"So, what was the first Rail Blue train? That’s a question no one seems to want to answer. But the candidate spotlight fell on brand new locos and units being built at that time..."
It’s a nostalgic behemoth. Its prevalence on today’s preservation scene attests to that. And yet in its classic form, the Rail Blue livery of corporate British Rail doesn’t have any design features that look spectacularly clever. It appears very, very basic. So why do we care about this grandfatherly livery so much? Is it the colour? Is it some subtle feature that only our subconscious can see? Is it just the almost lifelong familiarity? Let’s explore…
THE PERIOD COVERED BY RAIL BLUE
Wall to wall Rail Blue at Doncaster. There was comfort in uniformity.
One of the reasons Rail Blue has such incredible nostalgic appeal today, is the very long period of time for which the livery was current on the BR network. In one form or another, corporate blue was on BR’s repaint agenda for well over two decades, having been prototyped in May 1964, officially mandated as the default livery in June 1966 (with documented exceptions), and fully standardised in application style, per loco type, in November 1967. A lot of Rail Blue timelines mention 1965. You'll see why I skipped over it when you reach the Intro Phase section.
There was considerable overlap at both ends of the livery’s lifespan. BR green repaints continued in diminishing number for about five years after the official introduction of Rail Blue, and the shabby, stubborn remnants of the original green era did not fully disappear from the main line fleet until 1980. Due to dirt and weathering, you could barely even see the colour of the green survivors by the late ’70s. In poor light, the only way you knew they were still green was by the presence of a lion and wheel logo on the bodyside.
The archetypal Rail Blue livery as applied to a Class 45, at St Pancras in 1986. In the mid 1970s there was virtually no deviation at all from the base livery, so red nameplates, on the comparatively few locos that had them, really stood out. Named locos were the celebrities of the 1970s.
The shift away from Rail Blue was very drawn out, beginning in 1974 with the trial for the DMU refurbishment programme. Refurbished DMUs were given white bodysides, and only the trim remained Rail Blue. The BR double-arrow logo was subsequently replaced with an area PTE logo on a lot of these units too, so it was quite a departure from the original concept of corporate unity, as imagined by BR Chairman Richard Beeching a decade or so earlier.
Although BR adopted a special white livery (left) for its refurbished DMUs in the 1970s, the policy was revoked at the dawn of the new decade, and ultimately Rail Blue was restored - albeit in the form of standard coach livery (right). Initially, these units had worn all-over 'suburban' Rail Blue (see image further down post).
In 1976, the production HST power cars premiered a radical new implementation of Rail Blue. And starting with a ‘large logo’ prototype in August 1978, the application style of Rail Blue was markedly changed for locomotives. The Rail Blue colour was still present in all of the liveries to some extent, but things were on the move.
The original livery for production HST power cars brought a stylish personality to Rail Blue.
However, the flourish of activity in the mid to late ’70s then hit the buffers of indecision, and it took years for British Rail to approve and roll out ‘large logo’ to just a handful of loco classes. Most were never approved at all. Sector identities ushered in entirely new colour schemes from the early 1980s, and eventually caught most of the stuff that hadn’t been approved for ‘large logo’. But again, these new liveries were approved selectively, and some loco and unit stock initially slipped through the net.
The 'large logo' variant of BR's Rail Blue, as seen on Classes 50, 56 and 47. Later builds of Class 56 were delivered in 'large logo' blue.
In the absence of authorisation for ‘large logo’, or imperative for a dedicated sector livery, a loco would still default to standard Rail Blue. The practice of painting some main line locos in the original, standard Rail Blue livery thus continued into the second half of the 1980s. Late candidates for standard Rail Blue repaints were non-life-expired, low-powered diesels primarily used on passenger trains, such as Class 33 or ETH Class 31. Going into 1986, these diesels were not authorised for large logo, not classed as InterCity stock, and not freight machines, so there was still no default livery option for them apart from standard Rail Blue.
Whilst still dedicated to passenger work, the Class 31/4s defaulted to the standard Rail Blue livery - even after the introduction of the initial wave of sector liveries.
But as the decade further progressed, not only did more sector liveries emerge – locos from low-powered classes (even with ETH) largely dropped into freight or departmental pools. So rather than Rail Blue, the usual repaint options for a 33 would now be Railfreight grey or ‘Dutch’. However, the majority of the 33s were still Rail Blue by the end of the decade, and an even higher percentage of 31/4s retained Rail Blue at that point in time - mainly because some resided in the RXLB Parcels pool.
