Class 31 elusive green SYE but with double arrow logo?

[w124bob]

I have found just one image (in print) of D5677 with a SYE but carrying a double arrow. Now I know many dozens of class 31's received full yellow ends and variations on the double arrow theme but how many retained the SYE for anytime? I did see a caption somewhere in print which referred to 15 similar loco's can the RMweb collective help?

[rodent279]

5 minutes ago, w124bob said:

I have found just one image (in print) of D5677 with a SYE but carrying a double arrow. Now I know many dozens of class 31's received full yellow ends and variations on the double arrow theme but how many retained the SYE for anytime? I did see a caption somewhere in print which referred to 15 similar loco's can the RMweb collective help?

This one?

 

[w124bob]

1 hour ago, rodent279 said:

This one?

 

A better picture of this loco appears in Vol3 of Sixties Diesel & Electric Remembered from Strathwood. But yes that's the only one I've found.

[Jeremy Cumberland]

Do you distinguish between class 30 and class 31? There's a picture of D5513 on the Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Rail_Class_31

 

There's a lovely colour picture of D5610 on Pinterest: (or use https://www.pinterest.ch/pin/295056213087353935/ if the other link does not work; I don't know about other people but I find Pinterest a right PITA of a site).

[BrushVeteran]

D5513, D5610/38/43/62/65/77/85, D5802/13/15/25 are locos known to have carried the new BR double arrow logo whilst sporting small yellow panels within BR green livery

[GERARDTCC]

Yes Graham's list is correct. I posted the list on our Flickr group some time ago  https://www.flickr.com/groups/1691087@N24/discuss/72157718635190272/

 This version of green with arrows was only applied between 1/11/66 and 4/1/67 hence the small number of locos. Full yellow ends commenced with D5694 0n 6/1/67

[stovepipe]

So apart from D5513, all had been re-engined at the same time as the arrows were applied.

Edited October 18, 2021 by stovepipe

[Halvarras]

14 hours ago, GERARDTCC said:

Yes Graham's list is correct. I posted the list on our Flickr group some time ago  https://www.flickr.com/groups/1691087@N24/discuss/72157718635190272/

 This version of green with arrows was only applied between 1/11/66 and 4/1/67 hence the small number of locos. Full yellow ends commenced with D5694 0n 6/1/67

 

I've checked out the link, very interesting. So 5621 & 5623 were repainted in 1969, two years after the others. At that date they would not have received D prefixes and the central position of 5623's number on the cabside confirms this. TBH I could never understand why the arrows were applied so high up on these repaints - the BR lion & wheel emblems weren't. To my eyes 5623 looks 'right'. 5557 with its cabside arrows was a complete surprise when I spotted it stabled at Leicester from a passing train on 26 July 1970. Many years later I reproduced the livery on an Airfix model (one of the rare ones without the usual bag-of-nails sound track!)

 

Despite so many of these green-with-arrows 31s lasting into the 1970s only 5827 is known to have received TOPS numbers, it now seems for just two weeks (15/2 - 2/3/74) - I can vouch for its existence as I saw it as 31294 passing Reading eastbound light engine on 16/2/74, it was the first TOPS green mainline diesel I'd seen! 5818 got close but went to Doncaster in green where I understand '31286' was written in chalk on its cabside. Another was 5668, still green at Swindon on 5/1/74 but evidently followed 5818's path to Doncaster to emerge as 31241 in blue.

 

I have mentioned this elsewhere on a previous thread but just for the record here, 5827 managed to reach Penzance in green-with-arrows livery on 1V76 from Liverpool on 29/6/73.

[w124bob]

Regarding the height of the double arrow, my guess is the horizontal centre line of the arrow matches the same on the numbers, that would appear to be the case with 5610.

[Halvarras]

11 minutes ago, w124bob said:

Regarding the height of the double arrow, my guess is the horizontal centre line of the arrow matches the same on the numbers, that would appear to be the case with 5610.

 

Good point, hadn't thought of that - the original standard blue application required the cabside arrows and bodyside numbers to be aligned horizontally (on all classes, not just 31s), presumably awareness of this led to such alignment on these green repaints.

I recall looking at Deltic 9000 at Kings Cross in 1973 and thinking standards had slipped, as the numbers were too high!

[Russell Saxton]

Yep only 5827 as TOPS. I have a poor res shot of it at Bristol parkway 2/3/74 sent to me by marcc Koch, unmistakeably 31294 but too far  away to read the number accurately, obviously a TOPSer though.