How long did the BR Blue & Grey livery last for?

[Failed Unit]

I am sure some of the survivors of the 1st gen DMUs had it until they were withdrawn in the 1990s

 

[33017]

As far as coaching stock was concerned, I think it was pretty much the only livery vehicles were repainted in from 1966 until 1984.

 

[randyrippley]

When did that friday afternoons only Euston-Glasgow relief train stop? Used to be made up of a mix of mainly non-AC mk2 coaches borrowed from NSE, coaches were a mix of IC / NSE with the odd blue-grey. I'm sure that ran into the mid-90s

 

[Cowley]

When did that friday afternoons only Euston-Glasgow relief train stop? Used to be made up of a mix of mainly non-AC mk2 coaches borrowed from NSE, coaches were a mix of IC / NSE with the odd blue-grey. I'm sure that ran into the mid-90s

I’d really like to see a photo of that if there’s any in existence?
I’m always looking for photos of mixed sectorisation liveried trains for railway modelling research (and livery froth) reasons.

 

[181]

The first train to carry this livery other than the APT itself was a full HST rake that was given a dedicated diagram for a while between Paddington and Bristol; it was advertised as "the executive train". That would have been some time in spring 1984; I rode it in early May 1984 and it had been around in those colours for about a month before that.

I think the repainting took place slightly earlier than that. Wikipedia says 'A new 'Executive' service was part of the relaunch of the InterCity Sector on 3 October 1983. This saw the coaches of the Manchester Pullman and two HSTs refurbished and repainted experimentally into the same colour scheme as the APT.', citing (slightly further on in the paragraph) "The InterCity relaunch". Modern Railways. Vol. 40 no. 423. Ian Allan. December 1983. pp. 635–638. This fits with my memory of seeing an HST in this livery between Newbury and Reading on a Saturday in November 1983.

 

[Peter Mugridge]

A bit earlier than I thought, yes! Nice to have a specific date for it.

 

[Bevan Price]

Did any coaches appear in blue/grey before the XP64 prototypes were built in 1964?

 

[43096]

I think the repainting took place slightly earlier than that. Wikipedia says 'A new 'Executive' service was part of the relaunch of the InterCity Sector on 3 October 1983. This saw the coaches of the Manchester Pullman and two HSTs refurbished and repainted experimentally into the same colour scheme as the APT.', citing (slightly further on in the paragraph) "The InterCity relaunch". Modern Railways. Vol. 40 no. 423. Ian Allan. December 1983. pp. 635–638. This fits with my memory of seeing an HST in this livery between Newbury and Reading on a Saturday in November 1983.

I would agree with that - two Western HST sets (sets 28 and 30) and five power cars (43125/126/129/130/151) were done initially.

 

[randyrippley]

Did any coaches appear in blue/grey before the XP64 prototypes were built in 1964?

only the Scottish blue trains and the Blue Pullmans, but they were different blues with no grey

 

[Cowley]

I would agree with that - two Western HST sets (sets 28 and 30) and five power cars (43125/126/129/130/151) were done initially.

I remember seeing those sets as a kid. Did they use to work the ‘Mayflower’ service to/from Plymouth?
They looked the business and that livery remains my favourite out of all the ones they’ve carried over the years.

 

[thedbdiboy]

True,I seem to remember that for some reason long after NSE livery became the norm they reverted to painting some EPBs in traditional blue grey, no idea why though

See below

I must admit, I wasn't aware they were repainting them into blue grey. It can't have been because they didn't fit NSE's modern image because there were plenty of EPB's in NSE colours.

Maybe it was the unrefurbished ones with tungsten lighting and trojan moquette. I vaguely recall the refurbished ones being more likely painted NSE, but that may just have been because there were more of them left at the end.

Correct, although please note that there was never any reverting to Blue and Grey - the NSE policy was clear that NSE livery was only for facelifted or refurbished units; unrefurbished units were to remain Blue/Grey. At that time a number of 2 EPBs had single compartments and the SR design 4 EPBs had been reformed to concentrate the compartment trailers into specific units all of which were unrefurbished, for use in peak time only, and with a red cantrail stripe to denote the single compartments. This followed the horrific murder of a young women on a Victoria-Orpington train, stabbed in a single compartment between Victoria and Brixton which led to an outcry about the risks of this accomodation.
I recall around 1990 seeing a gleaming 2EPB clearly ex-works at Gillingham in Blue/Grey at a time when NSE livery was dominant.