Pay no attention to assertions that Rail Blue was little but a memory by 1990. The great majority of shunters and Class 20s remained in Rail Blue going into the ’90s, along with scrapyard-dodgers like the 81s, 85s and a few 26s. There were plenty of Class 37/0s, 47s and 86/6s left in Rail Blue too, plus a handful of Romanian Class 56s. And this is just the standard livery – not ‘large logo’. Oh yeah... First gen multiple units. Still an army of Rail Blue ones in 1990. The colour was everywhere.
In the latter years of standard Rail Blue, gathering pace from the late 1970s, individual depots began to push the envelope with the addition of non-standard trim. The Finsbury Park 'Deltics' got white window frames, selected 31/4s got a white (ER) or light grey (WR) stripe on the bodyside, and locos repainted for special occasions often got red buffer beams. Contrary to belief in some quarters, red buffer beams were not a cosmetic element of the BR green livery. They were a type of warning panel, and were officially dropped when yellow warning panels came in.
In the world of prestigious passenger work, Rail Blue was admittedly getting harder to find as the ’90s began. By then, all of the HST power cars wore a variant of InterCity livery. Same with the 86/2s and 87s. The majority of 50s had been repainted in NSE blue, but some remained in ‘large logo’ Rail Blue. A lot of Class 47/8s retained ‘large logo’ Rail Blue too.
47847 was part of the Rail Blue revival, repainted in 'large logo' livery whilst with Virgin Trains in November 2001.
‘Large logo’ Rail Blue repaints had persisted on the Class 47 into the late 1980s. But the increase in dedicated sector liveries had closed off even the ‘large logo’ loophole, putting paid to this practice.
And the long-term survival period for Rail Blue? Well, delapidated, original-period Rail Blue paint jobs could still be found on a multitude of main line locos as late as 1998. The fairly sudden disappearance of these remnants was a result of both the EWS repaint programme and heavy withdrawals in the wake of Class 66 deliveries. Some shunters, however, retained original BR Rail Blue paintwork into the 21st century, by which time revival repaints were in motion on active-fleet locos. So Rail Blue never really went away. It’s something that truly spans the generations.
THE BIRTH OF RAIL BLUE
This is actually a piece of Paint Shop Pro image modelling, so the loco is a synthetic reproduction. But it does show how the XP64 livery was originally applied to Brush Type 4 No. D1733. Note the low-set positioning of the numbers.
Shades of blue had been used on modern traction since the 1950s, but it was the ‘Xpress Passenger 1964 project (XP64) that would birth the Rail Blue timeline – even though the shade of blue it featured was not actually Rail Blue. First publicised in May 1964 on a trial coaching stock set, which was joined by a brand new Class 47 diesel the following month, XP64 established the broad design parameters for BR’s new, corporate identity.
Virgin Trains' reprisal of the XP64 livery, which was part of the same heritage repaint programme that incorporated 47847, in November 2001. In its new guise of 47853, the original XP64 loco was a Virgin regular at the time.
The highlights were as follows…
- A concept described in period BR literature as “solid blue” for locomotives. No more two-tone, white lining or separate roof colour. Apart from observing compliance with BR’s yellow approach-warning policy, paintwork above the rolling chassis would comprise one dollop of uninterrupted blue. The shade of blue featured in XP64 had pretty much the same colour mix as Rail Blue, but a higher luminance, which made it a bit paler. The shade was subsequently finalised in 1965 as the darker colour we now recognise as “correct”.
- A new double-arrow logo, which would be the centrepiece of the BR brand going forward. However, at the XP64 stage, no final decision had been made on the way the double-arrow logo would be applied to trains. Therefore, the locomotive came as standard with no logos. During the promotional period in 1964, the XP64 loco – D1733 – ran with temp stick-on BR logos, in white, with bright red backings. But after these stick-ons were removed in early autumn, D1733 continued to run with no logos at all until it received a standard Rail Blue repaint at the close of 1969.
- A rounder, Helvetica-esque font for the application of fleet numbers, which was dubbed Rail Alphabet.
- Introduction of the classic coaching stock livery style with dark grey roof, light grey running in a wide band around the window area, and the rest of the bodywork above the rolling chassis in the chosen shade of blue.
- As XP64 prototype, D1733 featured hybrid yellow warning panels which ‘sealed’ round onto the bodysides in the same way that the forthcoming full yellow end would. So XP64 blue did not have the full yellow end, but neither did it have the standard small yellow warning panel. It was a stepping stone.
