the old Euston? The often-seen picture of the "Greek temple" makes me want to know about the old station - its floorplan, more interesting architectural elements, and nerdy/geeky operational details/quirks. Just a thought...
Interesting and a strange coincidence. I was in London last week for a meeting with Eurostar (we’re preparing the next season of Eurostar trains to our stations in the French alps). I noticed this restaurant too as I wandered around admiring Cubit’s Kings Cross and explaining to my French friends why it’s so simple and austere compared with the Midland’s gothic cathedral on the other side of the road. i.e. that the Midland’s near monopoly on the transport of beer into London meant they had shed loads of cash to throw around to impress their shareholders, but the Great Northern was rather less well off. Obviously carrying beer around was a lot more profitable than hauling coal from the collieries and fish from the North East. No one else was aware that plum and spilt milk was an LNWR coach livery 😉
Another Frenchman viewing St Pancras apparently commented "C'est magnifique, mais ce n'est pas la gare." He seems to have been well informed on stories around the Charge of the Light Brigade.
The train services in greater Glasgow (the Strathclyde Passenger Transport area) ran in "carmine and cream" for many years, probably in much the same vein.
Great video - Side note, I'm pretty sure I used to own that LNWR O gauge tank engine at around 2:10! I inherited a huge collection from an elderly friend when I was a kid, they eventually got auctioned off to pay for uni fees but there aren't many around (even the models are now 100 years old!) and that definitely looks to be the same exact condition with the same minor flaws.
I went in to that 'restaurant' about 8 years ago - I got pennies change from ordering a beer and a glass of Pimms. I haven't been back. Also, they had brown leather couches in the Gents...weird.
Oh dear. Had I ventured into the gentlemans' powder (no!) room, and seen couches, I would have beaten a hasty retreat, fearing to have been offered a cheap cigar and asked whether I had already a 'madame'. I think that Daisy called them 'compartments' in 'The Young Visiters (sic)'.
Once again I've learnt something I didn't know - always thought plum and spilt milk referred to the colour scheme progressively introduced by post 1948 British Rail to wipe out the last individual identities of the old pre nationalisation companies. For whatever reason, it failed to inspire much public affection. Cheers.
I look forward to new videos from young Jago. The upbeat presentation of facts that although I suppose are irrelevant to many, do highlight the efforts that were put in to make Britain 'the best' although neatly glossing over the lack of health, safety and probably wages of those actually building stuff 'back in the day'. Were Jago to team up with perhaps Tim Traveller who does a lot of globetrotting particularly in France, I am sure there would be years of videos that could present the details of the Paris and other metro (and rail) systems.
The canoe club I am a member of has a Kayak with a similar colour scheme a slightly yellow white and Maroon trimming, and is known as Plumbs and Custard…
Went in there once before an away game as it was the only place open as it was Easter Monday. Got stung £30 for 5 drinks and they were only halves, no wonder it there wasn’t an easily visible price list. Worst of all I had offered to buy the round 😱
Although LNWR also made use of a "Chocolate and Spilt Milk" livery on the jointly owned (with the UERL) "Watford Joint Stock", which were also the only "Tube" loading gauge trains to have luggage racks. And slam doors. Which made things slower for everyone when they ran down the Bakerloo Line (the other trains that ran there, initially only as far north as Queen's Park, where "Strawberries and Cream" in terms of paint schemes!) Also, the "Chocolate and Spilt Milk" trains also ran to Croxley Green and to Rickmansworth Church Street, which both got 4-rail electrification, but both no longer exist (no trains from these branches ever ran onto the Bakerloo, and only Croxley Green ones continued to Euston), and were also used for trains that went to Euston instead of the Bakerloo line.
Amusing and interesting video. Accurate too; even some railway books describe ‘Blood & Custard’ as ‘Plum & Spilt Milk.’ The two liveries are quite distinct.
.The "cream" in the GWR's original chocolate and cream was just white with yellowed varnish; the GWR never adopted the LNWR's blued white. That livery was replaced with crimson lake around 1908, and then chocolate and cream was later brought back for branding purposes. But when they brought it back, they used actual cream-coloured paint that was much yellower than the original.
