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BR green locos in the late 1970s


MarshLane
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22 hours ago, rodent279 said:

If it's the same one, it spent years in Wolverton works, visible from the main line, in the sidings at the south end of the works. I think it was made redundant by a fall-off in traffic on the Bury route. AFAIK they were never looked at for Euston-Watford/Broad St - different voltage (1200V D.C. as opposed to 630 V D.C.) & method of collection (side contact instead of top contact) for a start, plus I believe they were too long, being standard 19m Mk1's.

 

Yeah, I found quite a few pictures of the other surplus 504 carriages on Flickr and one of them said "Service reductions on the Manchester - Bury line in the 1960's saw several cars in both BR Green and early BR Blue stored out of service at Bury Depot for many years."

 

1978 Croxley Green

 

'Side-Contact' at Croxley..

 

1982

 

Croxley Green 504.

 

Northampton 1980

 

Bury units for spares

 

Watford 1982

 

Manchester-Bury Class 504 EMU's - Watford Junction.

 

Bury 1977

 

Class 504 Manchester-Bury DTS M77158M - Bury Electric Depot.

 

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One Class 504 vehicle, 77164, was used to replace accident-damaged vehicle 75292 in ER Class 302 set 244, in the early 70s; Perhaps BR expected more such incidents ?!!

 

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How about this unsurprisingly weathered green 20075 at Westhouses on 13/4/79?

This was the last loco in original BR green livery I ever saw (the previous one had been 08919 somewhere in the Birmingham area well over a year earlier) .

I thought headcode discs were supposed to be white...........?!

 

2087678774_790413_20075Westhouses1.jpg.3faa765e7027d68618df127226e82528.jpg1362731955_790413_20075Westhouses2.jpg.c804fff8472e919c09538662a61e7104.jpg

 

 

 

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9 hours ago, Neil Phillips said:

I thought headcode discs were supposed to be white...........?!

Discs white when opened though they weathered and rusted as can be seen.  Discs matched the base colour when closed so yellow, green or what ever other colour they were against.  

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On 21/05/2020 at 15:11, Johann Marsbar said:

Surprised nobody has mentioned the 03 at Bristol which was a rather tatty green in October 1977...

 

BR105.jpg.8598cb5ac317872e14c568559ebea2ab.jpg

 

So that was why it was so clean and shiny when first seen a year or 2 later.

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D2382 always seemed to be a bit of a laggard - it was still carrying its pre-TOPS number (in large numerals) when I saw it on Bath Road on 10/8/74, parked with blue 03121 (the bulk of TOPS renumbering by depots was carried out Feb-Apr 74). It was eventually renumbered 03382 the following month.

Two years later on 31/7/76 I took a similar photo of it from the platform at Temple Meads, then went around to Bath Road depot where I photographed these two ex-Laira locos - that was all three green TOPS Class 03s caught on film within the hour.

I had previously seen 03134 coupled to 50050 laid over at Taunton on 22/5/76, presumably en route to here. What a humble duty for a 100mph express passenger locomotive!

 

1759389774_760731_0312803134BristolBRd.jpg.3992f027cf0afc5d589d0ec112cb7a05.jpg

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Question-were TOPS data panels always blue, even on green locos, or were any green ones produced?

I think pretty much every photo I've seen of a green diesel loco has a blue TOPS data panel, where it's visible.

Just wondering, because piffling trivia interests me!

 

Cheers N

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1 hour ago, rodent279 said:

Question-were TOPS data panels always blue, even on green locos, or were any green ones produced?

I think pretty much every photo I've seen of a green diesel loco has a blue TOPS data panel, where it's visible.

Just wondering, because piffling trivia interests me!

 

Cheers N

 

Always blue.

 

Mike.

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1 hour ago, rodent279 said:

Question-were TOPS data panels always blue, even on green locos, or were any green ones produced?

I think pretty much every photo I've seen of a green diesel loco has a blue TOPS data panel, where it's visible.

Just wondering, because piffling trivia interests me!