 

[yorksrob]

See below


Correct, although please note that there was never any reverting to Blue and Grey - the NSE policy was clear that NSE livery was only for facelifted or refurbished units; unrefurbished units were to remain Blue/Grey. At that time a number of 2 EPBs had single compartments and the SR design 4 EPBs had been reformed to concentrate the compartment trailers into specific units all of which were unrefurbished, for use in peak time only, and with a red cantrail stripe to denote the single compartments. This followed the horrific murder of a young women on a Victoria-Orpington train, stabbed in a single compartment between Victoria and Brixton which led to an outcry about the risks of this accomodation.
I recall around 1990 seeing a gleaming 2EPB clearly ex-works at Gillingham in Blue/Grey at a time when NSE livery was dominant.

It certainly led to some variety with the EPB's, which I appreciated and which had dissappeared from the longer distance units.

Thanks for the clarification.

 

[61653 HTAFC]

The Provincial sector livery (later Regional Railways) appeared later, although IIRC no pacers and sprinters were delivered in blue and grey.

The first few 141s were delivered in a variant of blue/grey (with Barrow Corporation blue rather than rail blue!), but never ran in service in that livery. 140001 also had blue/grey, as did the prototype Leyland mk1.

 

[northernbelle]

I think the repainting took place slightly earlier than that. Wikipedia says 'A new 'Executive' service was part of the relaunch of the InterCity Sector on 3 October 1983. This saw the coaches of the Manchester Pullman and two HSTs refurbished and repainted experimentally into the same colour scheme as the APT.', citing (slightly further on in the paragraph) "The InterCity relaunch". Modern Railways. Vol. 40 no. 423. Ian Allan. December 1983. pp. 635–638. This fits with my memory of seeing an HST in this livery between Newbury and Reading on a Saturday in November 1983.

43085 was the first car to carry it- experimentally painted in March 1983. It reverted to standard livery before it saw the light of day.
Squadron repaints began with set 253028 (43125/126) later the same year.

 

[Journeyman]

Aye dude feel free, I'd be interested to see!

Prior to the 504, I had seen a 4VEP in BR Blue & Grey dated 1995 on a Facebook group.

At the moment it does look like the 504s win having the livery as late as 1996

None of the VEPs were still in blue and grey that late. NSE livery was applied to them pretty rapidly.

 

[Journeyman]

Some of the EPB's were in blue/grey up until the end in the mid 1990's.

Yeah, the unrefurbished ones were deemed unworthy of NSE livery!

 

[Fawkes Cat]

508 at Chester, July '96, beating the 304s by 4 months:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/21602076@N05/3752222558/

All photography credit to Tom Burnham

Unfortunately, I have nothing but my memory to rely on, but I think I remember blue and grey stock running on Merseyrail when I got to Liverpool in 1997 - rather later than the picture quoted here.

 

[hexagon789]

Unfortunately, I have nothing but my memory to rely on, but I think I remember blue and grey stock running on Merseyrail when I got to Liverpool in 1997 - rather later than the picture quoted here.

Very possible and wikipedia says 1997 as well funnily enough, but no luck finding later dated photos.

 

[stj]

I think the repainting took place slightly earlier than that. Wikipedia says 'A new 'Executive' service was part of the relaunch of the InterCity Sector on 3 October 1983. This saw the coaches of the Manchester Pullman and two HSTs refurbished and repainted experimentally into the same colour scheme as the APT.', citing (slightly further on in the paragraph) "The InterCity relaunch". Modern Railways. Vol. 40 no. 423. Ian Allan. December 1983. pp. 635–638. This fits with my memory of seeing an HST in this livery between Newbury and Reading on a Saturday in November 1983.

I remember seeing the set in September 1983 on a filming run for the upcoming launch.

 

[Journeyman]

I've just dug out the 1996 Platform 5 combined volume, and by that time, the only regularly-operating blue and grey vehicles in service were...

• Class 304s, of which only a few were left, and some were in Regional Railways livery
• Class 507s, which had mostly been repainted, six left in blue and grey
• Class 508s, which were the other way around - mostly in blue and grey with only a handful in Merseytravel livery

On top of that, there's a tiny handful of loco-hauled coaches still in blue and grey, but it looks like they were all stored out of use by then. The only other blue and grey vehicle listed was a spare Class 423/4-VEP vehicle, which I very much doubt had operated for some time, and was probably a leftover from a set involved in an accident.

All the surviving first-generation DMUs had been reliveried by then.