That bit of history was very intriguing. A lot of thought was put into colour schemes and letter styles of signage by our forebears of old. Some today think the presentation back then was somewhat dreary. But that's not the case. When projected into today's modernistic setting it still ranks well. When freshly presented it is still a work of art. Even now!
Apple & Teak, or teak & Apple, might be a better name for a GNR restaurant. (There is a burger & cider place in Yeovil called Cow & Apple, so it's not too far-fetched...)
Ah, yes - the coach liveries of the Pre-Grouping Era. Had the LSWR named their coach livery salmon and gravy', it would have sounded right. Even I would do the same. Still, I am an LNWR fan and member of the L&NWR Society (at least at the time of writing this comment) and I would go for this coach livery in model form myself. I even repainted to Hornby Four Wheel Coaches into this livery once. If you like, I can show you some photographs.
Much depended upon the effect of lined-out pannelling. In the simplified liveries of the later inter-war period, 'LNWR' might have appeared something of a come-down.
At the northern end of platform 3 at Lancaster (nee Lancaster Castle) a former LNWR station, there is now a pub named the Tite and Lock. I believe that they were LNWR engineers, though I stand open to correction.
One other quick note: The Plum & Spilt Milk livery made a brief return in 1948 as an experimental livery under British Railways, not only on former LMS routes but weirdly on the Southern Region. It proved highly unpopular though and was quickly changed to the more familiar Southern Green for, well take a wild guess, and Carmine & Cream or Maroon for the rest of the system.
In 1948, the display of possible coaching stock liveries did result in a big vote for the GWR's 'chocolate and cream' (which looked a little strange with the deep chocolate below the cantrail on ex-LMS carriages). I do remember the startlingly bright carmine (and cream) of the standard BR livery which, private railway companies rarely seem to match. When, in the late 1950s, regions were allowed their own liveries, the paintshops at Doncaster assembled their team to start painting the 'varnished teak' (a scumbled effect) onto their metal carriages...a great shame that did not occur.
@@johnjephcote7636 When the Paddle Steamer Waverley was built in 1947 the steel deckhouses were scumbled. This is high maintenance paintwork so come nationalisation in 1948, they became brown soon after and sometime later still became white- certainly by the time the Caledonian Steam Packet Co was reformed to run the nationalised Clyde fleet of ships (from LNER to British Transport commission to CSP Co. is quite a another story). When she was rebuilt for the Millennium, the deckouses were scumbled again. This was beautiful and a joy to behold, but because of its specialist nature, it was almost unmaintainable beyond cleaning, particularlly by the volunteers.
It did last a good 10 years before the deckhouses became too shabby to bear and now they are simply, but very pleasingly, brown.
Was it not the case that carmine and cream was rolled out nationwide and the regional liveries followed later following requests from the regions? I forget which region got their local livery first.
"Varnished Teak" for a restaurant actually sounds quite good. Much better than "Blood and Custard"....yikes.
I dunno. Wouldn't want to order steak there.
Agreed. I want to eat at at The Varnished Teak.
With such copious use of teak it's probably 'vanished' teak by now...
Blood and custard sounds like something Heston Blumenthal would make
There's an extra element to the debate here - while the restaurant is clearly the Plum & Spilt Milk, the LNWR livery is frequently called Plum & *Split* Milk (as in 'divided'). And while there is no definitive source on which is right, the further back you go the more common the references are to Split rather than Spilt. Which makes a sort of sense - 'split milk' is the old term for what we now called skimmed milk...which has the same distinctive white-with-a-hint-of-blue colour as Wolverton Coach White. Right back into the 1890s you can see people muddling it up with 'Spilt Milk' (it's an easy typo and everyone knows the phrase "don't cry over spilt milk" which primes our brains to read and repeat what isn't actually there). It makes sense when you think of it - spilt milk doesn't have a noticeably different colour to milk in any other stance, so why would the nickname refer to spilt milk over another sort? And even in the 19th century it was more correct to say 'spilled milk' rather than 'spilt milk', although again that was not universal in those days and depending on region and dialect. So you can see how the descriptive nickname 'split milk' would become 'spilt milk'.