 

Cheers N

 

Yes they were always blue on green and maroon locos (the first one I saw with them was D838 Rapid, as modelled by Bachmann, on 11/9/68) as were depot allocation stickers. I suppose all green locos were expected to be repainted blue within a short timeframe, which turned out to be a long timeframe.....! 40106 repainted green in 1978 had blue data panels, and I suspect 55002 did too for its retro paint job job but I can't find a photo to prove it right now.

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Personally on a loco I'd call a data panel or TOPS panel (never actually heard it called that) the same thing. The design did change slightly around the end of 1975...

Original style

20050 with odd data panel swindon 6 June 1981

Photo Russell Saxton

 

Later style from late 1975 onwards

 

46026 100983 3

Photo Steven Clements

 

Note the lack of ETH index on the original style. As proved by 20050, photographed in 1981, they didn't change the data panel unless the loco was repainted.

Edited by Flood
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The data panel design was changed in the Autumn of '73, not '75 ;).

 

In the stores building at Old Oak there were still a large number of unused original '1968' style data panel and depot stickers in 1983!

 

 

Edited by Rugd1022
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12 hours ago, Flood said:

Personally on a loco I'd call a data panel or TOPS panel (never actually heard it called that) the same thing. The design did change slightly around the end of 1975...

Original style

20050 with odd data panel swindon 6 June 1981

 

Later style from late 1975 onwards

46026 100983 3

 

Note the lack of ETH index on the original style. As proved by 20050, photographed in 1981, they didn't change the data panel unless the loco was repainted.




Where did you get the picture of 20050. It's my shot taken at Swindon 6 June 81.
No issue with using it but I would like to be credited.

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29 minutes ago, Rugd1022 said:

The data panel design was changed in the Autumn of '73, not '75 ;).

 

In the stores building at Old Oak there were still a large number of unused original '1968' style data panel and depot stickers in 1983!

 

 

I bow to your knowledge. The first loco I've noticed the revised style on was 50002 at Crewe in Nov 1975 and seeing as I model 1976 onwards I never bothered to look back any further.

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1 minute ago, Russell Saxton said:




Where did you get the picture of 20050. It's my shot taken at Swindon 6 June 81.
No issue with using it but I would like to be credited.

I linked to the url on flickr so if it's clicked on it will go to your original picture. I'll add credits to both photos on my original post anyway (which I should have done in the first place and not been in so much of a hurry).

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I know what you mean Russ. A certain book which took an 'in-depth' look at Classes 24 & 25 used two of my photos of Class 24s at Swindon Works in 1976 without credit. If my assumption regarding the source is correct they were not copyrighted but there was no excuse for the lack of credit. I was a tad miffed, had a 'bl**dy cheek' sort of mutter but left it at that. 

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On 24/05/2020 at 22:51, Neil Phillips said:

 

Yes they were always blue on green and maroon locos (the first one I saw with them was D838 Rapid, as modelled by Bachmann, on 11/9/68) as were depot allocation stickers. I suppose all green locos were expected to be repainted blue within a short timeframe, which turned out to be a long timeframe.....! 40106 repainted green in 1978 had blue data panels, and I suspect 55002 did too for its retro paint job job but I can't find a photo to prove it right now.

55002 had blue blue data panels hand painted with green to match when it had the two tone green repaint, but this didn’t prove to be very resilient and soon wore off. 
Apart from the style change shown in the above photos a close look will show the other change. The original style was loco class specific, whereas the revised style had the class number and other numerical data left blank and this information comprised self adhesive numerals applied as appropriate. This can be seen in the slightly wonky application on 46026.

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  • 2 months later...

For those interested in this sort of thing I have a book on the topic out this month.
BR from Green to Blue. 
96 pages of illustrations with detailed captions and lists of locos in particular livery styles and combinations that should answer a lot of questions hopefully.
https://shop.keypublishing.com/product/View/productCode/B700/BR: From Green to Blue Book?fbclid=IwAR32fJ4fTw-g6dfURd7b-oQBHC70zA6zSohkU7J8kxzghCXEYCC8vlXEwmc

BR- From Green to Blue cover.jpg

Edited by Russell Saxton
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