Best and worst TOC liverys

[CarterUSM]

Strathclyde Red was stinking, especially when it was dirty. I quite like FTPE livery, and the old GNER blue also.

 

[Class172]

It seems no-one's mentioned silverlink or London overground

Silverlink: the dark orchid colour just doesn't work well for me. Quite a bland livery with just a few stripes at the bottom that attempt to become impressive at the end but just fail

Overground: I'll just say, a lot of white...

With GNER having such a brilliant livery, would it still look good on smaller units: turbostars, 180's etc

 

[sprinterguy]

With GNER having such a brilliant livery, would it still look good on smaller units: turbostars, 180's etc

Well, I thought it looked great on Tyne and Wear Metrocar 4055 As far as "units" go, you can't get much smaller than that!

To add a couple of liveries I missed off my original extensive list, I'd like to say that I'm no at all keen on the "One" livery, Silverlink, London Midland, East Coast and the original Grand Central plain black scheme.

The East Coast livery is yet another unrelenting mass of silver, that completely fails to show off the sleek lines of the Intercity 225 trains at all, let alone to the startling effect that Intercity Swallow livery did. The purple waistband is too narrow in comparision, and is at the wrong height, that has succeeded in doing something I thought was near impossible: It's made the 225s look "chubby".

By a similar token, the National Express corporate silver and white scheme looks lousy. It looks rubbish on buses, and it looks even worse on trains where there is a much larger bodyside to cover. It lacks impact or contrast, and how on earth are you expected to keep a largey white based livery looking clean?

Grand Central: Plain black. Just how simple, bland and uninspiring can you get? Even when GCs' HSTs were fresh out of works and gleaming like new it was a boring livery, and once it had dulled down it was even worse. And what does Grand Central even mean in a UK railway context anyway? I have to say though that I think the new orange and black livery is very fetching.

 

[atomicdanny]

I won't go in to detail for all of the below, but included some of the older ones because some of those I was brought up with - especially the toothpaste NSE (which I honestly think is the best livery!). Although I do like London Midland for some reason for me it seems to suit the stock it uses!

Like - London Midland, Southeastern High Speed, Network South East, Intercity, GNER, Scotrail (Saltire), First "Neon" (FGW, FTPE?) / Hull Trains, Midland Mainline (yep I know its National Express), Chiltern, Wrexham & Shropshire, Grand Central

Inbetween - SWT, Southeastern, Southern, Virgin, XC, First "barbie", Thames Trains, Wessex, London Overground, Gatwick Express

Dislike - Connex, National Express (any of them! - including Central Trains, Silverlink and Scotrail!), One, C2C, Merseyrail, Arriva Trains Wales, Connex and Northern

 

[TomJ93]

 

[lm321412]

I am sure this has been asked before, but nevertheless.

Silverlink has to be my favourite livery of all time. The contrasting colours made the trains stand out and looked smart, even if any remaining stock that carries it now begins to look tired.

I also have these liveries that I am quite fond of:

Network SouthEast
Virgin Trains (original Red, Black and White)
First Great Eastern
Wales & Borders

Now, liveries I hate:

London Midland (suits absolutely nothing except the 350 which it was designed upon)
National Express Polar Bear Livery (completely uninspired)
ONE East Anglia (The rainbow doesn't cut it for me)
Merseyrail (what a vile set of colours, the lot of them!)

 

[alexf380]

5* (Excellent)
Scotrail: Saltire
GNER: Navy Blue and Red
FGW: Fag Packet Green/ Gold

4* (Good)
Grand Central: Black and Orange
North Western: Blue with Gold Star
Scotrail: Original Carmine/Cream (Lined with Black and gold Stripe)
First: Dynamic lines

3* (OK)
Northern Spirit: Blue with green 'N'
Northern Rail: Blue/ purple/ White
Southern: Two tone Green with white
FCC: Dynamic Blocks (Seen on 365s)

2* (Bad)
c2c: Lilac/Blue
One: Blue with Rainow Stripes
Chiltern Railways: White with red line and fading blue doors

1* (Awful)
Southeastern: White with Yellow Doors
South West Trains: All blue with Red and Orange ends
National Express: NatEx White wih Silver Carraige ends and Navy Blue Doors

 

[Bittern]

The ScotRail Saltire livery is nice, but the triangles on the 156s look daft.

 

[lewisf]

This wasn't brilliant, but then neither was the standard Connex livery. Always looked dirty.

I do however like London Midland, looks good on their EMU fleet and the new 172 looks really good. The new EC livery on the IC225 sets looks really good too.

 

[HST Power]

I agree! I regularly head out to Stevenage, where East Coast services stop when heading in and out of London. It's a simplistic livery but a good one!

 

[Bittern]

I absolutely loathe it.

 

[GearJammer]

Yes East coast looks ok at best when its freshly painted, but when they start to weather they just look bloody awfull and scruffy.

My favourites are NSE & Intercity.

 

[aspierail]

Best liveries Intercity swallow and Network South East

Worst liveries National Express East Anglia and Connex

 

[ushawk]

Best IMO is all the First Groups TOCs - the dynamic lines livery looks modern and the local service livery is clever as well. I like the Cross Country and Scotrail liveries too.

I think the Southeastern livery is rather boring too.