Finally, it's worth pointing out that the name for the LNWR's livery being at the Great Northern Hotel isn't entirely erroneous. When British Railways was experimenting with carriage liveries in 1948 one of the schemes it trialed was a version of the LNWR Plum and Split/Spilt Milk but with a slightly more creamy-coloured white - closer to the 'custard' of the adopted Blood & Custard/Carmine & Cream scheme than the white-with-blue of the LNWR. A set of coaches was prepared in this new scheme and run on a daily Kings Cross-Edinburgh service alternating with another set in a Chocolate & Cream livery that was similar to, but different from, the Great Western's famous livery. So that form of Plum & Split/Spilt Milk did appear at Kings Cross.
Interesting ... how far back do you have to go to find "split milk" in references? My dad was a railway enthusiast from the 1920s onward and always referred to it as "plum and spilt milk", and the books and magazines from that time also seemed to say that.
@@iankemp1131 I have editions of The Railway Magazine from the late 1890s/1900s and there are references to both Split and Spilt milk in there - frustratingly neither occurs consistently or often enough to be able to say which was 'correct' in that period, but (without going through and counting) I'd say that in the 1890s 'Split' was more-used. There would be a linguistics dissertation in there somewhere - go through all the issues and tally up the appearances of Split v. Spilt and then see if it was certain authors using one or the other, or if professional railwaymen used one and enthusiasts the other, or those working for the LNWR or lived in/around its territory used one more than people with less of a direct connection and so on
@@jozg44 Thank you, very interesting to have this contemporary evidence from the time! Great that you have these original sources, now over 120 years old! I have my Dad's old Railway Magazines but they only date back as far as 1936 :) I guess if some of the widely published railway authors of the time started using "spilt milk" (e.g. Ahrons, Rous-Marten, Cecil Allen, Casserley?) it would then have become assumed as the norm.
Another Very interesting episode Monsieur Hercule Hazzard.
“The Blood & Custard Restaurant”
Sounds like a a good name for a murder mystery evening venue.
Either Herkule or Mr Holmes reference. That's what I thought about.
Sounds like a fatal accident where most of the deceased where found in the dining car.
😁
I would go to that restaurant, it sounds very British "Blood and Custard"
Colonel Mustard with the lead pipe in the kitchen... 😉
I am afraid but the murder mystery involving clowns has already been done by Terry Pratchett in "Men At Arms".
I visited here right for this comment.
😄
Back in 2019, I was the doorman for the Great Western Hotel and Plum and Spilt Milk. Always wondered why it was called that, like you said I just thought they were being "trendy". A guy fractured my orbital bone with a headbutt one evening, so I had to finish my shift with one eye swollen shut. Wish I could have had a bit of locomotive trivia instead.
1:33 The red crosses on the side of the train in the picture were not part of the LNWR livery. It is presumably an ambulance train, such as were used for bringing wounded WW1 soldiers home. The location looks like Shap, in Westmoreland
This short video is why I like your collection. This one must be considered a gem as it provides information which nobody would probably have ascertained any other way.
I was half expecting the closing line to read "you are the spilt milk to my plum". Not sure if that had helped with funding the channel though...^^
The immediate reason that white paint appeared a bit off was that the varnish applied to protect the paint caused the white to appear less than snowy.
Putting to use some basic investigatory skills (ie, one's favoured search engine) answered the question of the week, why a restaurant in the GN Hotel was named after the LNWR's coach livery.
It appears that the hotel/restaurant owners are not familiar with railway history. This from their website; "The maroon and cream colours adorning the dining carriage of the first Great Northern Railway were just so gorgeous, we named our flagship restaurant after them. Plum + Spilt Milk."
Good digging! You put in your thumb, and pulled out a ....never mind. Seriously though, good research.
@@stephensaines7100 It wasn't exactly a plum job though.
@@RogersRamblings No point crying over it, though.
Was that the actual indeed have the Dining Carriage colours for the Great Northern ?
They may be talking about Pullman Dining Cars.
The first ever UK dining car was provided by the Great Northern on the first of November 1879. It was on the London and Leeds route. The carriage was a Pullman and it may have been called "Prince of Wales" (sources are a little conflicted on this).
Whether Pullman livery could be called "Plum + Spilt Milk" is questionable. Looks more like "Espresso + Cream" to me.
