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My Top Five Liveries

CRAIG WEATHERLEY takes us through his top five liveries.

5: London Transport Steam

Livery Operated by: London Transport

Livery Details: Dark Maroon with yellow lining

The London Transport livery covered all of the rail vehicles within the London region. It was a dark maroon colour with yellow lining which made it stand out from other liveries. The Metropolitan Railway built seven A Class locomotives in total between 1896 to 1901, and used other locomotives from other designers like the L.94 GWR Pannier Tank, LNER's H2 Class, LNER's K Class and many more. In 2013 No. 1 returned steam to the underground railway from Earl's Court to Moorgate the first time in 150 years.

4: Malachite Green

Livery Operated by: Southern Railway

Livery Details: Malachite Green with yellow lining.

Dapol N Scale Merchant Navy.

This is probably Southern Railway's best-known livery. It was a bright green base-coat with yellow lining and yellow lettering. This livery can still be seen at many preserved railways up and down the UK including No. 777 'Sir Lamiel' based at the Great Central Railway, and 21C123 'Blackmore Vale' based at the Bluebell Railway, one of many West Country Class locomotives in preservation.

3: BR Experimental Blue

Livery Operated by: British Railways

Livery Details: Blue bodywork with white lining.

Tornado at the Bluebell Railway in BR Blue (Photo by the editor).

During the BR era this colour was not used much on steam locomotives, and the experimented by painting four un-rebuilt Merchant Navys in this livery. Firstly the livery was a light blue with red lining, but was later repainted a darker blue with black and white lining. Overall the BR blue livery only lasted for about four to five years until they were repainted into BR green, but was reproduced on the newly built Tornado A1 locomotive.

2: Southern Green

Livery Operated by: Southern Railway

Livery Details: Southern Green!

Nearly hitting the top-spot is the Southern Olive green livery. This livery is commonly used on stock on preserved railways, and was used on a variety of different locomotives from famous designers such as Drummond, Maunsell and many others.

1: Wartime Southern Black

Livery Operated by: Southern Railway

Livery Details: Black with 'Sunshine' lettering.

My favourite livery of all-time is Southern Wartime Black with Sunshine Lettering. This livery was used during WW2 to blacken the locomotives, so that at night so they couldn't be spotted by enemy aircraft, and the footplate crew used to cover the cab to stop the firebox glow being seen from the sky. Other railway companies had the same idea as well; however the look of a Southern locomotive in Wartime black just does it for me.

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