WorldRailFans

Further to the recent query by John Udics and the comments made by Greg Mashiah, there has been a variety of colour schemes used on the railways in Great Britain over the years and many of these can now be seen on both preserved railways and on the main line today.

Back in 1923, all the individual railway companies were grouped together to form the so called 'big four'. These were the Great Western Railway (GWR), the Southern Railway (SR), the London, Midland & Scottish Railway (LMS) and the London & North Eastern Railway (LNER). They all had their own individual colour schemes for their rolling stock

The GWR went for Chocolate and Cream, although I have read that it was originally Chocolate and White; however, the varnish used to go a bit yellowy after time and therefore looked more cream than white. The Severn Valley Railway has a superb collection of ex GWR coaches in original GWR livery :



Clicking on the picture will enlarge it and take you to the others.

The SR chose green :



This is one on the Kent & East Sussex Railway. Again, clicking on the picture will enlarge it and take you to some others.

The LMS coaches were maroon and this is an LMS coach on the Foxfield Railway. As with the others, clicking on the picture will enlarge it :



Finally, the LNER didn't paint their coaches any colour at all. They were built out of teak which was then varnished giving a natural look. The Severn Valley has a super collection of these and here is one of them :



You know what to do to enlarge it and see the others!

In 1948 the railways of Britain were nationalized and the newly formed British Railways chose Carmine and Cream, otherwise known as 'blood and custard'!, as the standard livery for main line coaching stock. All the 'big four' rolling stock was re-painted in this livery and here is one of the ex LNER previously varnished teak coaches in the new colour scheme :



This one is on the Great Central Railway and the picture can be enlarged by clicking on it.

For a few years, BR turned out some more coaches of the 'big four' designs, but, in 1951, they brought out the BR Standard Mark 1 design. These, to begin with, were also painted in the standard carmine and cream livery. There's one at the end of this train on the Llangollen Railway :


Which brings us to 1956 when there were some further livery changes. The carmine and cream was difficult to keep clean so an LMS style maroon livery was used instead. However, it was not universal. The Western Region reverted to a GWR style chocolate and cream livery for its best trains and some Mark 1 coaches were turned out in that livery. See the first three coaches in the above picture.

The Southern Region went back to a SR style green :



The other regions used the standard maroon livery :



However, all this was to change in the late 1960s when the blue and grey livery was introduced :


Hope this clarifies things a bit. Or have I confused you even more?!

_________________
Ron Fisher.


http://www.flickr.com/photos/train-pix/

great introduction, thanks!

I like the last the best, but maybe because it is a railcar

Ron, thank you sincerely. The veil has been lifted. All has been revealed.

I'm sure there are exceptions and permutations, but I can live with that (the above).

Really. Thanks.

There are indeed many permutations on the way too many to go into, but I would comment that BR did not just introduce blue-and-grey at mid-1960s - blue and grey applied only to ''express'' stock - non-express stock was all over blue no grey, and that situation lasted many years, all blue for suburban EMU and DMU must have lasted 10 maybe 12 years, which is actually a significant of time and a lot longer than the earlier reds and maroons and greens and browns and so on lasted. BR SR took all blue literally - and painted express units all blue eg Rep and TC entered traffic that way - and definitely came into express almost intercity category.

There were obviously many variants to blue / blue-grey - local applications of all blue with white band (DMU on special routes) , reversed grey and blue [Pullman] and so on, just as there were deviations from thre greens and maroons, but all blue was not a deviation, it was a main livery that lasted a long long time and desrves to be counted in its own right as a main livery.

--
Nick