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BR mk3 Interiors


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Thanks guys, looks about right to me, though did 1st class not have dark grey leatherette seat covers at one point, or was that after privatetisation?

 

 

Definitely at least one with 'leather' - from memory brown. I do have a photo of this so if I move the storage boxes that are in front of the draw with my photos in I'll be able to put more detail to this.

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Modern Railways for Jan 1986 has a pic of Cyril Bleasdale (Sector Director) on the cover, viewed through a Mk3 window and holding a Merseyside Pullman menu. His seat is fawn with no leatherette on the upper part at least, and the end bulkhead behind him has carpet on it with a motif of trees. I presume this is a Mk3b Pullman and indeed the exterior of one is pictured, captioned as "new", on another page. The seat is a different design from the original, I've a feeling the Mk3b were fitted from new with the seat designed for APT.

 

Inside are pictures from BR of both classes of refurbished Mk3 interior, so I would guess the refurbishment is fairly recent. The Second (as it then was) has the original seats re-upholstered in red with the end partitions in a pale beige with three diagonal ovals each side of the gangway. The First has the original seats in a colour which looks pink close to the camera flash and fawn further away - colour reproduction looks a bit suspect on both pictures so they may actually be the same colour.

 

However there are plenty of pictures of Executive livery elsewhere in the same issue so I suspect some coaches were repainted without refurbishment.

 

The Standards and possibly the Firsts got new seats a few years later, the same colour but probably more of them with fewer tables.

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  • 1 month later...

Sorry to top an older post, but a search popped this up and it's a related question.

 

Can anyone please tell me the colour of the walls in the corridor at the end where the doors are? For the life of me I can't find a picture of this, although it's not exactly the most exciting of subjects so not too surprising I guess. Also, were there any advert posters or signs on the walls here? And if anyone can tell me the floor colour too that would be perfect, thanks.

 

This is for the 70s blue/grey period.

 

 

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The Mk3b stock (ie the first photo) were built in 1985 so never carried blue and grey livery. The other two photos show Mk3a stock that would have been blue and grey when built but the interiors shown are after the 1986-89 refurbishment program (when they initially received executive livery then later swallow livery).

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Yellow for most coaches, but the buffet end of the catering coaches were orange red.

Well remembered! Yes, they were.

 

Didn't first class orange seats also have a white movable squashy headrest piece? Not a flat antimacassar, but something like a small cushion affair.

Yes, a small white cushion type thing that you could move up and down.

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A little bit of extra info on Mk 3 interiors from the 80s.

 

Two HST units were re-liveried in late 1983 and early 1984 into trial versions of "Executive" livery - units 253 028 and 253 030. Five power cars were re-liveried in total - 43125 and 43126 (253 028), 43129 and 43130 (253 030) and 43151 (spare). The livery application was slightly different on these power cars compared to the version of "Executive" livery that became standard until 1987 when the Swallow era began - and the application of the "InterCity 125" lettering was different on 129 and 130 (hyphenated, solid white) compared to the other three (not hyphenated, outline).

 

So far as the Mk 3 trailers went, these early repaints retained the blue second class/orange first class interiors of the blue/grey era, but some of the trailers in each set had APT type seats (still in blue for second class). Colour photos of these interiors (and the exterior of 253 028) appeared in Modern Railways, December 1983.

 

As far as I know, all other HST Mk 3 repaints into Executive/Intercity livery were associated with interior refurbishment (red seats in second, light grey with pink flecks in first). As one poster stated, initially the same seating arrangement was used in second class (72 seats, mainly all facing tables) but from around mid 1986 the seat design changed (76 seats, mixture of airline and facing, all-in one seat back and headrest rather than the previous wedge-shaped separate headrest cushion).

 

In the Mk 3a loco hauled fleet, those that were repainted into "ScotRail" livery from 1984 retained the original blue second/orange first (in the 1190x CO series) interiors. During the last year or so of class 47/7 operated push-pull trains (1989) some of the ScotRail Mk 3a fleet received a cheap and cheerful refurbishment with red seat covers (on the original seat cushions with separate head rests) but retaining blue end saloon panelling. I can't remember whether the tables changed from blue to fawn, or whether the carpets changed from blue to red. From early 1990 these coaches went through the full refurbishment process and were replaced by a mixture of refurbished Mk 2f and 3a coaches from the LMR, which had the full refurbished interior. Some of these vehicles received "ScotRail" blue stripe livery but others went into service for a few months in full IC red stripe livery, until the end of push-pull operations in around May 1990.

 

Hope that helps.

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