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Introduction of NSE Livery

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SpacePhoenix

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When did the NSE livery get introduced across the bulk of the rolling stock of the time? I've got a cab view video, I'm trying to work out approx when it was filmed. It has got 442s in it so it must be after they were introduced. The 455s are all in blue/grey livery and there's only a few slam door units in NSE livery.
 
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SpacePhoenix

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That puts the films in a probable 4 year time span, one trip shown in the series goes to Holborn Viaduct station which according to wikipedia closed in 1990
 

Cowley

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I remember seeing 50017 when it was first painted in original NSE colours in Exeter in 1986 and being only about 13 I had no idea what it meant until reading about it in the magazines a few weeks later. 50023 and 50017 were the first two class 50s in those colours and then bit by bit NSE livery (and red lampposts/bins/benches etc) spread across the southeast and down towards Exeter.
At first you'd get a train with a few NSE painted carriages but the rest still in blue and grey, but by the early 90s it seemed to have been painted on most NSE related stock, although not all of the locomotives.
When it first launched there were quite a lot of carriages that just had the network southeast lettering and logo applied to the sides.
I don't know so much about the electric units around London but it seemed like they were all painted in the colours by the early 90s
 

Peter Mugridge

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The re-branding was very fast after the launch; they had a deliberate attempt to get it all done as quickly as possible and everything was done within about 3 - 4 years.

Prior to the launch, the name and image were top secret.

Memorably, a few days before the launch, Selhurst parked a freshly liveried unit outside their paint shop in full view from all the passing trains...:lol:
 

Cowley

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The re-branding was very fast after the :|launch; they had a deliberate attempt to get it all done as quickly as possible and everything was done within about 3 - 4 years.

Prior to the launch, the name and image were top secret.

Memorably, a few days before the launch, Selhurst parked a freshly liveried unit outside their paint shop in full view from all the passing trains...:lol:

Brilliant :). 47573 The London Standard was painted and named around the beginning of the era too.
They changed the colour scheme after a while to the revised scheme with different lines on the cab ends and with a darker blue too.
I remember in the early days seeing NSE units paired up with 'Jaffa cake' liveried ones at Waterloo East and other places.
 

Peter Mugridge

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Yes, the change to a darker blue was ordered from "very high up" as the original light shade of blue was considered too bright and needed to be toned down a bit.
 

randyrippley

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When did the NSE livery get introduced across the bulk of the rolling stock of the time? I've got a cab view video, I'm trying to work out approx when it was filmed. It has got 442s in it so it must be after they were introduced. The 455s are all in blue/grey livery and there's only a few slam door units in NSE livery.

Does the film not have a copyright year in the end credits? That would at least give you a "before" date?
 

SpacePhoenix

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afaik NSE was made up of what's now:

* c2c
* Thameslink (GTR)
* Southern (GTR)
* Great Northern (GTR)
* SWT
* SouthEastern
* Waterloo & City Underground line (until LU took it over)
* Island Line (SWT)

Are there any bits of the current franchises that also used to be NSE?
 

matt

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afaik NSE was made up of what's now:

* c2c
* Thameslink (GTR)
* Southern (GTR)
* Great Northern (GTR)
* SWT
* SouthEastern
* Waterloo & City Underground line (until LU took it over)
* Island Line (SWT)

Are there any bits of the current franchises that also used to be NSE?

London Midland to Birmingham. Chiltern. Great Western to Oxford.
 

urpert

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I have an image in BR Traction in Colour (1987) which shows the launch day, 10 June 1986, with 50023 Hood and 455850/872 being driven into platforms 1 and 2 at Waterloo simultaneously. The other units in the picture are all in blue/grey.

There's also an image of 47573, as mentioned above, which was apparently displayed at Liverpool St on the eve of the launch for its naming.
 
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yorksrob

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Jaffa Cake hung around on some of the CEP's a little longer than some of the other longer distance units remained in blue/grey as I recall.

Blue/grey remained on some of the EPB's right into the early 90's.
 

edwin_m

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afaik NSE was made up of what's now:

* c2c
* Thameslink (GTR)
* Southern (GTR)
* Great Northern (GTR)
* SWT
* SouthEastern
* Waterloo & City Underground line (until LU took it over)
* Island Line (SWT)

Are there any bits of the current franchises that also used to be NSE?

Great Eastern (AGA) out as far as Ipswich.

Great Western (GWR) out to Oxford, Newbury, even Worcester and Hereford I think.

Chiltern (which was a lot smaller than).

Watford-St Albans and Bletchley-Bedford.
 

MarlowDonkey

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Are there any bits of the current franchises that also used to be NSE?

Everything that ran into a London terminal was either NSE or Inter City. NSE got some of the longer distance routes such as Waterloo to Exeter and Paddington to Worcester.
 

Taunton

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I have an image in BR Traction in Colour (1987) which shows the launch day, 10 June 1986, with 50023 Hood and 455850/872 being driven into platforms 1 and 2 at Waterloo simultaneously. The other units in the picture are all in blue/grey.
I went through Waterloo by chance that morning, probably about 0800, and 50023 and stock were in Platform 1, with the name on the loco covered over. They had propelled out again by the time I departed into the south side sidings, presumably to come back to the unveiling committee at a more appropriate time. Didn't quite understand until I saw the evening TV news.

In the following years I regularly went up to Liverpool for the weekend. There was a Sunday evening service from Lime Street back to Euston which, at a time when Mk 3 were the norm, was always formed of NSE Mk 1 stock from the Northampton service, not in the full livery but blue/grey with the decals. The Mk 1 side corridor Firsts were available for the weekend £1 supplement, and I invariably got a compartment to myself. It was a far more refined and comfortable experience than anything I've experienced on the WCML since then.
 
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Cowley

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I went through Waterloo by chance that morning, probably about 0800, and 50023 and stock were in Platform 1, with the name on the loco covered over. They had propelled out again by the time I departed into the south side sidings, presumably to come back to the unveiling committee at a more appropriate time. Didn't quite understand until I saw the evening TV news.

In the following years I regularly went up to Liverpool for the weekend. There was a Sunday evening service from Lime Street back to Euston which, at a time when Mk 3 were the norm, was always formed of NSE Mk 1 stock from the Northampton service, not in the full livery but blue/grey with the decals. The Mk 1 side corridor Firsts were available for the weekend £1 supplement, and I invariably got a compartment to myself. It was a far more refined and comfortable experience than anything I've experienced on the WCML since then.

It was a big deal to have a new livery in those days. :)
When I saw 50017 from the opposite side of the station I couldn't work out what I was seeing either, the only locos I could think of with white around the double windscreens were Hymeks!
 

Peter Mugridge

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It was a big deal to have a new livery in those days. :)

Indeed it was - when the five different sector versions of Trainload Grey were launched it made headline news in all the broadcast and printed media and was being trumpeted as "the only freight livery there will ever be from now on!"

Ha...!! :lol:
 
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