BR green livery

Brunswick green was the standard colour of a British Railways express passenger locomotive. A dark green, close to the shade the Great Western had used, it was chosen after the 1948 to 1950 livery trials as the colour for the fastest and most powerful passenger classes, and it was lined out in orange and black in a style that recalled Great Western practice. By 1960 it was worn by the front-line Pacifics and 4-6-0s of every region, and it had been extended to the first main-line diesels as they entered traffic.

What it was applied to

Green was reserved for express passenger power. The heavy Pacifics, the Coronations and Duchesses of the West Coast, the Gresley and Peppercorn engines of the East Coast, the Bulleid Pacifics of the Southern, and the four-cylinder Kings and Castles of the Western all carried it, as did many of the larger mixed-traffic 4-6-0s used on passenger work. Secondary, freight, and shunting classes were turned out in plain black, so the green finish was in itself a statement that an engine belonged at the head of a named train. The full range of classes is catalogued in the locomotives section.

The two emblems

Two national devices were carried on the tender or tank sides in turn. The first, adopted in 1949, was an emblem showing a lion astride a wheel, known to enthusiasts as the “cycling lion”. From the mid-1950s it was replaced by a new heraldic crest granted to the British Transport Commission, which combined a lion holding a wheel with regional and national symbols. Both can be seen on preserved engines today, and the change of emblem is often the quickest way to date a photograph of a green locomotive to before or after about 1956.

On the Southern

The Southern Region had a particular attachment to green, having run its pre-nationalisation express engines in the bright malachite green of the Bulleid regime. Under British Railways the Bulleid Pacifics were repainted into the standard Brunswick green like their counterparts elsewhere, though the region’s electric and diesel-electric stock also took green liveries of their own. The dark green remained the Southern’s dominant colour long after other regions had begun to standardise on blue.