Legal Requirement for Yellow Panel

[cuna84]

Hi all,
A thought came to me whilst I was waiting for my train home the other evening, and watching all the EMU's and Locos going in and out, all with differing sizes of the yellow "warning panel", is there a legal minimum requirement for the size of this? Any help to satisfy a curious traveller would be much appreciated!!

 

[yorkie]

This crops up regularly.

From a recent discussion:-

The yellow warning panel rule seems to apply to all vehicles intended to lead a train on Network Rail with exceptions only for steam locos and shunting locos, which of course have the wasp stripes and rarely move out of yards, or at more than a brisk walking pace. I think that the appearance of diesel locos in original pre-yellow panel livery on the main line would require a relaxation of the rules on warning panels, as has been tried without success when the IC225s and then the 332s were introduced.

Although there have been a number of locos with headcode displays back on the main line again (with only minimal areas of yellow), suggesting that the single high intensity headlight is sufficient, so never say never. And many of the aggregate operators of the 59s seem to be keen on not having the yellow panel as a feature of their liveries...

Believe that the actual yellow panel requirement is surprisingly small, 1.8m^2 I think, but for a more neat appearance the liveries are designed with a larger yellow area.

The warning panel area requirement is even less, only 1m^2 in overall area, with the minimum dimension 0.6 m, so if you do reduce to this the other dimension becomes 1.67 m. This is as far as the live document GM/RT2483 is concerned. Earlier versions of group standards had a larger area with train speed higher than 125 mph, but that is no longer required on NR infrastructure, for fairly obvious reasons...

I think this is how those 59s get away with little more than a yellow stripe, although I have my doubts about their height meeting the minimum, however as it is well over 2 m wide it probably meets the area requirement - might it conform to a much earlier rule, cos I can't find anything that allows less than 0.6 m minimum anywhere...

There was also a very lengthy discussion further back:

http://www.railforums.co.uk/showthread.php?t=36318&

And another 3 years ago:-

http://www.railforums.co.uk/showthread.php?t=25453

And there's more!

 

[cuna84]

Ah, my sincere apologies Yorkie, lazyness on my part, should have already searched, many thanks for the heads up!!!