What are the BR Mk1 carriages liveries?

We are willing to bet that at least 99.9% of modellers own at least one MK1 carriage amongst their collection. These carriages are fantastic and have been around for so long they pretty much symbolise British rolling stock. But with so many variations of composite and livery having been thrust upon them, it is sometimes hard to know which example belongs to which era (unless you were there).

When the railways were nationalised in 1948, the newly formed British Railways inherited most of their rolling stock from the Big Four companies, Southern, GWR, LMS and LNER. Production of these carriages continued until 1951 when it was decided to take the best design aspects of all the carriages and produce a brand new, standard carriage that could be used network-wide, subsequently, the Mk1 was born.

The Mk1 was in production from 1951 until 1963 with the design being utilised further up until 1974 for Multiple-Units and Parcels carriages.

The standard MK1 design was just over 64ft in length with a 58ft variant being produced in limited numbers to accommodate branch-lines with tight curves. These shorter carriages are very popular with modellers.

Mk1s enjoyed a very long life on the railways, withdrawal didn't start in any great numbers until early in the 1980s as newer stock, Multiple Units and HSTs started to displace them. Even then a significant number were kept back to operate summer specials, football trains and some back of beyond branch-lines.

Many Mk1s survived up until 2005. For Mk1 based Multiple Units it was even longer especially on the Southern Region with the very last scheduled service being the Lymington Branch which hung on to a Mk1 EMU right up until 2010.

You can still occasionally sight a Mk1 out on the mainline today. There are various rail-tour companies that have dispensation to operate them under strict conditions such as using a barrier vehicle at the rear of the train (in case of collision) and the retrofitting of central locking (or a steward in every coach).

Mainline Mk1s running days are numbered though, as it stands their dispensation to operate on the mainline will expire in 2023.

As for liveries, Mk1s have been painted in most of them, take your pick, it would be much harder to think of a livery that hasn't been applied to them.

When Mk1s were introduced, they burst out of the workshops sporting the much loved Crimson and Cream ("blood and custard") for corridor coaches and plain Crimson for non-corridor stock. This however, was relatively short-lived because in 1956 it was decided to make a return to regional colours. Most regions opted for all-over maroon to be applied to their carriages, the Western Region implemented a Chocolate and Cream livery but only on their named expresses and the Southern Region chose their traditional Green.

In 1962 the familiar yellow banding was introduced on the Southern Region along the top of the carriage sides to identify first class. This was replicated across the network in the years that followed and in 1964 hand painting was starting to be replaced with spray painting, this resulted in the carriage ends appearing in the same colour as the rest of the carriage.

In 1964 the hearts of railway fans everywhere were broken, with the introduction of British Railways Corporate Blue and Grey, the last remaining maroon Mk1 managed to dodge the paint shop right up until 1974 before joining the sea of blue.

BR Blue dominated the rails for nearly twenty years. It was 1982 before different liveries started to become commonplace on Mk1s starting with departmental yellow. Intercity made its debut in 1983 and two years later GWRs Chocolate and Cream livery made a limited comeback to celebrate their 150th anniversary.

Next up it was Scotland's turn to experiment with their Green and Cream and at the other end of the country in 1986, the toothpaste livery (Network South East) could be seen anywhere from Penzance to East Anglia. In 1988 the paintbrushes were busy once again when Mk1s started to appear in Regional Railways colour scheme and even battered old mail coaches got a freshen up with a bright Royal Mail red livery.

The Mk1 has had a varied life out there on the tracks. They have operated in every region and appeared in just about every livery and composite possible. They have been hauled at some time by every class of locomotive making them surely one of the best coaches out there for a modeller artistic licence.