Unfortunately, for 1997 and 1998 I only have the NREA Spotter's Companion books, which are much less comprehensive and don't contain any livery information - I was a student at the time, and they were much cheaper. However, the Class 304s are not listed in the 1997 edition so had been withdrawn, so that leaves the 507s and 508s as the undisputed final carriers of the livery in regular, continuous service.

The next Platform 5 book I have is the 2000 edition, and the 507s and 508s were all repainted by then.

 

[Journeyman]

I am sure some of the survivors of the 1st gen DMUs had it until they were withdrawn in the 1990s

I have the 1994 Platform 5 combined volume, and it shows a three-car unrefurbished 101 allocated to Haymarket in blue and grey, and a selection of vehicles of classes 115 to 118 allocated to Tyseley in blue and grey too. I don't have the 1995 edition, unfortunately, but these had all gone by 1996.

 

[swt_passenger]

Does the Lymington 3-cig 1497 latterly repainted in grey/blue count in this discussion? Still going in 2010?

I seem to recall people thought the BR logos were a bit wrong though...

 

[Journeyman]

Does the Lymington 3-cig 1497 latterly repainted in grey/blue count in this discussion? Still going in 2010?

I seem to recall people thought the BR logos were a bit wrong though...

I personally wouldn't count it, because it was restored to that livery some time after it had vanished elsewhere, and so blue and grey vehicles in regular service weren't continuous.

 

[swt_passenger]

I personally wouldn't count it, because it was restored to that livery some time after it had vanished elsewhere, and so blue and grey vehicles in regular service weren't continuous.

I tend to agree, but we’ve had previous mentions of (for example) the Chiltern Banbury set...

 

[Journeyman]

I tend to agree, but we’ve had previous mentions of (for example) the Chiltern Banbury set...

On that subject, didn't Wrexham and Shropshire start operations with a blue and grey set of Mark 3s before their own coaches were ready? Are they the same ones?

 

[Rick1984]

After sectorisation there was obviously still a lot of locos going around in various BR blue liveries. Was the ultimate aim to paint them all into either Regional Railways, NSE or InterCity?

 

[Cowley]

After sectorisation there was obviously still a lot of locos going around in various BR blue liveries. Was the ultimate aim to paint them all into either Regional Railways, NSE or InterCity?

They probably weren’t too far off achieving that by 1994. I did an All Line that year and most of the locos and stock were in the correct liveries for the routes they were working. The exception seemed to be Scotland where the Kyle and Oban lines had a mixture of colours on the loco hauled summer services.
Also before Network Southeast got rid of all of their loco hauled stock pretty much all of their mk1s and mk2s were painted in the NSE livery.

 

[Monty]

I vaguely remember seeing MK1s of various types in Blue/Grey livery as late as 1994/5.

 

[Journeyman]

Network SouthEast policy was not to paint unrefurbished EPBs in NSE livery, because they were considered too poor to justify it. Only the refurbished ones were reliveried.

I vaguely remember seeing MK1s of various types in Blue/Grey livery as late as 1994/5.

Digging out the 1996 Platform 5 book again, there's a handful of non-passenger Mark 1s in both blue and blue and grey. Back in 1994, there were a few blue and grey passenger Mark 1s and 2s, but most appear to be stored or awaiting disposal.


1993 Platform 5 book lists all surviving unrefurbished EPBs in blue and grey, so none received NSE livery, whereas most of the refurbished ones had (all of them in the case of classes 415/6 and 416/3).

I’d really like to see a photo of that if there’s any in existence?
I’m always looking for photos of mixed sectorisation liveried trains for railway modelling research (and livery froth) reasons.

I'm sure a number of Euston to Aberystwyth through services in their final years were formed of NSE liveried stock.

 

[Bikeman78]

I must admit, I wasn't aware they were repainting them into blue grey. It can't have been because they didn't fit NSE's modern image because there were plenty of EPB's in NSE colours.

Maybe it was the unrefurbished ones with tungsten lighting and trojan moquette. I vaguely recall the refurbished ones being more likely painted NSE, but that may just have been because there were more of them left at the end.

This came up on Facebook recently. The official policy was that unrefurbished EPBs were painted blue and grey at overhaul whilst the refurbished got NSE. There were some exceptions. Four BR type 62XX 2EPBs got NSE livery and I'm pretty sure some of the refurb Bulleid 4EPBs got a coat of blue and grey well after 1986. I don't think any unrefurbished Bulleids got NSE.