Every coach was in the same shade of Rail Blue and Pearl Grey, every locomotive sporting Rail Blue and yellow ends:
Occasionally the fronts might have more blue and a little less grey...
But that was about the limit of deviation from the corporate identity.
I didn't mind at all -- it all felt as it should, a competent, efficient system made obvious.
Photos didn't even need to be in colour for me to be able to visualise the scene:
And, in fact, a lot of the blue scene was, anyway, pretty grey:
And then this appeared -- the first of the new generation of British Rail trains, the High Speed Train (or "InterCity 125"):
Styled by Ken Grange and his team at Pentagram, it was like a whole new railway world. But that was as nothing compared to British Rail's next planned weapon -- the Advanced Passenger Train:
The APT was prematurely killed-off, but that startling new livery it wore was adopted by the group for all British Rail InterCity services:
For this was a period of "sectorisation", when BR decided to split itself into different business units, each focussed on a different traffic. Provincial railways (or, as it was hastily renamed, Regional Railways) was repainted into a beige and brown livery, enlivened by a couple of blue stripes:
It was a subtle livery which worked rather well on Class 158s:
"Subtle" was not a word that could be applied to the livery adopted for London commuter services -- the Network SouthEast brand:
Described as a "toothpaste" livery, it actually worked best on the express services where there was a much higher proportion of white:
The short-haul trains were painted in a palette dominated by the blue and red, and were, I think, less successful (which is why I've resisted the temptation to depict any here):
No matter the merits of the individual liveries, it all spelt the end of the unified, subtle Rail Blue, opening the way for the torrid and tawdry mess we have today.
Such is the unpredictability of evolution.
4 comments:
I love having some trains again amidst the winkies.
What was the reason for having the ends of the coaches yellow?
Lee: it dates back to the late 1950s when diesel trains started replacing steam en masse. It was found that all-over green locomotives and diesel multiple units, because they were much quieter than steam traction, were very much harder for crews working on the tracks to sense coming at them.
When a small yellow patch was painted on the front, the locomotives were visible at much greater distances (particularly in murky or misty conditions). Since then, all national rail stock is required to have a substantial yellow panel painted on the front. For a brief period there were experiments on DMUs, which involved painting bright yellow "speed whiskers" on the front -- the intention was the same, but the yellow panel was found to be more visible.
BR took it to the extreme, in its quest for safe working conditions, and painted the entire front end of all locomotives and units yellow, even though the regulations only required a yellow panel; and that's why today trains like the Eurostar only have a small patch of yellow rather than it being all over the nose.
Although on high speed rail, the visual warning is irrelevant -- the train is travelling at such a high speed that there is no reaction time in which you can get out of its way. The regulations still insist on a bit of yellow, though...
And, finally (who would have thought this was so interesting?), a different set of rules applies to London Underground and the other metro operators -- which is why London Underground trains have a red warning panel on the ends rather than yellow.
A good reason, then. That was interesting. Thank you, LeDuc.
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