 

[Rhydgaled]

My Favorite TOC liveries (ie. BR excluded):

• GNER (before red doors)
• Wales&West Alphaline original (ok, 95% BR, but that extra 5% actually improved it)
• Wales&West / Wales&Boders Alphaline (blue and silver)
• ScotRail (the new one mandated by Scotish Government)
• Great Western Trains (ie. NOT First Great Western) (prefrablly when they still had INTERCITY at one end of each coach)

Others I quite like but perhaps have the odd flaw

• SWT/EMT express (the white version, prefrablly with the red doors like this, but would have been neater if it carried on down through the blue band I think)
• First Dynamic Lines as on 180s and IC125s, and First Capital Connect 377s (basicly the trains that don't have the fade on the bodyside which makes the blue much lighter at the top) - apart from the pink doors, I really don't like them being pink
• Virgin Pendo/Voyager livery
• Arriva XC livery (again, except for the pink, make the pink on the doors and in the logos the same dark-redish brown as the ends of the train)
• ValleyLines
• WAG Express (57313 version for the locos, rather than 57315 with the lighter bits which I don't really like)
• Southern 377s (I don't like the light green bits that much, but extend the white along using photoshop and it looks great)
• Probablly a few more to add later

Liveries I really don't like

• ATW standard livery (as is on their 150s, 153s, 175s, pacers and some of the 158s). In some cases it just looks plain wrong, at other times it's drab and boring (especially on a 175, which has really un-interesting cab ends)
• East Coast's modified version of NXEC's white-stripe on blue livery (basiclly breaking the white stripe with a short purple bit that was just different enough from the blue to make it clash, probablly wouldn't complain as much if the 225s hadn't been so smart before in GNER and Swallow)
• FGW Green (probablly hated mostly it because it replaced Great Western Trains)
• Probablly a few more to add later

 

[Boothby97]

I bet people can't wait to see this "outrageous" livery that GBRf will be putting on a Class 66 (that's how GBRf put it). It was part of a children's competition to design a livery for a train.

 

[HST Power]

I absolutely loathe it.

The East Coast livery?

 

[Boothby97]

The Arriva Trains Wales and South West 158/159/444 liverys are awful and so is the London Overground livery on Class 172s.

 

[Rugd1022]

For me, the best liveries came in two very simple forms -

Maroon with small yellow panels as applied to all but three of the Westerns, with a trailing load of matching Mk1 stock it takes some beating, and...

Blue / full yellow ends for locos with a nice clean rake of blue / grey Mk1s,2s or 3s behind. I'd also love to see a complete HST set repainted into original blue / yellow / grey.... now that would really stand out in 2011.

Simple / boring maybe...? Compared to most of today's liveries they probably were, but when I saw a rake of blue / grey charter stock at Didcot a while back, with every detail just right, it hit a nerve and provoked a smile on my part and made my day.

 

[Boothby97]

Simple / boring maybe...? Compared to most of today's liveries they probably were, but when I saw a rake of blue / grey charter stock at Didcot a while back, with every detail just right, it hit a nerve and provoked a smile on my part and made my day.

Liveries will start to get simple, for instance East Coast Livery and c2c/East Anglia Livery, as it costs money to repaint every time a franchise is changed to a different operator. Shame the railways aren't run by the government.

 

[HST Power]

The East Coast livery is simple, but it stands out.

 

[387star]

Go-Ahead choose lovely liveries eg Thames Trains
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
East Coast livery would be fine minus the pink stripe. I think if Virgin won it or First their logo would look terrible unless it was only as big as the ScotRail operated by First logo.

 

[HST Power]

The First dynamic lines livery is probably my favorite. Though the only time when three passenger cars and two Class 43s with the livery worked together was between Paddington and Penzance, I think in 2006.

 

[Boothby97]

I hate Midland Mainline Teal Green, Intercity livery is okay, Eurostar, Connex and Heathrow Connect are awful and Merseyrail livery is horrible.

 

[Some Might Say]

Looking at that picture Boothby97 I really like the Stobart livery. GNER was a great livery and one of my favourites.

 

[Boothby97]

By the way I have never seen a Class 92 (uncle made me leave early from Peterbrough in March so missed the 92 hauled steel train) but I expect to see one this year. I think the Stobart, EWS and GBRf livery's suite the Class 92-my favorite locomotive.

 

[starrymarkb]

Eurostar,

They are getting a new livery as the sets get refurbished from next year. Should look a bit like that on the Velaro Mock Up

 

[Boothby97]

It will be better than the original

 

[GospelOak117]

Best: Network South East it suited every type of train, was attractive and stood out. The whole image was great. The logo on the train fronts, station signs, blue blades upholstrey etc.

Worst: I HATE FIRST'S CURRENT LIVERY, it's hideous and suits no type of train IMO, especially the 319's which i felt suited NSE livery the most. I found a picture on one of these alternative liveries sites of First livery on a 319 if the colours were Black and Orange........now that looks fantastic!!! such a shame they chose Pink and Purple, ghastly!!! The link to the picture is below

http://www.flickr.com/photos/alternativerailways/4974436135/in/photostream

 

[Boothby97]

Best: Network South East it suited every type of train, was attractive and stood out. The whole image was great. The logo on the train fronts, station signs, blue blades upholstrey etc.

The NSE Livery suites Class 86 86401 Northampton Town