I never used to pay attention to carriage liveries, but this video has fascinated me. I like the look of the pre-grouping coaches, so elegant and with the perfect types of colours.
Six wheeler carriages in the Plum and Spilt Milk livery remained on the Dundalk, Newry and Greenore Railway until it closed in 1951, along with other distinctively LNWR features. One of the carriages is preserved in the Irish Railway Collection at Cultra.
Was that line part of the GNRI, which was an LNWR/LMS subsidiary?
@@blameless_hyperborean8638 The DN&GR was worked by the GNR(I) after 1933, but remained a separate entity (owned by the LMS, I think).
I mean, now I want to set up a restaurant called "varnished teak" opposite plum and spilt milk, and engage in friendly rivalry
There has to be a "Crimson Lake" restaurant in the middle that serves smaller portions than everyone else but insists "well you can just eat two meals instead of one big one"
No, if you are staying true to form it would have to be a silly and deeply hostile rivalry.
I pointed this out when my partner and I visited King's Cross some years back. Something to do with a fandom of theirs. Invisible railway platforms or some such. I did point out to them then that it was clearly a restaurant in the wrong place but that being in the wrong place at the wrong time was entirely fitting for something themed around British railway culture.
The 'Blood and Custard' brings back memories of the model Layout my father and I built in a spare bedroom, later the loft in a smaller house (ice on the rails in winter), I was the Landscaper building hills, embankments, cuttings and tunnels out of chicken wire and papier-mache with hidden access panels in case of a derailment (sheep as handles). There were 12 B&C coaches, the rest Southern Green as they were the Southern Electric Multiple units, oh and a Brighton Belle Pulman set, with working table lamps when running (made from tiny car LED oil warning lights).
Very clever using the livestock for lifting handles!
“And Varnished Teak would be a terrible name for a restaurant.” 😂 Brilliant! You always crack me up, Jago. 😂
I half expected you to reference my favourite of the food nicknamed liveries, the Jaffa Cake!
British Railways did briefly bring Plum and Split Milk back in the very early days on Nationalisation. 9 coach sets were painted in this livery and another 9 were painted in Chocolate and Cream. It mainly to see what colour scheme the public prefered.
In the end, neither was chosen and BR went for Blood and Custard.
The Western Region did manage a few rakes of Chocolate and Cream for named expresses IIRC. With green locos at the head, the trains almost looked as if BR was a bad dream.
It did look cheery in the dull 1950s but BR's adoption of LNWR lining on black for their locomotives, lasted right through to 1968 and always looked good, especially just after 'shopping'.
Thank you for a nice memory jogger, my father used to talk fondly about coaches with Plum and Spilt Milk livery. Perhaps Apple Green would be a more appropriate name for the restaurant at the Great Northern Hotel, but, then again, that sounds a bit breakfast-ish . . .
Garter Blue?
British Rail found it even harder to keep its ‘Monastral’ blue clean *after* steam, indeed as I recall it just got gradually more filthy and dilapidated as time passed…an appropriate allegory for British Rail itself. The sight of an employee with a oily rag trying to uncover the class number on a locomotive to make it visible was common enough at any mainline terminus.
The Rag & Dishwater might work as a restaurant name 🤔but then again…
Not only BR. Post-privatisation I recall seeing a Central Trains class 150 unit which was so unkempt that someone had drawn 1960s-DMU whiskers in the dirt on the yellow warning panels at one end, and it ran around like that for weeks!
Scrawled in the mud on the front of a Pennsy GG-1: "Test dirt, do not remove."
"Blood and Custard" - in his latest adventure, Hazzard of Scotland Yard journeys into the outer reaches of the Northern Line to investigate a dozen clowns found drowned in an emulsified mix of egg and milk with "I waz the one wot done it" written in blood on the walls. Could it be possibly be murder? Had his arch enemy Dr Marshall struck once more?
The BR blood and custard looks very similar to the Keikyu livery in Tokyo, which is my favourite livery. I guess I have a name for it now!
