White/Blue Refurbished DMU livery

[Legend]

The livery was pretty impractical to keep clean but they did brighten up the rail scene mid-late 70s when everything else was Blue or Blue/Grey .  I repainted my Hornby Met Cam dmu  back in 1979. Regrettably I then repainted it Strathclyde orange which was a bit of a disaster !.  If Hornby released the Limby one in refurb colours Id certainly buy it , preferring 3 car unit over Bachmann 2 car version.

[montyburns56]

9 hours ago, Legend said:

The livery was pretty impractical to keep clean but they did brighten up the rail scene mid-late 70s when everything else was Blue or Blue/Grey .  I repainted my Hornby Met Cam dmu  back in 1979. Regrettably I then repainted it Strathclyde orange which was a bit of a disaster !.  If Hornby released the Limby one in refurb colours Id certainly buy it , preferring 3 car unit over Bachmann 2 car version.

 

Yes, it did look attractive, but I do wonder who it was at BR who thought it would be a good colour for a railway carriage.

[montyburns56]

I love these pictures of the "hybrid" units.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Merfyn Jones]

1 hour ago, montyburns56 said:

 

Yes, it did look attractive, but I do wonder who it was at BR who thought it would be a good colour for a railway carriage.

 

I think he still works for a number of current train operators.

[SRman]

14 hours ago, Legend said:

The livery was pretty impractical to keep clean but they did brighten up the rail scene mid-late 70s when everything else was Blue or Blue/Grey .  I repainted my Hornby Met Cam dmu  back in 1979. Regrettably I then repainted it Strathclyde orange which was a bit of a disaster !.  If Hornby released the Limby one in refurb colours Id certainly buy it , preferring 3 car unit over Bachmann 2 car version.

 

5 hours ago, montyburns56 said:

 

Yes, it did look attractive, but I do wonder who it was at BR who thought it would be a good colour for a railway carriage.

The thought occurs to me that the German ICE units and some intercity trains use a similar white livery with a red stripe at waist level. Do they require extra cleaning regimens, I wonder?

Speaking of repainting models, I was inspired to paint my ancient Triang Met-Cam DMU into the white scheme. It looked quite good, in spite of the model being a little short on length. Bringing the roof colour down to the door-top level made a big difference to the models visual proportions. I think I still have that model in a box, somewhere.

[montyburns56]

22 hours ago, Merfyn Jones said:

 

I think he still works for a number of current train operators.

 

But there's a big difference between an impractical livery and one that makes your eyeballs bleed. 

[jim.snowdon]

4 hours ago, montyburns56 said:

 

But there's a big difference between an impractical livery and one that makes your eyeballs bleed. 

Yes, but it was a distinct improvement over the previous, and often very drab looking, all-over blue. So, in its way, was the blue with white waist level stripe that appeared in the early 1970s on the units that operated the services between Manchester and Blackpool.

 

Jim

[EddieK]

On the prototype refurbished Metro Cammell unit as shown above with the thin blue stripe, indeed the other side was a thicker blue stripe which was adopted for the production version. 

https://www.railcar.co.uk/images/4181

But - on the prototype the stripe was higher up on the body - the commode handles (grab handles for the doors) intrude on the stripe, but for the main fleet application, the stripe was below these handles. This slightly lower stripe allowed the livery to sit properly on classes with deeper bodyside windows, such as Class 108.

[BernardTPM]

I found the BR leaflet on the prototype refurbishment (six-page fold out):

[montyburns56]

5 hours ago, BernardTPM said:

I found the BR leaflet on the prototype refurbishment (six-page fold out):

 

Thanks Bernard, although it seems that the art department wasn't kept up to date on this project.

[montyburns56]

New Holland Station(s)

 

 

 

 

[dvdlcs]

Something I noticed in the picture of the unique side on the initial unit, was no regional prefix for the number.

 

Never understood why regional prefixes persisted with the BR standard build stock - just another thing to be wrong / have to be changed for no obvious, at least to me, benefit.

[kevinlms]

3 hours ago, dvdlcs said:

Something I noticed in the picture of the unique side on the initial unit, was no regional prefix for the number.

 

Never understood why regional prefixes persisted with the BR standard build stock - just another thing to be wrong / have to be changed for no obvious, at least to me, benefit.

Probably for the usual reason = money! Each region, presumably only wanted to pay for the maintenance of vehicles used for it's services.

[EddieK]

On 30/04/2020 at 11:47, dvdlcs said:

Something I noticed in the picture of the unique side on the initial unit, was no regional prefix for the number.

 

Never understood why regional prefixes persisted with the BR standard build stock - just another thing to be wrong / have to be changed for no obvious, at least to me, benefit.

I suspect that the prototype refurbished unit deliberately didn't have regional prefixes as it was intended to tour the country to demonstrate what could be done as part of refurbishment. According to the DMU allocation history book, the set was based at Neville Hill from 5/74 (when first back into traffic until it transferred to Eastfield in 4/75. Purely a guess, but I wonder if there was a special cost centre set up for maintaining this unit and allowing it to travel around the country....?

Until sectorisation in the 1980s, the Regions were king. Perhaps it was a sense of being territorial that made them apply regional prefixes to carriage stock?

[montyburns56]

 

[Market65]

That’s a good photo’ of a refurbished class 101 DTCL. It’s of interest since that cab end has no buffers, and the lamp irons are drooping down. Also the multiple control jumpers are missing. I wonder if it’s been in a rough shunt, or just simply that the work on it was not yet finished at the time of the photo’?

 

Best regards,

 

 Rob.

[montyburns56]

On 08/05/2020 at 20:27, Market65 said:

That’s a good photo’ of a refurbished class 101 DTCL. It’s of interest since that cab end has no buffers, and the lamp irons are drooping down. Also the multiple control jumpers are missing. I wonder if it’s been in a rough shunt, or just simply that the work on it was not yet finished at the time of the photo’?

 

Best regards,

 

 Rob.

 

The caption says that's it's ex-works so I presume it's a work in progress.

[Market65]

Thank you, montyburns56, that explains it nicely. Good to know it wasn’t the result of the rough shunt which came into my mind.

 

Rob.

[montyburns56]

And here's one they made earlier...

 

Newark 1977

 

 

[dvdlcs]

I don't remember if this has been mentioned before, but from memory the prototype refurbished 101 ended up being unique because some of the refurbishments were not carried over to the remaining units. Not sure what those features were, but I remember that being the case.

[John M Upton]

The livery was certainly unique, it was different on each side!!

[BernardTPM]

The lowered ceiling with new lighting and the new seats in First Class were not repeated as far as I know.

[keefer]

info on the refurbishment plan: https://www.railcar.co.uk/type/class-101/refurbishment

includes a link to the BR publicity brochure: https://www.railcar.co.uk/promotional-material/brochures/refurbishment/?name=refurbishment

[BernardTPM]

Which is the same brochure I posted here about 3 weeks ago.

Edited May 11, 2020 by BernardTPM

[45125]

On 08/05/2020 at 20:27, Market65 said:

That’s a good photo’ of a refurbished class 101 DTCL. It’s of interest since that cab end has no buffers, and the lamp irons are drooping down. Also the multiple control jumpers are missing. I wonder if it’s been in a rough shunt, or just simply that the work on it was not yet finished at the time of the photo’?

 

Best regards,

 

 Rob.

It has had a rough shunt on its Home Depot, there are some odd marks on the dummies and it more than likely had Oleo buffers. It would have left whichever works that did it completely finished.