08567 was one of the locos whose original Rail Blue paint job survived into the 21st century. Here it is at Bescot on 10th July 1999, with Rail Blue 'Deltic' 55019 waiting for a path south on a Marcroft to Old Oak Common stock move in the background. A remarkable chance meeting on the national network, three and a half decades after the birth of corporate blue.
THE INTRO PHASE
The original order for suburban unit stock was all-over solid blue on the bodyside. Progressively, more and more unit stock escaped this order, and by the mid 1980s even the lowest ranking DMUs were given the standard coaching stock livery with light grey window bands.
Prior to the official clarification on how the Rail Blue livery should be applied to the various locomotive types, there were many variations ranging from subtle to dramatic.
Because XP64 had served as a template, from the start there was at least a summary understanding of what “solid” Rail Blue was meant to look like. However, the precise detail was confused by the physical design differences among locomotive and unit types.
An all-blue bodyside and roof for locomotives was not a difficult concept to grasp or apply. The main uncertainties arose with the positioning of the logos and numbers, and the area of the cab exterior that paint shops were supposed to be rendering yellow. It further complicated matters that BR changed its approach-visibility policy from small yellow warning panels to full yellow ends during the intro phase of Rail Blue. The appearance of Rail Blue with a small yellow warning panel is thus a good indicator of a very early Rail Blue livery.
After a small batch of Rail Blue Class 47s with some remnant design trappings of the XP64 style, this standardised version of Rail Blue was settled upon. Double-arrow near the centre of the bodyside.
In Rail Blue’s intro period (1966-1967) you could find everything from matt(ish) finishes, through chocolate brown rolling chassis-work, old-style white cab-window frames and grey loco roofs, to wrap-around yellow cabs in the (much) later ‘large-logo’ style. The styling of the earliest Rail Blue Class 47s (D1953 to D1961) was based closely on the demo-period XP64 template, with double-arrows on each cabside and the same low-set fleet numbers. The fleet numbers were deliberately applied to sit on an imaginary horizontal line between the vertical centre of the double-arrows. These locos did have full yellow ends and the cabside double-arrows were not red-backed, but you still think “XP64” when you see pictures of them – especially in black and white.
The Class 50s were interesting in that even though they appeared significantly later than the first batch of 'maverick' Rail Blue 47s, they too had double-arrows on each cabside. The logo was subsequently moved to a central position on the bodyside - in keeping with the 47s. But this decision was reversed yet again when the 50s were named, and the cabside logo returned - albeit smaller than the original and only at one end rather than both.
So, what was the first Rail Blue train? That’s a question no one seems to want to answer. The mid 1964 prototype (see XP64 above) established the design concepts for corporate blue, but was not actually rail blue. Most sources cite 1965 for the introduction of Rail Blue itself, but design consultations were still in motion late that year, and there’s a glaring void of info referencing Rail Blue repaints in the period before 1966.
Even in the first half of the 1980s, whilst still contemporary, Rail Blue was popular enough to be chosen for repaints in preservation - as evidenced by this shot of 'Deltic' 9000 at Doncaster in 1984.
Livery expert and former insider Colin Boocock discussed the subject in his must-read book Railway Liveries: BR Traction 1948-1995. He was cautious with his words, but appeared to date the first appearances of Rail Blue trains to early 1966. He focused the candidate spotlight on brand new locos and units being built at that time, including the Class 73s, Class 310s and Class 432s. I know these trains had different names at the time, but for clarity I’m referring to them by their TOPS IDs – it’s easier for everyone.
The Class 47s were also being built at the time, but none were delivered in Rail Blue until after the livery was effectively mandated at the start of summer ’66.
I've reviewed a lot of 1960s video footage in a quest to spot evidence of 1965 Rail Blue repaints, but it's difficult to get concrete proof. There's a lot of interesting stuff surrounding electric trains, including 1965 dates. But a) the dates are not greatly reliable, and b) some footage is in monochrome, so whilst you see double arrow logos, you can't confirm the colour. There were definitely a number of blue EM1s (Class 76s) with small yellow warning panels and lion & wheel logos as opposed to double arrows. However, some EM1/EM2s had pre-'66 blue repaints that were not actually Rail Blue, and it's difficult to tell in old footage what the actual shade of blue is. Also, the use of lion & wheel logos may not indicate a pre-'66 repaint. It may just indicate an issue with logo stocks or a regional policy re using up existing materials first.
Uncertainty and random detail differences persisted until 3rd November 1967, at which point Derby RTC dispatched a set of drawings for each of the loco types, finally setting the application of Rail Blue livery into stone. At least for the time being.