I have seen what you mean :-)....... and the Keisei Line ( Aoto)
If we're going with restaurants named after coach liveries, then Chocolate & Cream could work for a dessert parlour! Incidentally, LNWR plum & split milk was briefly used by BR in 1948/49 when they were experimenting with new liveries. At least one rake of LNER coaches received the livery and was regularly used on the non-stop "Capitals Limited" between Kings Cross and Edinburgh, so maybe the restaurant name isn't as inappropriate as it seems.
It's nice to know that references to the L&NWR are still cropping up a hundred years after it was destroyed in the Government-Sponsored Great Railway Disaster of 1922. Thanks for this video, Jago.
The grouping was much-needed though. There were far too many companies cannibalising each other's traffic and few if any of them were truly profitable. Add in the effects of the war in terms of lack of maintenance...
Another interesting episode from Mr.H. but, on this occasion, I found the comments section particularly interesting. I'd be curious to know; how many viewers had never heard the word "scumbled" before - I certainly hadn't. It's a great word and I intend to use it as soon as I get the chance.😂
𝑺𝒑𝒍𝒊𝒕 milk is a new one on me too. I'm familiar with the "spilt" version but have wondered why spilt milk is different in colour to any other milk. Split makes way more sense and sounds very period correct too. An expression can evolve over time so, while I would suggest that "spilt milk" is normally used nowadays, I'd guess that, originally at least, the split milk variant would have been the 𝑐𝑜𝑟𝑟𝑒𝑐𝑡 one.
While we viewers are lucky to have this channel, the reverse is also true in this case.👍😁
'Blood and Custard' was originally the carriage livery of the LNWR's allies, the Caledonian, but the West Coast Joint Stock was 'Plum and Split Milk' so that livery was carried north from Carlisle by Caledonian engines.
Fascinating. I believe the InterCity livery was called Raspberry Ripple.
According to my late father whose father worked for the Lancashire and Yorkshire and then LMS after grouping the London and North Western were referred to as the 'Lazy and Never Washed' with your reference to the 'spilt milk' part of the livery showing the soot from the locomotive (and the general industrial air in the cities) it isn't difficult to see why it got the moniker.
It's these "odd, little things" that make (and keep) this business interesting. Carry on.
Me too! It's like whatever next? And then Jagogoes and 'knocks it out of the park' with another gem!
Another US notation;the PRR,used Tuscan Red,on its passenger rolling stock,and the NYC,used Gray and Green,on its lightweight cars,and the green was used on the EMU,stock! The Long Island used PRR tuscan,and later used gray and orange,so there were a variety of colors to be seen,in and around Metropolitan New York!! Add the New Haven,and the sundry New Jersey rail lines,you'd have a album full of photos that couldn't be seen today!! Thank you,Jago,for your foray,into coach and gastronomy areas,never seen by the public!! Thanks again 👍 ☺️ 😊 😘 🤗 🙂!
Another food related livery nickname came in the 80s/90s when some Southern region and some Manchester area EMUs were painted in a brown and orange colour that was at once dubbed "Jaffa Cake"
The dreaded Pacers were brown and orange when they first came out in Greater Manchester. Hideous.
@@LancashireLass I liked the Pacers, but I don't think they came out in brown and orange
Maybe you are thinking of the grey and light red stripe from their North Western days
@@Trek001 The brown and orange indeed were GMPTE colours used on their buses too, but I think most of the Greater Manchester Pacers had the Blue / Grey / Red Stripe with a GMPTE logo on them, I think they went out of area to places like Warrington ?
The Greater Manchester brown and orange is not to be confused with the Jaffa cake livery of some Southern emus.
The Jaffa cake livery had three colours; brown for the chocolate topping, orange for the jelly filling and biscuit colour for the biscuit base.
@@highpath4776 I could probably look this up if I was a proper geek rather than a wannabe... I think the Jaffa Cake look was what they had when they first came out in the 80s, then the grey with a red stripe was a 90's upgrade - it may have said "Regional Railways" as well as the GMPTE logo. Anyway, I'm going to shut up now.
Spilling milk on your plums, eh? Perils of eating cornflakes in the buff I spose.
Emptying your plums into the milk. The perils of upsetting the waiter I 'spose.
@@AnthonyHandcock But that's plum and spoilt milk,surely.
