BR Liveries : Circ 1989

[Blobrick]

I m hoping that the more knowledgeable amongst our  membership, will be able to help me ?

 

I ve worked on the railway from the late 70s until retiring in 2020, and as such hang my head in shame for not really taking all that much notice of changes happening around me at the time.

One such subject is that of liveries being applied to various classes of loco and why?

If we take the class 37 fleet for example, in 1985 an initial batch of 26 class 37s were refurbished and fitted with ETH to work freight/local services in Scotland, with a further 6 being completed afterwards and allocated to Wales for similar duties. These locos received the new Large Logo livery (which l feel suited them well)  However by 1989 some of these 37/4s were being repainted into Intercity/Engineers/RailFreight liveries. I am assuming the these liveries were sponsored by the sectors to which the liveries belonged to?

What l find confusing is that after 1989 you could see a Railfreight or Engineering liveried locomotive working passenger stock, or an Intercity liveried loco on and Ballast working. As an example 37262, which was allocated to Inverness in 1989 was repainted from Large Logo to Engineering livery, yet still worked passenger stock between Inverness and Aberdeen. Does that mean that  37262 had been allocated to the Engineering pool, but after repaint, was on hire to Inverness to use as required?

How was the decision made as to which loco went to which sector? And if there was as much hiring of locomotives between sectors as appears to be the case judging from photos, the accounting sections at depots much have been on permanent over time !

 

Bob C

Edited April 11 by Blobrick