Green TOPS - The Definitive List?

A perennial subject for debate amongst enthusiasts is, “Which members of class so and so ran in green livery with a TOPS 5-figure number?” Everyone knows 40106 of course and other celebrity repaints such as Liverpool Street station pilot 08531 and ‘Deltic’ 55002 (which by an odd coincidence was actually the first ‘Deltic’ to receive the Rail Blue back in 1966) and most enthusiasts of the mid/late 1970s will remember seeing a few two tone green 47s, green 08s and 40s with TOPS numbers.
However, it may come as something of a surprise to many enthusiasts, even those who were active spotters and photographers during this period, to learn that there were actually well over 500 locomotives that ran with TOPS numbering whilst still in green livery despite nearly a decade passing after the introduction of Rail Blue.
At the end of 1973 there were 3,639 diesel locomotives in capital stock on BR, so as many as one loco in seven was still in green, many having not seen a paintbrush since the day they were built and in corresponding external condition. As you might expect, the bulk of this total were shunters but also a very high number of main line classes are included, and many top link express locomotives too, such as ETH fitted 47/4s.
Introduced for diesel locomotives in May 1973, the TOPS renumbering took a little time to gather speed but was completed by the latter part of 1975, the last loco apart from WR Hydraulics with its old number was Class 45 no 125 which became 45071. The green livery took somewhat longer to disappear, the last green locos surviving into the middle of 1980.

It seems very odd in these days of a kaleidoscope of corporate liveries and new repaints emerging on a regular basis that this was ever permitted by BR, especially when you consider the indecent haste with which steam was ousted and the obsession with modernising the image of the railways. The corporate image Rail Blue and the legendary double arrow symbol were adopted as standard in 1966 after experimenting with XP64 and were swiftly implemented on units, coaching stock, buildings, official literature etc. Few multiple units or items of coaching stock remained in their original colours after the turn of the decade, yet BR seemed quite content to allow a large proportion of its locomotive fleet to soldier on in the antiquated green livery with the old British Railways Lion totem for many years more. Somehow you can’t imagine today’s publicity-conscious rail operators doing the same.
It is especially strange because at the time BR tolerated no deviation from corporate line blue livery-wise and any depots that dared to personalise their locos pre-1977 were quickly slapped into line.
There are a number of reasons as to why so many locos lasted so long in the old colours: date of construction, where overhauled, mileages run and consequent engine hours, etc., and I will come to that as we deal with each class individually. Sometimes though, there seems to have been no rhyme or reason as to why some classes survived in green so long yet other classes earmarked for early withdrawal such as Co-Bos, ‘Claytons’, ‘Baby Deltics’, Class 11 shunters and even D600 ‘Warships’ had members appearing in blue, some of which did not even survive steam.

Definitive? Well perhaps not quite! Every time I think I’ve uncovered the last green TOPS loco I unearth another one, and there are a few listed here that I’m not so sure about which I will explain my reasons for as we go along. However, I think this list is as near the definitive version as I’m likely to get. The trouble is some locos only ran as green TOPS for a few weeks and went unrecorded and especially un-photographed, of which more later.
I have where possible verified every loco on this list with a number-visible photograph, and where this was not possible by multiple independent text references and sightings backed up by works records. While I don’t claim infallibility I can say that this list is as accurate as I can possibly make it.
What I have also been able to do is remove many locos erroneously reported as running as green TOPS in previously published listings, many of which use each other as source material. Basically if it’s been in print elsewhere as a green TOPS and you can’t find it here, it never was!

Class 01

Only two of these small shunters survived even into the 1970s, both isolated from the BR system at Holyhead breakwater, and it was presumably unviable both physically and economically to put them through works overhauls. A case of out of sight out of mind here I think. Oddly (but not uniquely!) neither loco had even received a coat of green livery in the late ‘50s or early ‘60s and remained in the original 1950s black to the end.

There were actually four of these locos given TOPS numbers but 2852 (02002) didn’t last long enough to receive it. No Class 02 ever had blue livery.

Class 03

Three members of Class 03 were still green when TOPS numbers were applied and the first two were withdrawn before blue was received. 03382 outlasted the lot and received blue in early 1979.
I well remember 03382 shunting around Bristol Temple Meads in October 1977 but with the foresight of the average teenage spotter didn’t bother raising the camera. These three survivors are strange; most 03s not withdrawn in the late ‘60s went blue very quickly although these three were WR-allocated locos and most of the rest were on the ER. The WR did have a number of other 03s but these were allocated to Landore as opposed to the West Country and had visited works to have their cabs cut down for use on the restricted clearances of the BPGV line; all wore Rail Blue by the early 1970s.

Class 06

Just the two from this class - 06001 went blue in 1975 but 010 ended its days in green.
There were originally 34 of these locomotives, most were withdrawn in the late 1960s in green but ten survived to receive TOPS numbers, nine of which also received Rail Blue.