WHY WE LOVE RAIL BLUE
This 2004 shot of Rail Blue 40145 on mixed stock shows how important uniformity was in the impact of Rail Blue. There's an immediate sense that even though the coaches are blue, they're "wrong", and the Class 40 looks quite isolated without a livery-matching train.
The nostalgia surrounding Rail Blue is powerful indeed. But nostalgia is only one facet of Rail Blue’s appeal. The enduring livery held an attraction for train fanatics from the earliest phase of its life, so there was always something more to its appeal than familiarity and ‘life-signposting’. What really gave Rail Blue its lure? Why do our faces light up when we see it?
It’s easy to underestimate the Rail Blue livery as a work of design, and one reason for that is its simplicity. Compared with the two-tone BR green adorning new Class 47s in the mid 1960s when the corporate blue image was introduced, Rail Blue represented a shift towards minimalism. But we shouldn’t confuse minimalism with a lack of effort. BR threw the kitchen sink at getting their corporate blue image right, and as I’ll clarify in a moment, there’s evidence in the digital world to show that all of its core elements were masterstrokes of psychological seduction.
By the early 1990s, liveries had become chaotic. We remember Class 20-hauled trains to Skegness very fondly, but even with Rail Blue 20095 leading, there's a jumbled quality about this train that hints at why 1960s and 1970s BR had been so strict about maintaining uniformity.
Rail blue might look straighforward, but the thought, labour, trial and error, honing, decision-making and sheer imperative that went into it, made it a true monster of a design exercise. BR’s obsession with perfection was evidenced in everything from the conceptualisation, to the close monitoring of the way early Rail Blue trains appeared in the real world, and consequent edicts of rejection when features didn’t look right. The conceptualisation process by all accounts roped in the entire might of the BR Design Panel and then some. This was not a hasty “Yeah, that looks alright – we’ll run with that”. The designers would submit a flood of designs and ideas, which would then be shortlisted, and maybe even short-shortlisted before a final selection was made.
Even the logo development involved the preparation of approximately 50 potential options, which were pared down to an eventual selection via a multi-stage shortlisting process.
And if you take that logo off the side of a Rail Blue locomotive, you’ll see just how much personality the livery loses as a result. That’s the rule of minimalism. Something small and apparently simple becomes a key focus of attention. The same happened with red nameplates in the 1970s. Comparatively small, but extremely noticeable in a sea of strict uniformity.
Another from St Pancras. That vital loco/stock match.
The new corporate image was an aesthetic that BR intended to adopt not just on their trains, but much more widely across everything connected with their brand. It was going to be there for the long haul, as a universal identity, and as such, it needed to visually encapsulate everything BR wanted to be. It had to look professional, modern, distinctive and powerful, but not aggressive or challenging.
The main colour alone tied in perfectly with that brief. The success of modern online brands using shades of blue with similar vividness levels has prompted assertions that these non-aggressive blues are a colour of ‘trust’. The blue used in Tumblr's environment background for about a decade was so close to Rail Blue it was as if someone had taken a Photoshop eyedropper to the bodyside of a Brush 4. I doubt that David Karp and team even knew what a Brush 4 was, so the similarity was probably pure coincidence. It's just a colour that gives off some sort of psychological reassurance.
Likewise, the Rail Alphabet font, surely inspired to a great extent by the Helvetica typeface – a hugely popular symbol of modernity in the mid 1960s – has seen further approximation in the form of Arial. Arial has gone on to become one of the default font selections in the digital world, coming pre-loaded onto most computers since the early 1990s. British Rail were thinking for the long term, and they were hitting the nail on the head.
At the top of the Lickey Incline in 1981, two Class 37s on banking duty show the contrast between dirty and clean. Notice how much more vivid the colour looks on the more distant loco - 37224 - than on the nearer 37158.
And that logo? Well, what can you say? Precisely as was hoped by Beeching and Co. at the “brainstorming” stage of BR’s corporate identity, the logo became a fully-fledged communication device. Put it on a street sign and it says “To the railway station”. No text required. Put it on a timetable and you know you’re not looking at bus departures. Put it on the side of a locomotive and it says… “Ah, they were the days”. Everything about Rail Blue and the BR corporate identity was calculated, considered in depth, and taken just about as seriously as it’s possible to take the subject of aesthetic design.
If you went back to the 1960s and asked the instigators of BR corporate blue whether they could imagine locos still being lovingly outshopped in the livery fifty years later, I suspect the answer, even then, would have been a very simple “Yes”. It’s not a surprise that Rail Blue is still a favourite today. That’s exactly what was meant to happen.
Still here. 2019, and Rail Blue retains its timeless kudos.