@@rjjcms1 I am indebted to m'learned friend 😎
'Whites fading to yellow' is something we still have today (in the world of guitars), as those laquered in a nitrocellulose varnish will be affected by ultra-violet light and discolour.
For some reason, they consider this good for sales.
(Make an image search for 'vintage white Gibson guitar')
I don't know whether the train companies used nitro, but when this happens to guitars, it's actually just the lacquer that discolours.
When it chips away over time, the original paint underneath is revealed to still be unaffected.
BR certainly used nitro cellulose varnish on their early MK1 coaches, resulting in a disastrous fire when embers from the loco lodged in a lavatory downpipe and smouldered away until it reached through to the air and the lacquered interior.
Even good ol' Dulux and the likes used to have an issue with their 'diamond white' gloss paint fading to yellow; something about not having lead in the mix...
With all these resturant/food references should this be a Tale from the CHEW-be ;)
Plum and Spilt Milk is a rather elegant LNWR livery, the Great Northern, from Kings Cross were famous for their varnished teak coaches, which had no paint at all. The LNWR was however, a rather slow railway. Maximum speed of passenger trains was never more than 45 mph for a very long time. Richard Moon, their chairman from 1861 discouraged fast running. It took the "Races to the north" to stimulate the LNWR to run faster.
I love to be informed about "those odd little things" (at least on this channel, the way Jago presents it is so enjoyable), therefore a few extra, 👍👍👍❗
I may mention Prunes and Yoghurt, in passing
That blood and custard line! Haha. 😂
I really enjoy the videos you just make on a whim, keep at em
I'm calling my band Varnished Teak
Other liveries outside of railways have had there popular names. Triumph motorcycles were once painted a colour officially known as Amaranth Red, but it was familiarly referred to as Hammer and Thread.
5 minute video, an hour to read the comments.
The transformation of Kingscross from how it was at the end of the 90’s is astonishing. It really was not an area you’d hang around in.
Always interesting and informative.
Keep up the good work fella and, as always, stay safe!
Amazing how these paint colors acquired their names.thanks for the chuckle.
This video has left me thinking "Blood 'n' Custard"; My latest family friendly phrase when annoyed or that's the name for my new restaurant next to a railway station!?
The Spanish Flu wiped out the LNWR top brass to such an extent that they had the merge with the LYR in 1922 and gave the Midland a free run at taking control of the LMS, otherwise the LNWR would have been the dominant partner at Grouping, one of the great "what ifs" of UK railway history. (LNWR was a major shareholder in the Caledonian Railway, for example)
Was it Blue so not to annoy any of the Regions (ex Grouping ones) by specifically chosing a shade no one previously used ?
Ah! I did wonder how the Midland managed to pull a fast one and influence the LMS so much. Grief. Could have seen off the stupid "Small Engine Policy" for a start, and built more Super Ds rather than the Austin 7s that never performed reliably. Maybe Hughes or Fowler would have gotten their Compound Pacific instead of the Royal Scots?
No, it was chosen by a Scot so as to annoy all the English Regions!
Classier than the rather common livery trains are decorated with these days.
Does blood and custard work in a Victorian steampunk story with airships, I wonder?
I could imagine a railway themed pub somewhere in the East End called the Blood & Custard.
"Deep Purple" - Why no reference to Smoke on the water ? smoke on the line ?
Edit:- Blood and Custard, reminds me of every family Christmases.
I am sure there is a trendy bar
in Clerkenwell or Shoreditch
which is called "Polished Teak"
LOL
I allways enjoy your videos, the narrations you provide are very, well good and worthy of national TV. Please keep these coming and next time you go on a trip north of the capital please do a video of the birthplace of the modern railway (not in alphabetical order) 'The Stockton and Darlington Railway'. All the best Jago
I visited that restaurant once, I only had a beer, probably a small lager of some sort. Unmemorable but fine, I would probably recommended it for this purpose, although it may have changed.
Strangely, as much as I like the LNWR's Plum and Spilt Milk, I just painted my new Model Railway shed in "Blood and Custard"; and I'm an American!
Another vote for Blood and Custard here..sounds like a 70s detective series! keep em coming, Jago!
Nothing to cry about here. Another excellent and interesting video!
