Entry posted by Jim Martin
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These notes are a work-in-progress and I'll be more than happy to hear from anyone who can provide amendments or more details. I'm looking at the passenger services in and out of Liverpool Lime Street in 2006. Four TOCs operated into the main line station: I've started with Northern Rail, which operated by far the largest number of trains. Virgin West Coast, Central Trains and Transpennine Express will follow at some point in the future.
Around Liverpool, Northern operated on three main corridors:
Liverpool-Manchester Victoria, via Earlestown and the original L&M line across Chat Moss. In addition to the purely local service, Northern operated a Liverpool-Manchester Airport service which used the L&M route as far as Ordsall Lane Junction, then Manchester Oxford Road and Piccadilly and on to the airport. The local trains were mainly Class 142 and 150, while the airport trains were always 156s.
Liverpool-Wigan North-Western, via St. Helens. I generally associate the Wigan service at this time with Class 150s, particularly the Regional Railways-liveried units, but I'm not certain how accurate that impression is. Some trains were extended via Preston to Blackpool North. These were generally operated with Class 156s.
Liverpool-Manchester Oxford Road, via Warrington Central and the Cheshire Lines route. Operated by a mix of Class 142s (mainly) and 150s. Some trains terminated at Warrington.
Northern's DMU fleet was based at three depots: Newton Heath (Manchester), Neville Hill (Leeds) and Heaton (Newcastle). Most of the trains which served Liverpool were covered by Newton Heath, so I've concentrated on the units allocated to that depot.
Newton Heath's allocation totalled 113 units of three classes: 50 Class 142s, 40 Class 150s (18 Class 150/1 and 22 Class 150/2 - the entire Northern fleet) and 23 Class 156s. In the first year of the franchise, Northern had removed the branding from all of its inherited units and replaced it on some units with monochrome "Northern" logos. These were either black or white, depending on the base livery colour of the unit they were being applied to. This process continued into 2006. I've used "debranded" to describe units without any logos and "rebranded" for units with these monochrome logos, which are illustrated below.
In addition to the debranding/rebranding exercise, several units received transitional colour schemes. A couple were placeholders for units painted immediately before the franchise handover, while others were experimental schemes designed for the new franchise. By 2006 a couple of units were carrying a scheme very similar in concept (although significantly different in detail) to the scheme which finally emerged as the standard livery and which is in near-universal use today. No units received the now-standard scheme until 2007.
I've decided to sort this listing by colour scheme, rather than by class. For the purposes of N gauge I think that livery is more important than car or even unit numbers (athough obviously I plan to get those things right too). All of the prototype photographs are copyright of Martyn Read and are used with permission. Martyn lives on RMWeb under the name "Glorious NSE" and his website can be found at: http://ukrailwaypics.smugmug.com/. The photos aren't necessarily of Newton Heath units: they're just to illustrate the liveries.
At the start of 2006, Newton Heath units carried the following colour schemes:
First North-Western blue/gold
Carried by:
Class 142 - 142001, 003-5, 007, 009, 011-014, 023, 027-040, 060-064, 067, 068, 070 (33 units)
Class 150/1 - 150133, 135-144, 146-150 (16 units)
Class 150/2 - 150201, 203, 205, 207, 211, 215, 218, 222-225 (11 units)
Many units had been rebranded with white logos. One unit was reallocated away from Newton Heath over the course of the year. 150133 was loaned to Silverlink in November: it was sent to Bletchley, where it was used on the line to Bedford.
Farish produce their Class 150/1 in FNW livery. The model could be "Northernised" by removing the logos and replacing with white Northern logos. Something that I'd like to look at is the possibility of converting the 150/1 into a 150/2. I'm not sure if this would simply be a matter of rebuilding the driving ends to add the gangway. Nor do I know how easy that would actually be. This livery is not among those that Dapol have announced for their Class 142.
