The history of British Rail's corporate liveries is quite complex. Although from the mid 1960s to the 1980s the company was associated with "Rail Blue", a number of other schemes were also used, especially when the company was sectorised in the 1980s.
After the formation of British Railways in 1948, early BR diesel and electric locos and the gas turbine locomotives 18000 and 18100 were painted black with aluminium trim, but by the mid-1950s this had been superseded by a shade of green similar to that used on express passenger steam locomotives, although some locomotives were painted in a two-tone green livery. Multiple units were also generally green.
Coaching stock was originally painted in two-tone crimson and cream livery across the network.
In the mid 1950s an all-over darker maroon, which more closely resembled one of the pre-nationalisation liveries, was re-introduced, except for the Southern Region, where stock was generally painted malachite green, and a small number of express carriages on the Western Region which were in traditional GWR-style chocolate and cream.
With the reorganisation of British Railways in the mid 1960s, a complete break with the past was signalled by the introduction of a dark blue-based livery which dominated all passenger rolling stock until the later 1980s, when a new red-banded Intercity livery was introduced along with a number of regional colour schemes.
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The standard livery for most British Railway steam locomotives was black, often with a thin red and grey "lining" (trim), while express passenger locomotives were painted Brunswick Green, with orange and black lining. This had been the livery of the old Great Western Railway, and the Western Region, which now covered the same area, managed to paint far more of their locomotives in these traditional colours than elsewhere. A few other colours were used. As part of a plan to find a suitable corporate livery for the then new diesel and electric locomotive fleet, coaching stock, and multiple units, a number of experiments were tried;
Discussions on the livery for British Railways coaching stock in 1948 eventually settled on a network-wide two-tone livery of crimson and cream for corridor coaches, with all-over crimson being used for local, non-corridor stock. The colours were chosen to be different to those of any of the "Big Four" pre-nationalisation railway companies while retaining a traditional aspect. However many people were not happy with the loss of the traditional "historic" regional colour schemes as used by the former private companies.
From 1956 there was a move toward the return of regional colour schemes. Most regions adopted a maroon livery which strongly resembled that of the former London Midland and Scottish Railway. The Western Region started to repaint some coaches in a GWR chocolate and cream livery, while Southern Region reverted to malachite green for all vehicles. For cost reasons, liveries were usually changed piecemeal, when coaches came in for scheduled maintenance. Coaches from different regions could also often find themselves coupled together. Due to the consequent muddle of liveries, many trains began to get an untidy if not tatty appearance which added to the run-down image of the railway. The rebranding of British Railways to British Rail on 1 January 1965 was used as an opportunity to introduce an entirely new national livery.
The predecessor of the Rail Blue livery was an experimental train referred to as XP64. This prototype train was used to test technology and carriage arrangements for the planned BR Mark 2 coaches. The coaches for the XP64 were painted in a slightly lighter version of what would eventually become Rail Blue, with a 44-inch-wide (1,100 mm) Pale Ivory stripe centred on the passenger windows, and brown underframe.[4] One locomotive, Class 47 No.D1733, was painted to match the coaching stock. In 2001, as passenger work for diesel locomotives came to an end on the rail system, a number of Virgin Trains Class 47s were painted in "heritage" liveries that they had carried in the past, including the former D1733, now 47853, which once again carried a near-correct version of the XP64 livery.
Eventually, it was decided to standardise on a colour which became known as Rail Blue. Introduced in 1965, and also known as "Monastral Blue", the colour was defined by British Standards BR28/6001 (Airless spray finish) and BR28/5321 (Brush finish).[2] It was a dark, greyish blue tone which hid the effects of dirt well. The colour often appears inaccurately in photographs, generally appearing brighter and bluer than the real colour. In the early years the colour faded quite badly, becoming lighter and paler with time although this problem had been overcome by the late 1970s. United Kingdom paint code RAL5020 ("Ocean Blue") is a good match to Rail Blue. The new British Rail "double arrow" symbol on locomotives (or leading vehicle as was the case on multiple unit stock) and the vehicle number and other ancillary markings written in the Rail Alphabet typeface were other integral parts of the livery.
This colour was applied to all diesel and electric locomotives, with the exception of the ends, which were painted yellow to improve visibility, and the underframes and buffer beams which were painted black; the paints being to BSS 2660-0.003 and BSS 2660-9.103 respectively.[5] As Rail Blue was introduced, the last locomotive recorded as being outshopped in a previous livery was Class 43 D838 Rapid which left Swindon Works in August 1968 in the maroon livery.[6]
The Vale of Rheidol Railway remained steam operated past the general end of steam traction in 1968, and accordingly the three remaining Vale of Rheidol Railway locomotives received the Rail Blue colour scheme, being all blue with black smokebox and red bufferbeam, and no yellow warning panel.[7]
Coaching stock was to be painted in Rail Blue with a 44-inch Pearl Grey (BS 2660-9-095) horizontal panel centred vertically on the main windows, this being outlined by a narrow white line. This grey panel finished just short of the end of the coach leaving a small amount of Rail Blue which then continued round onto the end of the coach. Roofs were Dark Grey and underframes originally brown, but later black.
Originally, multiple units were also painted in all over Rail Blue, however the blue and grey coaching stock livery was eventually also applied to all gangwayed DMUs, EMUs and DEMUs. Non-gangwayed coaches and some other vehicles such as vans dedicated to newspaper traffic remained in all-over Rail Blue livery without the Pearl Grey band.
