Regional Railways class 150/2

[Dan Griffin]

Hi all

 

when did regional railways branding & livery start appearing on 150/2 units? Replacing the ‘Sprinter’ logo?
 

i have a Reggie Rail Bachmann 150 & i’m contemplating masking the blue & stripes and painting the bodysides grey and adding Sprinter logos. This will save a full repaint.
 
thanks

 

Dan 

[wombatofludham]

I've got a feeling it would have been 1992-3.  I think the 153 conversions were the first to wear the new "Regional Railways" livery and branding in late 1991, and looking on Flickr there is a shot of a 150/1 newly outshopped in Reggie Rail in 1992 at an open day.  The earliest picture I could find of a fully Regional liveried 150/2 was 1993 although with "Scotrail" branding. 

Might be worth just having a search through Flickr to see if there are any earlier repaints.

[warringtonbankquay]

Don't forget that the 150/2 Provincial liveried Sprinters originally had a centre window in the gangway door.

 

I can't recall seeing photos of a Provincial livery 150/2 without the centre window.  New gangway doors without the window seem to have appeared sometime during the Regional Railways era.

 

A nice filthy fly screen could be added to disguise the absence of a window.  To their credit, Bachmann have recently added the window on later releases.

 

Chris

[Wheatley]

Agreed around 1992/93, because I tried to blag a set of vinyls to rebrand my BR van. "Not a stock item" - bah ! 

[Cruachan]

Looking back through my Platform 5 Combined Volumes, 150229 was the only 150/2 to have been reliveried into Regional Railways livery at the end of 1992, while by the end of 1993 there were fourteen (150227/28/29, 231/35/37, 248, 250/52/53/56, 260/62 & 271). So a fairly gradual process primarily throughout 1993 and '94.

[adb968008]

150229 had the centre window in RR livery in 1992-1994

 

heres a potted history of 150229, which is typical for many of the class…

 

All flickr urls, not mine.

 

how it all began one day in 1987…

note this is a 6 car Blackpool, I miss those days of class 104’s, but they didnt last long after Sprinters arrived.

 

After just a few weeks, FYE arrived,,

 

in 1992 Regional Railways arrived..

 

 

Then it reverted to a version of provincial, without branding (but the dark blue went to the yellow) in 1994.. note the snowploughs present ever since.

 

until 2001 when this happened…

 

 

Note the solid door.
 

Then in 2005 it got worse..

 

 

 

2008 brought Arriva wales

 

 

2016 it was revised

 

 

And that brings us current.. 2022.

 

 

Edited October 7, 2023 by adb968008

[Cruachan]

On 07/10/2023 at 22:03, adb968008 said:

Then it reverted to a version of provincial, without branding (but the dark blue went to the yellow) in 1994.. note the snowploughs present ever since.

 

 

That's still a variant of Regional Railways, just with the fleximark painted over: The primary difference from Provincial, as well as the livery elements continuing to the cab ends as you note, being the light grey shade used as the base colour, which has a bluer tint than the light buff/tan shade used by the Provincial scheme.

Edited October 10, 2023 by Cruachan
Wording amended

[wombatofludham]

I seem to recall the lighter grey used by Reggie Rail was described as "silver grey" and the previous buff being the same as Inter City's "mushroom grey".  No idea off hand what the RAL numbers are though!

Nice potted history of 229.  It always amused me that the Anglia Class 150s and 153s had a more elaborate, and arguably more attractive, livery than their Mk2 rakes on the London run whose syrupy overall teal with a white stripe was very dowdy and seemed dull by comparison.

One story I heard about the Class 150-156 swap with Central Trains, when Centro needed more Class 150 units, was when the first 156 arrived with filthy seat covers the management of Crown Point insisted that the seat covers be removed from the next 150 to go west so they could be swapped for the Central Grow-Bags, the 150s and 156 both having been re-seated with identical seat designs.  The 150s had been given new seat covers by Anglia before National Express took over and were in good condition whereas Central thrashed their units and sometimes the seats could get a bit riffy.

[russ p]

It's not a solid door the plastic flyscreen was replaced with a metal one which is yellow 

[warringtonbankquay]

Thanks for the correction Russ.

So is there still a centre window behind the solid fly screen?

 

Chris

[russ p]

1 minute ago, warringtonbankquay said:

Thanks for the correction Russ.

So is there still a centre window behind the solid fly screen?

 

Chris

 

There is Chris is still the original door