First Group "Barbie" blue/magenta and white
Carried by:
Class 156 - 156420-421, 423-424, 427-428, 440-441, 452, 466 (10 units)
These units were rebranded with white logos. I believe that not all of them had been done by the start of 2006.
Dapol produced their Class 156 in this livery, complete with Northern rebranding. Unfortunately, this model seems to be extremely hard to find.
Northern Spirit turquoise/lime green
Carried by:
Class 156 - 156468, 470-472, 498 (5 units)
These were former Arriva Trains North units which had been transferred to the North-West in 2005. Most had been rebranded with white logos, but a few were debranded and at least 156468 received black logos.
The Dapol Class 156 is readily available in debranded Northern Spirit livery as Newton Heath's 156498
Merseytravel yellow/white
Carried by:
Class 142 - 142041-049, 051-058 (17 units)
These units had some significant differences from "stock" Class 142s. In particular, they had all been fitted with large dot-matrix route indicators - much larger than the standard destination blinds - above the cab windows. Many were rebranded with black logos and all carried Merseytravel's "M" logo on each car as well (at some point in 2006, 142051 suffered collision damage which required one cab to be rebuilt: this car did not receive an "M" logo when repainted).
This livery has not been announced by Dapol for their Class 142.
Regional Railways blue/beige
Carried by:
Class 150/2 - 150228, 268-277 (11 units)
These units had been rebranded with a mix of white and black logos. Starting in October 2006 with 150228, these units started to go into works for repainting into the early version of the Northern livery (see below). This process carried on into the following year: when the last two, 150271 and 150273, got their new livery in the spring of 2007, they were the last Regional Railways-liveried units on the UK network.
The Farish Class 150/2 is available in the Regional Railways scheme. It could be turned into a Northern unit by removing the logos and replacing them with Northern logos.
Plain blue
Carried by:
Class 150/1 - 150134 (1 unit)
Class 156 - 156426, 429, 455, 459 (4 units)
The 150 (photo here, in pre-Northern days: this thread also contains several other photos of units in early Northern liveries) was the same shade of blue as the FNW blue and gold, which it had carried until vandalism damage resulted in the gold vinyls being removed. The doors were blue, as per the FNW scheme.
The 156s (photos here: this site also contains photos of 156s in all Northern liveries and is my first port-of-call for 156-related information) were painted the same indigo blue as the base shade of the "Barbie" scheme and had white doors. This was a placeholder scheme applied in the last weeks of the FNW franchise.
Neither of these schemes is available ready-to-run.
Northern lilac/white
Carried by:
Class 156 - 156425, 460, 464 (3 units)
An experimental scheme applied in 2005 before Northern had settled on a corporate image (there was another version which was essentially the same as this, but with the white and lilac reversed: the only unit which carried it was based at Heaton). These units carried white and lilac "Northern" logos, much larger than the monochrome logos used for rebranding.
This scheme has never appeared on the Dapol 156.
Northern blue/lilac
Carried by:
Class 150/1 - 150145 (1 unit)
Class 156 - 156461 (1 unit)
Applied to several 150/2 units from October 2006 onwards
Although the layout is very similar to the standard Northern livery of today, this differs from it in several respects. The upwards "swoosh" is angular, rather than curved on the later version of the scheme. Also, the colour is much more of a pastel lilac shade, as opposed to the richer purple used today. The Class 156 carried no branding at all at the start of the year, but soon thereafter received large white and lilac "Northern" logos and also the company's web address (on the lilac panel). Both these units carried promotional vinyls. 150145's advertised the Buxton Festival: they were applied in mid-2005 and were retained at least until mid 2007. 156461 received vinyls advertising the Ravenglass & Eskdale Railway in August 2006.
Although Dapol have produced a couple of Northern-liveried Class 156s, they have never offered this early version.
Although Newton Heath covered most Liverpool-area duties, units from other depots were also seen. In particular, Heaton-based Class 142s in Northern Spirit livery (one of the schemes announced by Dapol for the first releases) and Arriva turquoise and cream seem to have been regular visitors to Lime Street
Jim
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