When were Railtrack wagons rebranded to Network Rail

[Tallpaul69]

Hi all,

When were Railtrack wagons such as the PNA and JJA rebranded to Network Rail

 

Was the Railtrack branding blanked out prior to any repaints and if so when?

 

Thanks

Paul

[jim.snowdon]

Some time after 2002 is all that can really be said. Unlike the franchises, there was no real forewarning of the change, so no debranding, and after Railtrack was turned into Network Rail, no particular urgency to re-brand the rolling stock. The change would simply have occurred as and when wagon came up for overhaul and repainting.

 

Jim

[Mike Storey]

As Jim said....there were Railtrack livery wagons still about two years ago, at Peterborough, but the wording had been blanked out, by the looks of it, long ago. Mind you, by the state of them, I am not sure they were still in regular use.

 

It is of note that Railtrack re-branded most of its BR/other sectors' stock (albeit there was significantly less RT-owned stock than there is NR stock now) much faster than NR has done. But then, RT went bust, and NR has not (yet). Coincidence?

[micknich2003]

I took the attached picture about 0500hr on Christmas Day 2007 on my way to work, I was signalman at Hessle Road and a relaying job was in hand. As you can see, five years on, the wagons were still lettered Railtrack.

[iands]

Rebranding wasn't (and in some respects, still isn't) a priority for Network Rail as Jim, Mike and Mick have alluded to. As a slight aside from the rebranding of rolling stock taking a few years to achieve, NR are still using certain official forms that are branded RT (e.g. RT3186, RT3187 etc.). This is not some much of an issue, as the forms are not as a rule seen by the general public (unlike the rolling stock), and the staff using the forms would be quite familiar with them and in a lot of cases refer to the number only as "form 3186" etc. I understand however, that in the near future when forms need editing/rewriting to reflect operational changes/requirements, that "RT" will get replaced with "NR".

[Dungrange]

1 hour ago, Tallpaul69 said:

Hi all,

When were Railtrack wagons such as the PNA and JJA rebranded to Network Rail

 

Was the Railtrack branding blanked out prior to any repaints and if so when?

 

Thanks

Paul

 

I think the answer very much depends on the particular wagons that you are interested in.  Railtrack was placed into railway administration in 2001 and subsequently acquired by Network Rail in 2002, but there was no immediate re-branding, so wagons with Railtrack branding were common for several years afterwards. 

 

As Mick has highlighted in the photograph above, the JJA wagons were still carrying Railtrack branding in 2007 and as far as I am aware, all Railtrack JJA wagons looked like the above photograph at that time - although there were also a few carrying Carillion livery (I think it may have been five).    The Railtrack name was then painted out sometime around 2009, when these wagons simply carried a large rectangular blue painted panel over the name.  I think the JJA wagons ran in this de-branded form for at least another five years before being repainted and acquiring Network Rail logos.  I don't know when the first of these repaints were undertaken and don't know if they have all be so treated subsequently.

 

As for the PNA wagons, I'm not sure that these have ever carried Network Rail markings.  Certainly, around 2007 (which is my period of interest), I haven't seen any photographs of these wagons carrying anything but their original Railtrack branding.  I don't think the PNA fleet has seen much use since around 2008 (new bogie wagon replacements such as the JNA seeing greater use), so I don't think they were / are a priority for re-branding.

 

However, some wagons did receive Network Rail logos much earlier.  I think the MRA sets (as produced by Dapol) started to receive the Network Rail logo from around 2004 applied in place of the Railtrack name without a full repaint of the wagons sets.

 

The Beilhack snow ploughs (as produced by Hattons) didn't receive their full repaint into Network Rail livery (as modelled by Hattons) until the Autumn of 2011.  Prior to that they carried a partially de-branded version of the Railtrack livery, which I think generally comprised some black paint over the Railtrack name with the words Network Rail stencilled in white paint to indicate the new ownership.  I don't know when the de-branding exercise of these ploughs occurred.  It's something I've still to research. 

 

Ultimately, if you're interested in the period from circa 2004 you're going to have to look at dated photographs to see which wagons carried which liveries and markings over the re-branding period and you can legitimately have both company names in the latter half of the noughties.

[phil-b259]

38 minutes ago, Mike Storey said:

 But then, RT went bust, and NR has not (yet). Coincidence?