Question for Jago: Ever think about making a video on the old Euston? The often-seen picture of the "Greek temple" makes me want to know about the old station - its floorplan, more interesting architectural elements, and nerdy/geeky operational details/quirks. Just a thought...
He already made one a good while ago. An extended ramble through the Jago back catalogue is perhaps in order.
Early Egyptian diesel locomotives were a red shade of color - and with their warning horns were known as Toot and Carmine
@High Path 😂😂😂
Yep, you killed it with that one 🤣🤣🤣
Interesting and a strange coincidence. I was in London last week for a meeting with Eurostar (we’re preparing the next season of Eurostar trains to our stations in the French alps). I noticed this restaurant too as I wandered around admiring Cubit’s Kings Cross and explaining to my French friends why it’s so simple and austere compared with the Midland’s gothic cathedral on the other side of the road. i.e. that the Midland’s near monopoly on the transport of beer into London meant they had shed loads of cash to throw around to impress their shareholders, but the Great Northern was rather less well off. Obviously carrying beer around was a lot more profitable than hauling coal from the collieries and fish from the North East.
No one else was aware that plum and spilt milk was an LNWR coach livery 😉
Another Frenchman viewing St Pancras apparently commented "C'est magnifique, mais ce n'est pas la gare." He seems to have been well informed on stories around the Charge of the Light Brigade.
The train services in greater Glasgow (the Strathclyde Passenger Transport area) ran in "carmine and cream" for many years, probably in much the same vein.
We must not cry about the reference not being to that exact station too much , seeing as it is spilt milk.
Going to have to open a restaurant called Varnished Teak now.
Don’t cry over the plum and spilt milk. Milking this for all its worth, having decided to plum the depths of one’s humour 😆
Great video - Side note, I'm pretty sure I used to own that LNWR O gauge tank engine at around 2:10! I inherited a huge collection from an elderly friend when I was a kid, they eventually got auctioned off to pay for uni fees but there aren't many around (even the models are now 100 years old!) and that definitely looks to be the same exact condition with the same minor flaws.
I'm so glad you do think of these "odd things". It's exactly the thorough answer I would expect. Has anyone tried chocolate with salmon?
Maybe Heston Blumenthal.
Thanks for covering some LNWR stuff lately. They tend to get overlooked these days.
I went in to that 'restaurant' about 8 years ago - I got pennies change from ordering a beer and a glass of Pimms. I haven't been back.
Also, they had brown leather couches in the Gents...weird.
Oh dear. Had I ventured into the gentlemans' powder (no!) room, and seen couches, I would have beaten a hasty retreat, fearing to have been offered a cheap cigar and asked whether I had already a 'madame'. I think that Daisy called them 'compartments' in 'The Young Visiters (sic)'.
Brown leather couches in the Gents? Just what you need when taking sit 😂
What about a restaurant called “improved engine green” but is painted in yellow?
Once again I've learnt something I didn't know - always thought plum and spilt milk referred to the colour scheme progressively introduced by post 1948 British Rail to wipe out the last individual identities of the old pre nationalisation companies. For whatever reason, it failed to inspire much public affection. Cheers.
I walked past that very restaurant yesterday and wondered why it had such an apparently daft name - now I know!
There’s no crying over spilt milk with this plum tale from Jago.
But Jago! BR experimented with this very livery in the 1940s and it is very much possible that coaches of that coulour _did_ run into King's Cross!
I look forward to new videos from young Jago. The upbeat presentation of facts that although I suppose are irrelevant to many, do highlight the efforts that were put in to make Britain 'the best' although neatly glossing over the lack of health, safety and probably wages of those actually building stuff 'back in the day'. Were Jago to team up with perhaps Tim Traveller who does a lot of globetrotting particularly in France, I am sure there would be years of videos that could present the details of the Paris and other metro (and rail) systems.
Wow, something totally new to me. The best part, not even a hint of CTY.
The canoe club I am a member of has a Kayak with a similar colour scheme a slightly yellow white and Maroon trimming, and is known as Plumbs and Custard…
Reminds me of Philip Pope's Hee Bee Gee Bees' parody of "Ebony & Ivory": "Curdled Milk and Boot Polish".
