British Rail 1947 - 1997

Engine Appearance - Changes at Nationalization (Cont)

Emblems

At first the LMS emblems or badges on the engines and carriages were replaced with the words BRITISH RAILWAYS in plain writting. Later a lion and wheel (through which the words British Railways ran) emblem was used. From about 1957 the lion and wheel emblem was replaced by a totem, which had the coat of arms and the words British Railways on either side.

The totem emblem with arms and words

The Lion and the Wheel

When BR came into effect it was decided that there should be a single numbering scheme incorporating engines from all of the previous four main companies. This meant that there was a series of re-numberings as follows:-

Great Western Railway engines remained as they were with numbers between 1-10,000

diesel engines, of whatever company, used numbers in the 10,000- 19,999 range

electric engines, of whatever company, used numbers in the 20,000-29,999 range

Southern Region engines used numbers in the 30,000-39,999 range

London Midland & Scottish engines used number in the 40,000 - 59,999 range

London North Eastern Railways engine used numbers in the 60,000 - 69,999 range

new British Rail classes used numbers in the 70,000 - 99,999 range

Most London Midland & Scottish engines were renumbered by adding 40,000 to their original 4 digit number - for example engine 6235 became 46235.

Implementation

The numbers and liveries would be changed when convenient, eg when the engine enteredn the works for an overhaul, and it was some years before all engines had been changed to the BR style (or most recent BR style). So even in the mid 1950s it was still possible to see LMS liveries. Numbers were typically changed first as this was a minor change compared to an overall re-paint.