 

Given NR is officially a 100% owned Government subsidiary backed 100% by HM Treasury I don't think is even possible for NR to go 'bust'

 

[Steadfast]

2 hours ago, Dungrange said:

the JJA wagons were still carrying Railtrack branding in 2007 and as far as I am aware, all Railtrack JJA wagons looked like the above photograph at that time - although there were also a few carrying Carillion livery (I think it may have been five).    The Railtrack name was then painted out sometime around 2009, when these wagons simply carried a large rectangular blue painted panel over the name.  I think the JJA wagons ran in this de-branded form for at least another five years before being repainted and acquiring Network Rail logos

Some extra bits to add. There were 10 GTRM Autoballasters, these were rebranded to Carillion and retained this branding until gaining the yellow stripe with black NR logo. 

When the JJAs gained the yellow stripes, they had running gear overhauls / maintenance and new generators fitted. None had a full repaint, all that was done was to add the yellow stripe over the base rusty buff livery. You can still tell the ex Carillion wagons from the stripe visible above and below the yellow. Yellow striping of the JJAs happened 2015-2016 from memory.

None of the later HQA Autoballasters have had a repaint. The Railtrack buff and blue ones had the Railtrack logo painted out in blue and a white backed red and blue NR logo added. On most the blue is now wearing through and revealing the Railtrack branding again. Can't help with dates though I'm afraid. Best bet I'd do is put Autoballaster and a year into Flickr or Smugmug search and keep changing the year until you find freshly painted logos!

I'm around the real things most days, hope this is of use

 

Jo

[newbryford]

A lot of the Railtrack branded JJA/HQA simply had the Railtrack painted out without receiving NwR logos for many years.

 

2010 pic. It only seem like they have acquired yellow bands and NwR logos from about 3-4 years ago

 

 

 

Edited January 23, 2020 by newbryford

[newbryford]

3 hours ago, Dungrange said:

 

 

 

As Mick has highlighted in the photograph above, the JJA wagons were still carrying Railtrack branding in 2007 

 

 

 

 

 

The photo is of the similar HQA.

Quite easily recognisable by the Axle Motion 3 bogies and the lack of brackets along the solebar. (There are other distinguishing features- such as only the outer wagons of the 5-set have buffers on one end only - all inter-set couplers are a semi-permanently coupled knuckle)

[Dungrange]

8 minutes ago, newbryford said:

The photo is of the similar HQA.

Quite easily recognisable by the Axle Motion 3 bogies and the lack of brackets along the solebar. (There are other distinguishing features- such as only the outer wagons of the 5-set have buffers on one end only - all inter-set couplers are a semi-permanently coupled knuckle)

 

Thanks Mick - I hadn't looked at (other) Mick's photograph too closely, but now that you've pointed out the differences, I can see that Mick's photograph is indeed of a slightly different design to the one that you've posted.  To be honest, I've never really known the differences to look for. 

[Wickham Green]

13 hours ago, iands said:

........... in the near future when forms need editing/rewriting to reflect operational changes/requirements, that "RT" will get replaced with "NR".

NR could, of course, get confused with Northern Rail in some circumstances ............. so how are THEY going to re-brand their documentation when young Mr Shaps pulls the plug ?

[Tallpaul69]

Hi all,

Many thanks to you for your posts.

The reason for the question was that I am changing the period of the modern era of my Western Region Region/ FGW model from 2002-7 to 2016 (so now Western region/GwR). I need to decide how to use/ repaint my Railtrack wagons.

From info you sent I think the JJAs will just loose their branding and the PNAs will go rusty. My excuse for still running PNAs is that I like them and the scenario is that the JJAs etc. are too big for use on the branch lines so some PNAs are still in use!

I will also take up the suggestion of looking at Flickr in specific years.

 

Best regards

Paul

[iands]

1 hour ago, Wickham Green said:

NR could, of course, get confused with Northern Rail in some circumstances ............. so how are THEY going to re-brand their documentation when young Mr Shaps pulls the plug ?

Point taken.......... except that the forms in question are used as a communication record between driver & signaller, or operating staff (MOM, S&T etc.) & signaller, when taking possessions, single line working, operation perturbations, equipment disconnections etc., (there are about 40 separate forms identified on the RSSB website for different scenarios) and apply nationally over the whole network. Any forms produced by Northern Rail will only apply internally to that organisation, and not with signallers etc.

[petethemole]

Some rebranded wagons seen at Eastleigh over the relevant period:

 

Rebranded MRAs 01/04/2016:

 

Reranded HQA, 26/02/2016:

 

Partially repainted JJA, 15/07/2017:

[Mike Storey]

18 hours ago, phil-b259 said:

 

Given NR is officially a 100% owned Government subsidiary backed 100% by HM Treasury I don't think is even possible for NR to go 'bust'

 

 

Yes, it was a joke Phil......