New tube station restaurant The Dog's Diarrhea? (After the colour of the tiles on the old station buildings …)
Yep, I can see people lapping that up 😄
Went in there once before an away game as it was the only place open as it was Easter Monday. Got stung £30 for 5 drinks and they were only halves, no wonder it there wasn’t an easily visible price list. Worst of all I had offered to buy the round 😱
Did you win the game?
@@hilaryc8648 No we lost ☹️
Always have a good day away with my friends though 😊
@@oldmoo5536 Away games are the best
imo.
Although LNWR also made use of a "Chocolate and Spilt Milk" livery on the jointly owned (with the UERL) "Watford Joint Stock", which were also the only "Tube" loading gauge trains to have luggage racks. And slam doors. Which made things slower for everyone when they ran down the Bakerloo Line (the other trains that ran there, initially only as far north as Queen's Park, where "Strawberries and Cream" in terms of paint schemes!) Also, the "Chocolate and Spilt Milk" trains also ran to Croxley Green and to Rickmansworth Church Street, which both got 4-rail electrification, but both no longer exist (no trains from these branches ever ran onto the Bakerloo, and only Croxley Green ones continued to Euston), and were also used for trains that went to Euston instead of the Bakerloo line.
Does that explain why the colour for the Bakerloo Line is brown?
@@davidemmott6225 Possibly. It was originally colored RED on the first versions of the Tube Map.
So many fantastic band names in this video!
So many delicious names for my next Strava activities. Thank you as ever Dr. Hazzard.
Amusing and interesting video. Accurate too; even some railway books describe ‘Blood & Custard’ as ‘Plum & Spilt Milk.’ The two liveries are quite distinct.
.The "cream" in the GWR's original chocolate and cream was just white with yellowed varnish; the GWR never adopted the LNWR's blued white. That livery was replaced with crimson lake around 1908, and then chocolate and cream was later brought back for branding purposes. But when they brought it back, they used actual cream-coloured paint that was much yellower than the original.
Isn't "Blood and Custard" a Type O Negative song? No, wait, that's "Blood and Fire".
I was thinking of 'Blood and Iron' from the Kaiser's war.
I'd like to see more videos about things you occasionally think about when you're in Kings Cross.
Another fascinating insight, keep em up
Never 👎 heard of a restaurant called “Plum & Spilt Milk” until your video. 😮😮😮😮😮😮😮😮😮😮😮
Always informative and entertaining, thanks
Hi Jago
Would a video on the Wolverton Works be in order at some point?
Good shout! Don't forget the original GCR terminus from Euston just down the way at Denbeigh Hall...
#Nice. I was wondering about that very sign just 8 days ago, mere hours before Eurostarring back to Europe.
Fabulous, as always. The restaurant is fabulous, too. Recommended.
Very interesting. Thanks for the video!
That bit of history was very intriguing. A lot of thought was put into colour schemes and letter styles of signage by our
forebears of old. Some today think the presentation back then was somewhat dreary. But that's not the case. When
projected into today's modernistic setting it still ranks well. When freshly presented it is still a work of art. Even now!
Apple & Teak, or teak & Apple, might be a better name for a GNR restaurant. (There is a burger & cider place in Yeovil called Cow & Apple, so it's not too far-fetched...)
Jago, we are here to enjoy your whims and your self indulgence!
Ah, yes - the coach liveries of the Pre-Grouping Era. Had the LSWR named their coach livery
salmon and gravy', it would have sounded right. Even I would do the same.
Still, I am an LNWR fan and member of the L&NWR Society (at least at the time of writing this comment) and I would go for this coach livery in model form myself. I even repainted to Hornby Four Wheel Coaches into this livery once. If you like, I can show you some photographs.
Much depended upon the effect of lined-out pannelling. In the simplified liveries of the later inter-war period, 'LNWR' might have appeared something of a come-down.
The LNWR locomotive colour was apparently called "blackberry black".
I love the name Plum and Spilt Milk….. it sounds like a medieval dessert!
More odd little things videos, please
At the northern end of platform 3 at Lancaster (nee Lancaster Castle) a former LNWR station, there is now a pub named the Tite and Lock. I believe that they were LNWR engineers, though I stand open to correction.