Coach painting angst!

Hi all - next week I will be painting a 7mm s&djr milk churn van. Originally I was going to paint it in the s&djr style and number it as one of the known vehicles absorbed by the LMS. However, as it will form part of a rake of lms vehicles I'm now leaning toward crimson. Up to now I've drawn a bit of a blank on whether or not these ever received a repaint or what the running numbers became if they did change…… any lms coach info gratefully received :) as are any suggestions for late 20s early 30s motive power to suite such an npcs working - preferably one that's not too much of a mountain for a novice loco builder to tackle lol. There are some attractive Kirtley/Johnson prototypes available from Laurie Griffin's range but I'm not sure one would be a sensible choice for a first loco.
This is the kit in question - from the Roxey range

Cheers

That's a fine looking model Darren.  For something as lovely as that, it will pay to do some thorough research to determine what the livery should be.  From what I know, after 1923, the railway was joint owned by the LMS and SR so I would lean towards it being Prussian blue.  Some vehicles transferred ownership to the SR who would have painted them in their livery.  I did a MR/S&D 5 ton milk/perishables van a little while ago (there's a thread on it here) and my reference book says that van could have been LMS red, S&D blue or SR green.

John

As you are modelling late 20s/early 30s I'd be inclined to do it in S&D livery, it took some time for repaints (at least on the ones that went to the SR) in some cases only the lettering was done.

Thanks for the pointers guys - as luck would have it a Facebook contact has sent me a photo of a similar vehicle recently restored after a short spell on the southern followed by a long spell as a garden shed. The remnants of the livery is clearly Prussian blue but with sr lettering