I thought readers might appreciate this selection of views taken of 114 one evening last week by Andy Martin, an attempt to capture the stunning livery in the best of light at various locations around the site. I hobbled about after him, recovering from appendicitis, and we also carried out a number of ‘experiments’ which will hopefully be revealed here shortly. In the meantime, please do enjoy the superb paint finish, the work of Phil Anderson. Tram liveries must have stood out as almost garish when first appearing on electric cars, especially as railway liveries were reasonably conservative in choice of colours used (often because of the dirt around, needing darker colours to hide it). The cleanliness of electric tramcars caused no such problem, though at an early stage with horse trams it was found that darker coloured dash panels were preferable to lighter ones.

Much has been written about the Newcastle livery circa 1901, and I anticipate adding more to this shortly, in the meantime, here is 114…