"...The font of the white digits matched that of the black digits on 158797, and this font was different from the one used forward from the next repaint..."
En route to Hereford on 22nd December 2003, 158783 calls at Worcester Foregate Street.
It’s surely best remembered by railway enthusiasts for its joyous, bright green livery. But Central Trains has also come to stand as a fascinating transitional entity, which evolved Central England’s local and mid-distance operations away from nationalised mediocrity, and into a new era where even bog-standard multiple units could entice our cameras out of our bags or pockets.
A short while back I celebrated Central’s Class 310 electrics, but the post you’re reading now has proved even more interesting to put together. This is a spotter/modeller-focused, image-rich summary of the Class 158s in use with Central Trains between 1997 and 2007. I must warn you that its gets pretty seriously nerdy regarding the Central Trains livery detail. But if train fanatics can’t get nerdy, who can?
IN THE BEGINNING...
In a rarely-captured 1990s scene looking over the very high canal path wall, 158848 heads south from Birmingham through Five Ways station.
At birth in March 1997, Central Trains inherited thirty-six Class 158s, comprising the following examples…
158780, 158782, 158783, 158784, 158785, 158786, 158787, 158788, 158789, 158790, 158791, 158792, 158793, 158794, 158795, 158796, 158797, 158844, 158845, 158846, 158847, 158848, 158849, 158850, 158851, 158852, 158853, 158854, 158855, 158856, 158857, 158858, 158859, 158860, 158861 and 158862.
As it was in the 1990s. Central Trains Class 158 Nos. 158792, 158851, and in both lower shots, 158854.
That fleet composition remained the same until September 2000. Until 1999, all of Central’s 158s wore British Rail’s Regional Railways Express livery. The only aesthetic modification prior to ’99 was a progressive addition of light-blue-on-white “Central Trains” identifier stick-ons, near where the “Express” branding had previously gone on the bodyside. But as the end of the century approached, the operator would more than make up for its initial two years of aesthetic mundanity…
Next to the gantry at Worcester Shrub Hill, 158846 shows off its '90s livery with makeshift Central Trains branding.
GASP! CAN YOU EVEN GET PAINT THAT COLOUR?!
158856, 158858 and 158862, in variants of the Central Trains green livery.
The story of the Central Trains livery as applied to Class 158s runs as follows…
Early in May 1999, 158797 was unveiled in an original ‘demo’ version of Best Impressions’ flamboyant green livery design. This was the first unit to receive a bespoke Central Trains livery of any kind, pre-dating the arrival of the first class 170/5 by a couple of months.
The livery was based around a potent yet attractive two-tone green bodyside, featuring a particularly bright and zingy shade for the primary area. The passenger window strip and cabside window surrounds were dark grey, and there was a stylish mid-blue taper on the upper cabsides. Below the passenger windows on each bodyside sat the 'Central' branding (no longer Central Trains), a ‘go’ logo, and a large, highly visible phone number – 0870 000 60 60.
’797’s version of the livery differed from all subsequent applications. Most notably, 158797 had a yellow fairing (buffer area) with the darker-tone green from the base of the bodyside wrapping down each side and right across the lower lip at the front. The set numbers were originally black-on-yellow. The initial look is illustrated above.
A short time later, 158791 was outshopped in an updated version of the livery, with an all-green fairing. I don’t know exactly how it looked upon release, but just weeks after the repaint I photographed it at Worcester aside FGW power car 43185, looking like this…
You can see that as early as summer ’99 it had a white-on-yellow set number at one end at least. It appears there had been a change to the sub window panel on the left side, as it surely wouldn’t have been rendered ex-works with black on one side and yellow on the other.
But that doesn’t necessarily mean the set number had been replaced. Indeed, the font of the white digits matched that of the black digits on 158797, and this font was different from the one used forward from the next repaint. I only saw it on 158797 and 158791 – the first two Central Trains green units. That suggests to me that the white digits were original on 158791. But I stand to be corrected, and if you know for sure and are on Twitter, I’d greatly welcome confirmation @JPEGJuice.
