Trivia: last time a class of locomotives all had the same livery

[Bessie]

With so much change on the railways in the privatisation era it got me thinking when was the last time an entire class of locomotives all had the same livery. Loco class has to exceed 10 in number. My thoughts are for diesels maybe the class 50's in the early 80's (were they all large logo livery, just before NSE come along?) and for electrics I assume the class 91's in the early 90's all had IC Swallow livery. Did any loco class in the 2000's and beyond all have the same livery?

 

[DB]

67s - all in EWS for a number of years in the early 2000s.

91s have all had Swallow and GNER. Don't thibk they have all had the same since due to several having one-off liveries.

 

[Wyrleybart]

With so much change on the railways in the privatisation era it got me thinking when was the last time an entire class of locomotives all had the same livery. Loco class has to exceed 10 in number. My thoughts are for diesels maybe the class 50's in the early 80's (were they all large logo livery, just before NSE come along?) and for electrics I assume the class 91's in the early 90's all had IC Swallow livery. Did any loco class in the 2000's and beyond all have the same livery?

Without any purely daft examples of class 89 etc, I would say one of the AL classes assuming all were delivered in electric blue before the yellow panel was added. I think the final EE type 3s were delivered with a yellow panel as distinct from the earlier members of the class. 56s 58s and 60s were all delivered with variances. Also class 68s. Were all ten class 88s the same when delivered ?

If you regard 57s as "new locos" I guess 57001-57012 were all in standard Freightliner livery, and maybe also the 57/3s, but the 57/6 were different.

How about class 91 ? Were they all the same as built ?

The question is thought provoking

 

[DB]

Without any purely daft examples of class 89 etc, I would say one of the AL classes assuming all were delivered in electric blue before the yellow panel was added. I think the final EE type 3s were delivered with a yellow panel as distinct from the earlier members of the class. 56s 58s and 60s were all delivered with variances. Also class 68s. Were all ten class 88s the same when delivered ?

If you regard 57s as "new locos" I guess 57001-57012 were all in standard Freightliner livery, and maybe also the 57/3s, but the 57/6 were different.

How about class 91 ? Were they all the same as built ?

The question is thought provoking

88s are all the same and have been since new, but not more than 10 in the class.

 

[DanNCL]

The 91s were all in Intercity Swallow as built, and apart from a short period in the mid-late 1990s whilst the fleet was re liveried for GNER, they all carried the same livery as each other up until 2008, when 91111 gained the National Express livery. Although all of the 91s have carried East Coast livery, there wasn't any point where all of them carried it at the same time, as 91110 had gained it's Battle of Britain livery before the last 91 was repainted from GNER blue.

The 92s were all delivered in BR grey, and I think they all carried that livery until 92001 and 92031 gained EWS livery, which I think was around the turn of the millennium.

 

[pdeaves]

Were all EWS 66s delivered before Freightliner ordered theirs? If so, for a while all 66s were in the same livery.

 

[Highlandspring]

Were all EWS 66s delivered before Freightliner ordered theirs? If so, for a while all 66s were in the same livery.

The last EWS class 66 was delivered nearly a year after the first Freightliner one (On the same ship as FL’s 66506/7/8/9/10).

 

[The exile]

Without any purely daft examples of class 89 etc, I would say one of the AL classes assuming all were delivered in electric blue before the yellow panel was added. I think the final EE type 3s were delivered with a yellow panel as distinct from the earlier members of the class. 56s 58s and 60s were all delivered with variances. Also class 68s. Were all ten class 88s the same when delivered ?

If you regard 57s as "new locos" I guess 57001-57012 were all in standard Freightliner livery, and maybe also the 57/3s, but the 57/6 were different.

How about class 91 ? Were they all the same as built ?

The question is thought provoking

Once the first 50 appeared in large logo, they were never again all in the same livery, as 007 had gone green before the last of the class received large logo blue (the first refurbs were not outshopped in large logo blue).

 

[Cowley]

Once the first 50 appeared in large logo, they were never again all in the same livery, as 007 had gone green before the last of the class received large logo blue (the first refurbs were not outshopped in large logo blue).

I was trying to work out if that was the case? I think 007 went green in 1984 but it had briefly made it into large logo beforehand. Were there still a couple kicking around in original BR blue in 1984? I thought they’d all been painted into large logo by then but happy to be corrected.

 

[D365]

As stated above. Class 91 has to be the most recent example.

 

[43096]

As stated above. Class 91 has to be the most recent example.

When was the first 67 repainted out of EWS livery?

 

[tbtc]

It won't be the winner (since it doesn't beat 66s/91s etc) but what about 27s as one from the past forty years worthy of a mention?

They were passenger only (so nothing repainted into rail freight liveries), never got the Large Logo treatment (as far as I can remember), most of the class lived through to the mid '80s (certainly over the ten threshold that the OP has)... I think that the only "difference" would be the "scottie dog" (etc) to donate which depot they were based at, but I wouldn't count that as a "livery" thing (others may though, I'm happy to be corrected).

(One might have looked nice in ScotRail livery but I don't think it ever happened!)

 

[DB]

When was the first 67 repainted out of EWS livery?

Will have been one or both of the royal ones, but not sure of date.

 

[Cowley]

It won't be the winner (since it doesn't beat 66s/91s etc) but what about 27s as one from the past forty years worthy of a mention?

They were passenger only (so nothing repainted into rail freight liveries), never got the Large Logo treatment (as far as I can remember), most of the class lived through to the mid '80s (certainly over the ten threshold that the OP has)... I think that the only "difference" would be the "scottie dog" (etc) to donate which depot they were based at, but I wouldn't count that as a "livery" thing (others may though, I'm happy to be corrected).

