The double arrow and steam locomotives

I think why blue / grey always looked so drab was that the paint used was deliberately not a high gloss finish, though I don't recall why.
But you forget the white livery used for the refurbished first generation DMU sets which was surely far worse.

 

Have to disagree there, the double arrow has given the railway an identity, wherever you are in the country you see that symbol and think 'I can catch a train from there' even new or reopened stations post Privitisation have a double arrow to show what they are. It's lasted 54 years so it can't be that bad!

 

I'm sure the calculation was that without the constant shower of filth from self-polluting smokeboxes everything was going to be so much cleaner it would hardly be an issue. The failure in the calculation, perhaps, was not to consider that the resources devoted to cleaning would be cut back just as drastically as the need.

 

no , you are missing the point. The Rail Blue livery was devised specifically for modern traction and it was anathema to BR to even think it could be applied to a steam loco, however long they lasted. It really was amazing that they applied it on the VoR, I bet that raised some eyebrows in 222

 

Inappropriate for steam yes, but has lasted for 52 years as a railway symbol and looks like it will continue.

 

I think the so-called "arrow of indecision", along with the new typefaces as part of the new corporate identity was a masterpiece of modernist design, as opposed to the miserable relic of heraldry endured from 1948. I far preferred BRITISH RAILWAYS on the sides of locos immediately post-nationalisation to the various incarnations of the lion! The double arrow featured in the V&A exhibition of industrial design held in 2012 to coincide with the Olympics, and now has become the de facto symbol for a railway station on road signs.

 

I don't see what's wrong with it, it's a quite good representation in abstract form of the railway lines.

 

Of course after 1965 no-one bothered to implement the new livery on steam locos once it was known they would all soon be gone. Yet if a decision had been made in the mid 60s to retain some steam until, say, 1980 then another decision might well have been made that some sort of livery update was appropriate. This sort of thinking clearly did affect the VoR. And, presumably, the works no longer wanted to keep stocks of green paint.

 

they specifically decided not to apply the new livery, it was a conscious decision, not a question of not bothering.

 

Nothing wrong with it, just some on here are stuck in the past.

 

No doubt that is true. But would they not have thought a bit more about both the image and cleanliness of steam locos at that time if they'd thought they would have to maintain them in the public eye until 1980?

 

they would have been unable to do so as they could not recruit enough cleaners. It's a very large part of the reason for getting rid of steam.

 

The MNA in the north and an informal group of us in the south did try, all unpaid of course!

 

Agreed. I downloaded the National Rail Enquiries app the other day and it shows on my phone as a double arrow logo on a blue background - so twenty-odd years after the demise of BR, it is still the universally recognised symbol for the mainline railway. In its way, it is every bit as iconic as the London Transport circle and bar - a clear, unambiguous identifier of a railway.

Tom

 

that deserves a thread of it's own.....

 

Surprised no one has written a book...........It would be X-rated for todays health and safety brigade.

 

rI think the double arrow is OK personally. Even if steam had survived into the 1970s I wouldnt have thought they would have been repainted as quite a diesels retained green until then.

Another point is TOPS numbering. The Westerns and Hymeks lasted until the TOPS renumbering but neither of these were renumbered, they both retained their D1000 and D7000 series numbers so, presumably, steam would have been the same. Although there would have been number clashes with Black Fives and Peaks in the 45xxx series?

 

I once saw a Jubilee on the scrap line at Skipton wearing a very drab blue livery with yellow buffer beam and double arrow symbol. It might have been a dream, but more likely a nightmare.

Brian Haresnape once explained the rationale for the all-over blue-sided livery. He said that, stylistically a loco looked sleeker with horizontal bands (e.g. Deltics, Hymeks) but diesels were prone to vertical streaking which looked worse on a loco with horizontal bands. This didn't explain the choice of blue.

 

it's also why A4s looked dreadful with vertical lining.

 

I wouldn't go so far as "dreadful", but nothing to compare with Garter Blue.

Surprising, in retrospect, that the newly nationalised railway adopted essentially pre-grouping liveries.