The double arrow and steam locomotives

Regarding blue livery, what I most disliked was the plain all over blue on suburban dmus. At least the green was enlivened by lining while I think in retrospect the blue/grey livery on coaches gave a smart appearance for the 'modern' railway (the less said about the white and blue 'refurbished' livery the better, even though better than Virgin etc!)

On locos while many did, in my opinion, look ok I don't think it suited the Westerns and Warships at all nor, as previously mentioned, the 31s.

 

I rather like BR blue on the Hymeks and the Finsbury Park Deltics, those white cab surrounds set it of quite well.

 

All of this BR rail blue talk got me ruminating of the question of can the British Rail image of the mid 60s be described as successful? the double arrow logo in particular is a long lived and I admit a simple and effective design; but the design ethos of the 'British Rail' re-branding was to be modern and technical, unsentimental and a break with the dark days of the post war world.

In some sense I suppose it worked, initially at least if you like you railways managed by George Orwell.

The BR blue era post steam until the 1980/90's privatization was so bland and dull, devoid of character and style, dismally uniform, increasingly old fashioned, easily shabby looking and, with some few exceptions (HST and some Finsbury Park white cabs) to my eye dated and awful and in effect a failure of its design brief to look modern and technical.

I for one never understand anyone finishing anything in the corporate blue model for the reason I have stated. This I would image is the very same answer/feeling many early preservationists would have of the 1948-68 steam livery and image.

The steam era was typified by (my eye) by he overly fussy, gaudy Victorian excess which through the passage of time gradually simplified through to the more sober if populist Art Deco styles of the 1930s, to finally the post war uniformity period which at least had regional personality and design evolution's.

Now if steam did drag on in the forms of 9F's and such into the 1970s then the sight of BR Blue liveried steam would have as drab as the rest of the railway at the time.

 

The Hymek has a lovely body shape. I thought they looked OK in blue with the small yellow panel.

It was a nice touch to wrap the yellow around the cab windows on some classes, e.g. Hymeks, Class 47.

 

Good summary. Drab cold liveries and bus shelter stations made the 1970s railway an unattractive place.

 

I happen to really like BR Blue myself. It works on a lot of things. Maroon is a bit dull to me...

 

I always liked D821 in blue with a small yellow panel. In maroon it didn't do an awful lot for me, same as D1062 and D1015, IMHO D1015 looks rather splendid in Golden Ochre.

 

I agree about the 47s and Hymeks, but it didn't work for me with the Westerns. I think it's the full yellow ends I dislike on the latter rather than the fact they ended up blue.

 

Completely agree. There was no attempt at styling ... just an edict that every inch of the front, above the buffers and below the roof, had to be yellow. This was overkill, and completely disregarded the stylistic lines of the neatly designed body shell.

Interesting that the HST, which was the fastest thing on rails, was allowed to have a band of blue around the cab windows.

 

I personally love the post war/just post nationalisation liveries:



Stainless steel numerals and Gill Sans numbering and lettering matched with the garter blue and red wheel sets of the LNER Pacifics.

I feel the biggest issue with the later liveries on the A4s is that nothing quite shouted "speed" as much as the original garter blue livery. The lining out of the experimental blue, express passenger blue and the dark green made the A4s look more antiquated than their original livery ever did.

It is interesting that the Midland region in later days were able to re-use their red (or a version of their red) livery in BR days. Seeing the ex-LNER Pacifics in their original liveries in their final swan songs would have been something amazing. But I guess we got a flavour of that with the preserved locos like Flying Scotsman and SNG when initially restored.

Interesting side point: Mallard could be restored to the above form really easy - Scotsman's current tender is one of the 1948 exchange trial tenders which share the modifications to the upper rear panel of the side sheets. That would free up the A4 type tender for Scotsman to be recreated perfectly in her latter day forms.

 

Is it just me or are two of those young ladies suffering .......er....shall we say, a slight list to starboard?

 

naughty, your going to have the filthminder general after you for degrading the female form

 

As an aside, anyone know when the top rear corners of the tender, either side of the corridor connection, were filled in? Photos from the early 80s show the corners missing, but reinstated by the time she went to Australia in 1988.

 

Yes that has always bothered me too! It looks to be in the time immediately before the trip to Australia from a quick flick through my books today. Certainly not rectified on the American trip or thereafter. I would like at the next overhaul for the NRM to reconsider removing the curves to make the tender as it was when originally preserved - or restoring the tender to its original spec. Its current form is somewhere halfway between and looks odd to my eyes.

Don't get me wrong - they've done an excellent job in the restoration. I am just a stickler for details...

 

I don't minded BR blue when a loco was repainted but after a period of time the blue fades out and then it's becomes shabby. Loco's always looked better in BR large logo livery. Always prefed a class 47 or class 50 in large logo. I just wonder why BR went for blue after decideding it didn't wear very well on steam locos back in the 1950s.

 

Paint technology was advancing fast, general level of grime was diminishing fast, and I imagine the diesels would be a less challenging environment for paint full stop.

 

Just guessing, but I imagine they wanted a colour that was not associated with their steam fleet. That ruled out black and green, and possibly maroon if you include the LMS pacifics.

I don't think any colour wore well on either steam or diesel if not looked after.

 

There did seem to be issues with the paint and the chemicals in the cleaning units. That and lack of funds did see some short life diesels in a very poor state. None of which should detract from the fact that the modern image like its successor, in part, network southeast were successful in their day when judged against what they tried to achieve.

 

I would agree that NSE did smarten up the South East of the network, I remember at the time thinking that they must have brought a tanker fill of red paint as every station seemly sprouted red lamppost over night.