158790 was the first repaint that I know for definite was released with the fully standard version of the livery. That is, an all-green fairing, yellow sub-window panels on the cab-front, and black-on-yellow set numbers in a revised font. ’790 is seen ex-works on the left in the picture above, at Water Orton on 6th July 1999. On the right is 158792, representing the old look of Central Trains.
The 1587xxs were generally refinished first. By January 2000, there were 15 x 1587xxs in Central Trains green, and only 3 x 1588xxs. 158785, seen almost ex-works above, was another one outshopped in the summer of 1999. After 158791, all of the units to my knowledge were originally given the same standard version of the livery as 158785 above, with full green fairings, yellow cab front sub-window panels, and black-on-yellow set numbers. All other variants aside from 158797 and possibly 158791, were later modifications.
One modification pertained to the set number. Its font, size and colour, as well as the colour of the sub-window panels on which the set numbers appeared. The BR Class 158’s original default of white-on-black set numbers began to creep back in from 2001, and things got progressively more jumbled from there. Especially due to the repeated set-renumbering which occurred when the units were re-formed (more of which shortly), different fonts and sizes of digits were used. By the mid noughties it was even possible to find different fonts, sizes and even colours of digit within a single set number. By the time of the above shot in 2002, 158797 had gained a white-on-black set number. Notice how the dirt now completely obscures the green band on its lower fairing lip.
158856, seen at Dudley Port canal junction in 2003 - bodyside updated with the Central Trains web address.
Evolution in communications then saw the 0870 phone number dropped from the unit bodysides and replaced with the www.centraltrains.co.uk web address. This was a fairly slow process taking place through the course of 2003, and it may have overlapped into 2004. 158788 definitely still had phone numbers in December ’03. [UPDATE: Yes, I've also found a shot I took of 158788 on 1 March 2004, and it still bore phone numbers on that date... And another from 9th April 2004 - so 158788's phone numbers evidently escaped the main blitz period.]
Next, as the ends of the units had their paintwork refreshed, the green fairings were painted yellow as a new default. This change began in 2003, but can be considered later in the timeline than the phone number to web address update. Going into the mid noughties, there was a noticeably increasing number of yellow-fairing CT 158s, and eventually the green-fairing jobs became a minority.
158854 retaining its green fairing on 5th June 2007.
Despite the adoption of a yellow fairing default, some green fairings survived until Central’s final year – 2007. Among the surviving examples were 158846 and 158854. However, these two had been among the 158844-158854 batch which were transferred to Wales & Borders’ HLTE pool when their routes switched operators in October 2001. The batch had spent years outside of the Central Trains fleet before ’846, ’847, ’852 and ’854 eventually returned.
Post 2004, and right up to Central’s final year of 2007, 158780 had a yellow fairing at the “2” end, and a green one at the “7” end. Here it is from the “2” end in June 2006. The reason for this livery oddity was a temporary three-car reformation. I’ll detail all the reformations in a moment, but the two-car 158780 was incorporated into the three-car 158951 between 2003 and 2004. 158951 had one end refreshed with a yellow fairing in 2004 (there’s a photo further down the post). The refreshed front of ’951 was the “2” car from 158780. The rear of 158951 was not refreshed because 158784 – which contributed the rear car – was in better condition. The “7” car from 158780 was not refreshed because it was inaccessible behind car 57784.
THE CLASS 158/9s
158958 and 158954, seen at Kings Norton in 2004.
Central Trains had been under pressure to increase seating on its longer-distance trains since 1997, when two cars were the default, and some longer-distance services were formed by a single Class 153. Part of the brief with the introduction of the Class 170s was to stem this constant source of complaints. But eventually, the Class 158s were also drawn into the quest to increase passenger capacity per train.
All of Central’s 158s were originally two-car sets. But at two separate points in time, the operator was able to break up four of its two-car 1587xxs, and add the individual cars to eight more 1587xx sets, thus forming eight x three-car 158/9s.