From 1974, some DMU sets, after being refurbished, were painted in a different reversed version of the official BR coach livery, with the blue and grey sections reversed. Often these units were reported as being painted white, such was the lightness of the grey used.[6]
From 1966 until withdrawal, Pullman Coaches were also painted in the reverse livery, although a deeper grey shade than Pearl Grey was used. The Blue Pullman sets retained their livery of Nanking Blue until 1969 when they were repainted in the same livery.[8]
In 1977 two Class 47 locomotives, 47163 and 47164, were painted by Stratford TMD with silver roofs and other decorations including a full body height Union Flag on each side, in celebration of Queen Elizabeth II's silver jubilee.[9][10] Several other Class 47 locomotives, some Class 31s, and even some DMU cabs, were subsequently also painted by Stratford with grey roofs, the variation becoming something of a trademark for the depot.
After this time small variations in the Rail Blue livery became much more common. Several Class 31 locomotives received blue waist stripes, these being particularly associated with the depots at Old Oak Common and Finsbury Park. Also on the Eastern Region, Class 55 Deltic locomotives based as Finsbury Park acquired white surrounds to their cab windows. Eastfield TMD staff near Glasgow also embellished a few examples of the class 37/0's allocated to the depot with a lower bodyside white stripe in the mid-80s but were told to stop doing it and repaint the ones they'd already done back to the standard blue livery by the BR hierarchy.
The first break in the uniformity of Rail Blue came in 1976 with the introduction of the first InterCity 125 (HST). The distinctive angular shape of the HST power cars did not lend itself to applying yellow on the leading face, so the yellow was wrapped around and extended along the side of each power car, although the coaches retained the usual Rail Blue coaching stock livery.
In 1978 the British Railways Board began planning a new livery for the future, and in that August Class 56 diesel locomotive 56036 was painted to test a modified livery[11][12] of all-over Rail Blue with the entire loco front in bright yellow to improve visibility, this extending down the sides of the loco to the rear of the cab windows which were, in turn, outlined in black. This livery was known as Large Logo livery as each side of the locomotive was dominated by a full body height BR double arrow symbol, and had the loco number prominently displayed at twice the previous size. This livery was well received by enthusiasts but as the Class 56s only hauled freight, it was decided to extend the experiment to a passenger loco. Thus Class 47 47170 County of Norfolk, allocated to Stratford and a regular performer on trains between Liverpool Street and Norwich, was painted in Large Logo livery.[13] Initially new locos were still painted in the traditional Rail Blue livery, but starting with Class 56 number 56084 the new Large Logo version was standard on new locos delivered to BR.[14] After this date, the passenger versions of Class 37 and 47, as well as Class 50, were routinely outshopped in this livery.
Following the introduction of the Advanced Passenger Train in 1983, a similar livery to the APT's (dark grey on the upper body, and light grey on the lower, with two stripes of red and white separating them) was experimentally applied to two HST sets and the coaches operating the Gatwick Express service between London Victoria and Gatwick Airport.[4] This was referred to as the InterCity Executive livery as the sets used were dedicated to operating morning/evening services operated for businessmen. Despite the InterCity brand having been introduced in 1966, in 1985 the word 'Executive' was dropped and the livery was applied to all coaches and many locomotives used on InterCity services.
On 10 June 1986, British Rail launched Network SouthEast, an organisation designed to cut across the traditional regional boundaries and deliver a co-ordinated train service for London and the surrounding region. For this new venture a new livery - a paler shade of blue than Rail Blue, with three stripes of white, red and grey - was created with Class 47 No.47573 The London Standard painted in the new livery specifically for the launch ceremony.[15] As well as rolling stock and multiple units, a number of Class 47 and Class 50 locomotives dedicated to Network SouthEast passenger services were painted in this livery. A later version made minor changes to the livery, the main one of which was to darken the main shade of blue used.[16]
ScotRail was the brand name under which British Rail operated InterCity passenger rail services in Scotland and cross border services to Northern England and London. A corporate livery was created for major express services in Scotland, which effectively consisted of the InterCity livery with the red stripe replaced by a saltire blue one.
Upon sectorisation, most secondary passenger routes which did not fall under the InterCity or Network SouthEast banner were re-designated as Regional Railways (originally Provincial). A livery, similar to ScotRail but with the upper dark grey bodyside replaced with a dark blue, was created. A number of sets of coaching stock and a handful of locomotives received the livery, as well as all new multiple units and some existing ones.
Scottish rolling stock not covered by the ScotRail livery (generally those on secondary services) received the Regional Railways livery, but with "ScotRail" branding.
Rail Express Systems was the sector of British Rail responsible for transport of mail and parcels traffic. Its rolling stock carried the standard Rail Blue (or blue and grey) livery but in 1992, it introduced a new livery of red and grey, with pale blue and grey flashes.
The livery was carried on the rolling stock, but also on a number of locomotives which were dedicated to mail and parcels traffic, mainly of Classes 47 and 90.
Railfreight livery, a colour scheme specifically for freight locomotives, was unveiled when Class 58 58001 drove through a plastic screen at Doncaster Works on 9 December 1982.[14] While this livery had much in common with the "Large Logo" version of Rail Blue livery, including the yellow cabs and larger logo and numbers on the bodyside, the main colour was grey rather than blue. A later version added a red stripe along the lower edge of the locomotive bodyside.
When British Rail operations were divided into sectors in the late 1980s, prior to privatisation, a new version of the Railfreight livery emerged giving the sectors individual identities. Consisting of three shades of grey and thus known as "triple grey Railfreight", the livery included logos on the sides and cabs of locomotives indicating which sector they belonged to. For locomotives used on internal British Rail duties, a separate livery of a plain darker grey was created. This was later modified for locomotives allocated to the Civil Engineer's department to include a yellow stripe on the upper bodyside, the resulting livery being known as "Dutch" due to its similarity to the corporate colours of the Nederlandse Spoorwegen.[17]