Odd liveries

[Noel]

Does anybody know why at the introduction of the 201 class the locos and coach liveries did not match? This old pic from IT highlights how visually odd the combination looked. Was there originally a plan to repaint all the coaches that got put on hold?

 

 

Common Livery

 

Locomotives 231 and 233 are painted in a common livery which consists of light grey with a black stripe. The reason for this is they are assigned for Enterprise duties and as part of the refurbishment of the Enterprise in 2015-2016 only six were given the full livery. Prior to this some of those given the current livery had previously had the InterCity livery. As part of Irish Rail's logo change all InterCity 201's will carry the new Irish Rail logo which includes the Irish flag and for operational and safety reasons they will not operate cross border service so a common colour scheme was adopted.

 

 

So is this bizarre black'n'grey livery because these two locos are backups or spares for the enterprise service, whereas in the past it was ok to use 'green and silver' intercity locos as enterprise backups because the previous intercity logo didn't have an 'Irish Flag' in the logo?

[Railer]

It's the same with ICR sets 1-6. They are fully equipped to work on the NIR network as needed and as such they have the new logos applied but they are in grey scale with the tri colour removed.

[Noel]

It's the same with ICR sets 1-6. They are fully equipped to work on the NIR network as needed and as such they have the new logos applied but they are in grey scale with the tri colour removed.

 

Thank for that explanation. Wonder why they just didn't do the same with the Intercity 201s that cross the border instead of a third livery.

[hurricanemk1c]

There's more to it than just the flag issues. 231/233 are fully equipped for Northern operation (bar MMI socket and screen, which is an oversight but there must be a reason somewhere). Thus they are more suited for Enterprise duties. The others (in this case, 215,217-226,229,232,234) do not have NIR safety equipment (such as AWS, TPWS, NIR Train Radio and isolation bars) and would require a secondman. With enough spare Enterprise locos, there's no need for them [the list] to go north and can have full logos.

 

Incicdently, 22036-22039 also have 'half' logos (just the wording)

[Railer]

Yeah,I don't see the reason for the common user livery on 231 and 233 but I do really like it. The locos just need the above mentioned additions to be fully Enterprise ready. The livery is basically the Enterprise livery without the swirls almost like 8209 when it went around for a few months in the half finished livery.

 

No reason they could have put them in Mk4 livery and used the logos like the 071s have, no colour at all.

 

I find it odd what they did to the common Enterprise fleet livery wise. 206-209 stayed as is, Enterprise to Enterprise. 230 is basically a write off/full rebuild required. 227 and 228 went from Mk4 livery to Enterprise. 231 went Mk4 to CUL and 233 went from Enterprise to CUL.

 

None of the Enterprise locos have any branding or logos applied to them or either do the CUL locos. Would almost have made as much sense painting 231 and 233 in the 071 livery.

[Noel]

Must just be my visual OCD - I find confused and illogical brand graphics rather irritating. The essence of rail colour schemes is uniformity and compatibility.