(One might have looked nice in ScotRail livery but I don't think it ever happened!)

Good shout, you could add class 81 and 85 to the 27s as well, especially 85s as they lasted a little longer.

 

[Domh245]

Might be wrong, but wouldn't the 87s have all been in VT red & black at some point just after the millenium? They gained quite a few non-standard liveries a couple of years later, but some flickr research suggests a period of mid 2000 when the last was painted out of swallow to mid 2002 when 87002 became purple they were all in red/black (excluding the 'barely-an-87' 87101, which was withdrawn in 1999 anyway)

 

[DB]

Might be wrong, but wouldn't the 87s have all been in VT red & black at some point just after the millenium? They gained quite a few non-standard liveries a couple of years later, but some flickr research suggests a period of mid 2000 when the last was painted out of swallow to mid 2002 when 87002 became purple they were all in red/black (excluding the 'barely-an-87' 87101, which was withdrawn in 1999 anyway)

Not 87101 - that was never part of their fleet.

 

[Domh245]

Not 87101 - that was never part of their fleet.

Indeed, though as it was withdrawn by the point the last /0 was painted into red (but not scrapped), I'd have thought they still qualified, as noted at the end of my post

 

[Pit_buzzer]

Probably opening a new can of worms but one class 27 never got rail Blue. 5383 was withdrawn in green

 

[Iskra]

Were the class 92's all grey originally?

 

[43096]

Were the class 92's all grey originally?

Yes, they were all grey until 92001 was repainted into EWS livery.

 

[Halish Railway]

Do all of the Channel Tunnel Class 9s share the same grey & blue livery at the moment?

 

[Peter Mugridge]

Do all of the Channel Tunnel Class 9s share the same grey & blue livery at the moment?

The Combined Volume suggests that they do.

 

[Inversnecky]

Thing is, if there were 15 in the class, there would be a greater likelihood of them all being in the ame livery at some point than in there were 150 or 400.

 

[D6975]

It won't be the winner (since it doesn't beat 66s/91s etc) but what about 27s as one from the past forty years worthy of a mention?

They were passenger only (so nothing repainted into rail freight liveries),

Where did you get the notion that 27s were passenger only? They were used extensively on freight all through their lives, indeed one batch of them wasn't ever fitted with train heat equipment.

 

[Wyrleybart]

Where did you get the notion that 27s were passenger only? They were used extensively on freight all through their lives, indeed one batch of them wasn't ever fitted with train heat equipment.

The 1250hp BRCW type twos were built as mixed traffic locos including the batch built without SHGs. In the 1960s the Midland allocated locos worked singly and in pairs on freight trains,

Class 27's reluctant metamorphosis into blue

I was asked a question over the festive period that stumped me a bit, I'll come clean with you, dear reader. Nothing surprising there, but this is a subject reasonably close to my modelling interests and I felt I should've been better prepared. What were the first Class 27s into standard blue, an...

www.rmweb.co.uk

As well as passenger and parcels work. Although all were delivered in green with cream accents the yellow ends changed them, but 5380 and 5382 received two tone green livery in the style of Brush fours and the later BR/Sulzer type twos.

D5389 received allover blue with small yellow panels

https://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/uploads/monthly_01_2013/post-4697-0-94418500-1357044908_thumb.jpg

But gradually the standard blue livery did appear.

 

[Spartacus]

Will have been one or both of the royal ones, but not sure of date.

Looks like it was early 2004 (http://www.ews-railway.co.uk/cmsystem/news_article.asp?guid={33366DAD-CBE8-46E4-B35B-70AD3634A62A}), which I suspect is the final date unless you include classes later expanded late the 70s and 68s. I thought maybe the 88s, but they just miss the cut, the fleet being just 10 locos.

 

[Bigman]

I would like to nominate Class 89 here.

 

[Jamesrob637]

Swiss Class 465 (BLS) all carried the original livery with BLS in bold - the only minor difference being that some had small logos below the side cab window such as "Schilthorn/Piz Gloria" on 465007 to signify its James Bond connection after the film "On Her Majesty's Secret Service".

The 460 series for SBB are a different matter - some carried advertising liveries before later examples were delivered.

 

[43096]

Swiss Class 465 (BLS) all carried the original livery with BLS in bold - the only minor difference being that some had small logos below the side cab window such as "Schilthorn/Piz Gloria" on 465007 to sigjify its James Bond connection after the film "On Her Majesty's Secret Service".

Some of them (001 and 004 for a start) carried full vinyl wraps for many years.

 

[tbtc]

Good shout, you could add class 81 and 85 to the 27s as well, especially 85s as they lasted a little longer.

Ah, interesting - I didn't think of them, but I think that's more about my own personal experience (I used to watch them at Carstairs but they seemed to get very thin on the ground as the 87s/90s took over cross-border services (along with the existing 86s) - I suppose I discounted them as they seemed to me to have been withdrawn much earlier than they did - out of sight, out of mind - glad to see your post and go down a rabbit hole find out out that these locos continued to eke out a living south of the border until the 1990s

Probably opening a new can of worms but one class 27 never got rail Blue. 5383 was withdrawn in green

I didn't realise that - cheers

Where did you get the notion that 27s were passenger only? They were used extensively on freight all through their lives, indeed one batch of them wasn't ever fitted with train heat equipment.

Just based on personal experience - the "Type 2" freight that I grew up on was all in the hands of 26s (which went Railfreight and then "Dutch", so were out of scope for this thread) - whilst the 27s were doing "flagship" passenger services (Edinburgh - Glasgow) - I never saw 27s on freight - thanks for explaining