The process first commenced in anticipation of the September 2000 timetable change. With the luxury of both 170/5s and 170/6s now in traffic, Central could afford to bulk up the coach-count among the 158s and hit its target of daily services comprising three carriages. On this occasion, the compositions were…
158951: 158780 + 57784
158952: 158785 + 52786
158953: 158790 + 57796
158954: 158791 + 57786
158955: 158792 + 52796
158956: 158793 + 52784
158957: 158794 + 52789
158958: 158797 + 57789
Here on 9th February 2001, 158955 was formed from the whole of 158792, with car No. 52796 from 158796 tagged onto the rear. It was at this point in time that desperation for individual trains prompted Central to start splitting these formations, albeit with the intention of reforming them again. One indication of this emergency measure was that 158797 returned to two-car format, but retained its three-car number – 158958.
But all the units were subsequently split back into their two-car formations and renumbered as 1587xxs, as the need for individual trains further increased. In fact, things were so pressed up north in summer ’01 that 158797 found itself in Scotland assisting Central’s NX sister operator, Scotrail.
However, in spring 2003, a cascade chain allowed Central to form eight new 158/9s. Essentially, the Virgin Voyagers freed up ten HSTs for Midland Mainline, which freed up four MML 170/1s for Central Trains’ Coventry – Notts route, which in turn freed up the four 158/7s to break up for 158/9 coaches. The new 158/9 formations for 2003 were…
158951: 158780 + 57784
158952: 158785 + 52789
158953: 158790 + 52792
158954: 158786 + 52793
158955: 158794 + 57793
158956: 158795 + 52784
158957: 158796 + 57789
158958: 158797 + 57792
On both occasions that the set was formed under Central Trains, 158958 included the full two-car 158797 unit. In this shot from March 2004, the front car is 57792 from 158792, and the rear two are those of 158797. If you look at the fairing at the front of the second car, you can see ’797 still shows the tell-tale unique dual green/yellow colouring.
Here’s a shot of a newly-refreshed end on 158951, with the two-car set 158780 leading. Only this one end of ’951 was refreshed, because car 57784 at the rear already had fairly fresh paintwork. However, car 57784 was still aesthetically disorderly. It had one black sub-window panel, and one yellow. And the set number was applied below rather than above the light cluster, in a combination of white and black digits – “158” in white, and “951” in black.
By September 2004, 158793 (used in both 158954 and 158955) was back in its two-car format, and on the 24th, made an unusual appearance on a Cannock – Birmingham train at Walsall.
VIRGIN 158s
In late 2001, when the new Voyagers really started to impact the timetable, Virgin Trains’ need for Class 158 units diminished. This resulted in 158748 and 158751 seeing significant use with Central Trains in 2002. These Virgin Trains 158s – from a group of five used to supplement the CrossCountry fleet – were still in Regional Railways Express livery. They thus brought about a return to the old BR image, which had been lost among Central’s own 158s. Virgin’s 158749 was also used by Central Trains, albeit less regularly.
TRANSPENNINE 158s
Decanted in stages from March 2007, a group of First TransPennine Express Class 158s gave Central Trains a dash of clarety-purple. The units transferred were…
158770, 158773, 158774, 158777, 158799, 158806, 158810, 158812 and 158813.
Initially these sets wore their full, branded TransPennine livery, which was the Northern Spirit livery with indigo First TransPennine Express vinyls on the lower bodysides. But Central subsequently added their own lower bodyside vinyls with house branding, as well as large “triple-C” logo stick-ons on the cabsides.
When the Central Trains franchise ended, none of its 158s were transferred to London Midland, and that completely cut them off from many of the routes they’d previously frequented around Birmingham. In the latter years of Central Trains, even though the 156s and 158s were officially allocated to East Midlands duties, the 158s in particular would still stray south of Birmingham to augment the 170s. That stopped sharp on 12th November 2007, when Central Trains ceased to exist and the 158s moved with the 156s to East Midlands Trains.
But Worcester Shrub Hill still had its memories.