British Rail - Express Passenger Blue Locomotives

6233's Engine History Card states Princess (Coronation), which was the class' title when introduced. A bit of a mouthful, the 'Princess' part was dropped later.

 

Are you sure? AIUI, they were originally referred to as the Princess (Coronation) class to distinguish them from the earlier Princess class. A F Cook also refers to them as officially being the Princess Coronation class but more generally referred to as Duchesses or Coronations. The Princess class similarly became better known as the Princess Royal class. Whatever they are called, I don't think anyone has any doubt as to what is being referred to.

 

No ones mentioned the VOR tanks that wore BR blue for a time

Regards


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Different era but good point nonetheless.

 

Were they express passenger engines?

 

Well they were also painted express passenger green so who knows lol


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That raises the question as to what else might have ended up blue if steam had lasted a couple of years longer on the main line. Blue 5MTs? Blue Britannia's complete with double arrows?

 

Well 70013 didn't get the dreaded Rail blue and undecided arrow and that received its last repaint well into the 'blue' era, as did several other steam locos so my guess is that they wouldn't.

Was 45428 the last steam loco to be repainted by BR? (excluding the VOR locos.)

 

Wasn't the purpose of the rail blue livery to represent a clean break from the supposedly old-fashioned image of steam? So my guess is that had a few standard gauge steam engines soldiered on into, say, the early 1970s, then they would have kept the "old" liveries, with rail blue reserved for modern traction. What is more surprising is that the VoR locos did get repainted into that livery.

Tom

 

To quote Rowledge (LMS Pacifics) page 14; "Although introduced in publicity as the Princess Coronation Class the company [LMS] soon dropped 'Princess' so that officially only Coronation Class was used.

 

So there never was the chance of a blue A4 with a full yellow front and white window surrounds.

 

Sadly for you (though probably happily for the rest of us) probably not!

Though I take it you have seen these:

http://www.fictitiousliveries.co.uk/photo.php?S_98832_BRB.jpg
http://www.fictitiousliveries.co.uk/photo.php?S_9F_brb_.jpg
http://www.fictitiousliveries.co.uk/index.php?sort=&livery=&class=&group=S&coll=

(Not my images…)

Tom

 

Can only view the thumbnails not the full size pictures but the Virgin Trains livery A4 on that website made me laugh!

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I believe that a VT Press Officer actually thought it was a new locomotive !!

See for yourself - and consider how far ahead was the LNER in terms of design

http://www.fictitiousliveries.co.uk/photo.php?S_A4_1_vt.jpg

 

Not just the LNER! I'm not really sure the modern Southern have moved us forward in design terms ...

http://www.fictitiousliveries.co.uk/photo.php?S32662_sthn.jpg
http://imgs.photo4me.com/9343/277582_m.jpeg

(Not my image)

Tom