[Steadfast]

3 hours ago, petethemole said:

Partially repainted JJA, 15/07/2017:

Nice, one of the ex Carrilion 10 (see it has a thin dark blue stripe with beige above it, the ex Railtrack ones are brown stripes, with mid blue band above and below)

Modelling a Carillion one in amongst a load of Railtrack adds some nice variety to a rake.

Jo

[Dungrange]

5 minutes ago, Steadfast said:

Modelling a Carillion one in amongst a load of Railtrack adds some nice variety to a rake.

 

I had hoped that Bachmann would produce one of their JJA wagons in Carillion livery at some point, but given the price of the last batch and the comments on here that Bachmann have indicated it's unlikely they will ever produce more JJA wagons because of the price, I doubt that will ever happen.  I'll therefore just stick with my Railtrack versions.

[Ron Ron Ron]

17 hours ago, Steadfast said:

....None of the later HQA Autoballasters have had a repaint. The Railtrack buff and blue ones had the Railtrack logo painted out in blue and a white backed red and blue NR logo added......

Are you sure about that?

I’m not a “spotter” but I remember seeing a freshly painted set of all yellow HQA’s at Eastleigh, sometime in the mid naughties.

A quick search on Google came up with some photos...

 

 

[Dungrange]

23 minutes ago, Ron Ron Ron said:

Are you sure about that?

I’m not a “spotter” but I remember seeing a freshly painted set of all yellow HQA’s at Eastleigh, sometime in the mid naughties.

A quick search on Google came up with some photos...

 

 

I could be wrong, but I think there was more than one batch of these wagons built.  The first batch were delivered in Railtrack Blue and Buff colour scheme with the Railtrack name, but by the time the second or subsequent batch were delivered, Network Rail had already taken over and they were delivered in Network Rail yellow from new.  I think the point being made is that none of the first batch that originally carried the Railtrack name have been repainted.

[Steadfast]

Correct, the NR yellow and Metronet yellow HQAs were built in yellow. Most are looking very faded and rusty now, says I whilst staring at a set of 15 HQAs (3x 5 set), some yellow and some buff. All very rusty and faded now

 

Jo

[hmrspaul]

On 23/01/2020 at 20:26, Dungrange said:

 

 

 

As Mick has highlighted in the photograph above, the JJA wagons were still carrying Railtrack branding in 2007 and as far as I am aware, all Railtrack JJA wagons looked like the above photograph at that time - although there were also a few carrying Carillion livery (I think it may have been five).    The Railtrack name was then painted out sometime around 2009, when these wagons simply carried a large rectangular blue painted panel over the name.  I think the JJA wagons ran in this de-branded form for at least another five years before being repainted and acquiring Network Rail logos.  I don't know when the first of these repaints were undertaken and don't know if they have all be so treated subsequently.

 

 

York Netto rail workshops did some work on the JJAs in 2016 and 2017 going in with the Railtrack blocked out and emerging with NR branding of various types

https://paulbartlett.zenfolio.com/gersautoballaster

 

One of the Carillion ones still had the full lettering in July 2015 https://PaulBartlett.zenfolio.com/gersautoballaster/e51401bf9

 

Paul

[Dungrange]

On 24/01/2020 at 22:45, hmrspaul said:

York Netto rail workshops did some work on the JJAs in 2016 and 2017 going in with the Railtrack blocked out and emerging with NR branding of various types

https://paulbartlett.zenfolio.com/gersautoballaster

 

It appears from your photographs that that was also when the prefix was changed from GERS to NR: those with de-branded Railtrack livery being GERS and the yellow ones being NR.

[Inoffapost]

More than a bit late to this topic but as the JJA's are a bit of a theme with me I couldn't resist it. 

There was actually 1 JJA that received an all white livery with the 'GE' meatball logo and GE Rail Services signage. Bachmann actually reproduced it as a limited run exclusive model for their club members.

I went with the real thing on a european jaunt to a transport expo in Munich and then took part in some live demos with 2 other JJA's in Germany on a new build ICE route, before trials with the SNCF and Swedish Railways. 

They eventually returned to the UK and became part of the GE/Railtrack contract. I've still got a set of keys to start one up and the handset to operate it. 🤣 Found them in the shed some years ago. Might still work....who knows🤣

[andye]

As an aside to the wagons,  there were some ex BR road vehicles that had Railtrack branding over the BR branding, such as astra vans etc - does anyone have a picture of any? I have trawled the ususal places but drawn a blank...