London Live Channel shows Ealing Studios movies most days.
This evening it is showing 'Out of the Clouds' set at London Airport (pre Heathrow)

4RF4s Vintage airliners and plenty of transport heritage in real life action. and rare for an Ealing Movie, in Colour.

Don't have a tv so can't watch it, but may be it will answer once and for all what the original livery was; I'd suggest grey below the windows, not the blue that MLL740 is painted, but with dove grey above the windows. Wheels and hubs maroon.

BTW Heath Row Aerodrome was the original name; I found it on one of the Bell punch tickets I found when I restored MLL738.

My bus number (if any): RML2532,GS67,MLL721,MLL738 and an RT.

Unfortunately, I was not able to record it nor able to watch all of it, but the 4RF4 livery appeared 2-tone grey, polished trim with red beading with maroon wheels and white on red blinds. Quite a lot of BEA liveried vehicles in evidence.

Heath Row was a small group of cottages making up a tiny hamlet right in the middle of what is now the central area of Heathrow airport. It was of course part of Hounslow Heath which was once a huge area of scrubland farms and small villages and virtually untouched as late as the 1940s. It was of course, a favourite for highwaymen including Dick Turpin.

Parking Heathrow are the current incumbents of the title!

The film must be on one of the Ealing Studios compliations somewhere. Whilst writing this, " It Aways Rains on Sunday' is showing.With a railway goods yard scene that could barely be bettered today.
Oddly enough, it's Sunday and raining outside! But an excellent film, remarkably incisive socially.

It is available on DVD via Amazon etc. The Wikipedia page for the film suggests it was included on an Ealing compilation, but I haven't been able to find it.

Phil.

Although the London Bus Museum vehicle has a blue bottom half, they have a model which is perhaps in a more genuine livery - http://www.lbmshop.com/product/4rf4/.

And not as expensive as the Hatchette 1/12 Routemaster...

Phil.

Hatchette Routemaster, planned 100 issues most at £7.99 each (at the moment)! 1/12th would like quite impressive - Not sure about it being held together with Phillips screws though ?

My bus number (if any): RML 2747

Speaking with Martin Allmey, the owner of the "Cobham" 4RF4 and with my research into liveries at the Science Museum, the Park royal and LT drawings show the planned livery to be sky blue bottom half, I was given the BS paint number but don't have it to hand, with the top half as per the Cobham bus.

There is a poster doing the rounds that was presumably made for the 12952 commercial motor show which shows a 4RF4 carrying that livery. I've worked on a number of these buses over the years, mostly dismantling for spares, at Pioneer Coaches, Margos, Gordon Lammings and Birds of Stratford. Nowhere on any of these have I found traces of sky blue paint. If it was to be found anywhere it would have been in the boot and door edges; it's a bit like the theory that modernised RF136 was painted grey and green. It wasn't.

The Science Museum bus is painted the (wrong shade of) grey and white that these buses carried probably from the first overhaul circa 1955/6. This was when the beading round the back was changed. It was overhauled at Aldenham just before the place closed before being presented to the Science Museum, I have some photos of it there being worked on by apprentices.

I believe they had 3 overhauls at Aldenham; this is borne out by the fact that MLL738 has had 3 lots of back number plate transfers applied over the years! MLL721 was the first one to carry the revised blue/black/white/red livery according to the late Alan Allmey. It was also the only one to carry the large BEA red square logos on the front and back of the side panels. The other blue and white ones had a small BEA square logo at the front end only. I haven't yet found any records of overhauls and repaints. Maybe someone out there has.

Martin Allmey said he was a displeased that the bus appeared in the wrong livery, but until funds permit, it will have to carry on like it. I've now found the correct shade of grey thanks to the help of Williamsons Paints.

My bus number (if any): RML2532,GS67,MLL721,MLL738 and an RT.