"Come Back B.R., All Is Forgiven"Part 2 - Private Freight Companies and Engineering DepartmentBy Chris Dorrell Taken from the Folkestone Model Railway Club "Fishplate" magazine Exhibition Special October 1999.
Part one of this article dealt with B.R freight liveries as well as English, Welsh & Scottish and Freightliner Ltd. liveries. I now move to those private companies which operate on the rail system together with the civil engineers department and a few oddities. When the B.R standard liveries were being devised a livery was required for the civil engineers department, the livery chosen, grey (GRY) was pretty dull, in fact it made B.R blue look good! In order to smarten up the grey livery a yellow bodyside band was applied at the top, this improved the livery a great deal, the livery became known as "Dutch" as it was similar to NS Railways livery. It was also referred to as Civil-Link (CIV) [Photo 1]. 
Photo 1. CIV livery on Class 37175 at Holyhead. Photo: Chris Dorrell Amongst the many B.R companies that were being set up in the run up to privatisation the telecommunications sector of B.R (B.R.T) adopted it's own livery for the small number of class 20 locomotives allocated to it. The livery comprised mostly grey with three green slashes "///" (BRT) [Photo 2]. 
Photo 2. BRT livery on Class 20075 at Crewe. Photo: Chris Dorrell One of the first private rail companies to operate on B.R metals was Hunslet-Barclay who gained the contract to operate the weed killing trains. For this operation they purchased six class 20 locomotives which were painted in a two-tone grey livery with red solebar with "Hunslet-Barclay" logos on the sides (HUN), these locomotives could be seen all around the country in their distinctive livery until recently. The first really major player to use B.R metals was Yeoman. Previously this company had hired B.R crews and locos to move it's stone trains from it's private sidings to various other parts of the country. In 1985 it took the plunge and ordered five new class 59 locomotives from the U.S.A. These locomotives were painted in a silver and blue livery with a large "Y" on each side (YEO) [Photo 3]. This livery has now been altered, with the silver being replaced by grey (YER). 
Photo 3. YEO livery on 59005 at Old Oak Common. Photo: Chris Dorrell Another newcomer was Amey-Roadstone or "A.R.C.". It also ordered four class 59 locomotives and painted them in a yellow/grey colour scheme with "A.R.C." in large grey letters (ARC). Once again a new version has replaced the original on some of the locos, a new livery of blue and silver with "Hanson" lettering (HAN). Hanson owns A.R.C. The final batch of six class 59's were ordered by National Power in 1994 & 1995. These were painted in a Blue, White, Red & Grey livery (NPW) [Photo 4]. With the acquisition of National Powers train division by E.W.S one of these locomotives has been repainted into it's colours. 
Photo 4. NPW livery on 59205. Photo: Chris Dorrell When the Eurostar service got up and running there were plans for a sleeper service from the West Country using Class 37/6 locomotives, these locos together with two class 73's were painted in a two-tone grey colour scheme (EPG) [Photo 5]. Many more locomotive liveries have come and gone over the past few years. Pete Waterman introduced a livery for some of his locomotives, which were painted mostly black with a lining (WRA) [Photo 6]. When the three leasing companies were set up just before privatisation two class 47 locomotives were painted in a white and purple design (POR) [Photo 7], this livery was short lived as the two locomotives were leased to other companies and were repainted. 
Photo 5. EPG livery on 37603 at Bedford. Photo: Chris Dorrell 
Photo 6. WRA livery on Class 20042 at Crewe Works. Photo: Chris Dorrell 
Photo 7. POR livery on Class 47817. Photo: Chris Dorrell The final two liveries to be described here are two of the newer entries. Fragonset is a private company who have purchased redundant class 47's from Pete Waterman and also class 31's when they were withdrawn. The livery chosen by this company is black with a red stripe running down the centre of the bodyside (FRA). The final new livery belongs to Direct Rail Services, this company is an offshoot of British Nuclear Fuels Ltd. This livery was introduced onto class 20 locos which it has acquired from both B.R and Hunslet-Barclay when it lost the contract for the weed killing trains. Subsequently DRS also acquired some of the EPS Class 37/6's which were not needed for the proposed sleeper services. The DRS livery is a dark blue livery with lighter blue relief and the DRS logo. (DRS) [Photo 8]. 
Photo 8. DRS livery on Class 20303 at Crewe. Photo: Chris Dorrell Part 3 of this series of articles will deal with Network South-East, Regional Railways and Parcels. Back to top Back to Folkestone MRC Home Page
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