Class 08, 09 and 13

1954 vintage Class 08, originally No. 13049 & D3049 became 08 036 in
June 1974 and is pictured here at Chester exactly one year later still
retaining its green livery and 'BritishRailways' emblem.
(Photo courtesy Mark Harrington)

08212/8/9/21/3-9/37-9/41/3-5/7/8/50/2/5/6/60/1/4-70/90/5,

08306/7/10/11/7/31/2/5/6/55/7/8/62/9-72/88/9/91,

Now we are talking! The majority of TOPS locos in green are, as you would guess, Class 08s, inevitable considering the sheer number of them, but it may be a surprise to discover one or two still retained pre-1957 black well into the 1970s.
Willesden’s D3052 (allocated 08039 but not carried) remained in black livery despite a trip to Derby works in September 1973, complete with pre-1956 ‘cycling lion’ and a half-size D prefix until its withdrawal in December that year.
As a non-TOPS carrying loco this puts it out of the remit of this article to be strictly accurate, although one of its black cab doors ended up on 08010, which also sported the pre-‘56 crest.
08105 however survived into the spring of 1975 still black with its ‘cycling lion’ and was even illustrated in 1975’s Ian Allan Combined Volume (albeit in black and white). 08221 was another with a ‘cycling lion’ but even a colour photo of this loco cannot say for definite if it was black or just very dirty green, so I have included it in the list of green locos.
Class 08 withdrawals proper had begun in 1972 with a few early members, the vast majority of the class survived long enough to be allocated TOPS numbers but a few did bite the dust before actually receiving one. Some of those still green when TOPS was applied didn’t last long enough to receive Rail Blue with 08010/43/57/65/6, 135/57, 229, 306/7/10/57/8 and 566 all going to the scrap yard in green.
Last green 08 and last “proper” green TOPS loco of all was 08934, which was repainted by Swindon in June 1980.
The SR had only a small allocation of locos with all its mainline classes going blue by the summer of 1971 (the last being Class 33 no 6566) and few of its Class 08s were green by 1973 so the inclusion of the two 09s in this list may raise an eyebrow. This is easily explained by the fact that they were allocated to the LMR at Allerton until transfer to the WR in 1974 and eventually to the SR, although 09025 was still green in 1977.
The Class 13 shunters were formed from pairs of converted 08s in 1965 and the relatively minute annual mileages they must have run kept them clear of the shops until the early 1970s, 4500 (13003) just escaped inclusion in the list by receiving blue whilst still 4500 in late 1972 but the other two both made it with 13002 lasting into 1977.

One of the numerous Class 20's to retain the old livery, 20 177,
pictured here at Toton on the 29th March 1978. Note that the
locomotives data panel, beneath the number, is blue in colour; no
green versions were ever available!
(Photo Russell Saxton.)

20014-8/20-3/5/6/45/7/56/75,129-33/7/8/40/1/4-7/9-56/8/62/4/5/7/9/70/4/5/7, 228

The third most numerous type to retain green livery into the TOPS era and, apart from the aforementioned celebrity repaints, members of Class 20 were the last main line locos running in green and certainly the most numerous in the late 1970s.
s a schoolboy spotter in the mid ‘70s living a few miles north of Toton, they were a very familiar sight to the point of monotony and it was not unusual to see a pair of green 20s pass another green pair on coal trains, thus giving four green TOPS locos in action together. With the usual kid’s attitude to the familiar this would not cause so much as the raising of an eyebrow, sometimes such a sight wouldn’t distract us from “The Victor”, “Sounds” or the sort of publication you find discarded in the hedgerow depending on which year of the 1970s you refer to!
The 20s were built in two main blocks, 8000-127 from 1957-61 and a second block of 100, nos. 8128-99 and 8300-27 from 1966-8. By the time the second batch was well underway BR had adopted Rail Blue as standard and locos delivered from the end of 1966 began to emerge in Rail Blue from 8178 onwards. There has been controversy over the precise point at which new blue 20s began, but research has now conclusively proved that up to 8177 were green and 8179 blue.
As you would imagine, locos new in 1966 would not require major works attention for several years and this coupled with the sheer reliability of the 20 ensured that most of the latter batch remained in green well into the TOPS era, and also a fair number of the early locos. 20228 is not an odd survivor or a freak green new build, it is the former 8128 put at the end of the list for a TOPS number due to the need to accommodate 8000 in the main series.
Another strange thing is that Crewe Works overhauled the class in the early ‘70s and for some reason turned out freshly overhauled locos in green livery. I have never been able to find out why this was done; a large stock of green paint, paint shop capacity limitations, LM penny-pinching that said “if its bodywork is in good order, leave it” or what, but it was the same for Class 47s done in the same era. The bulk of the green survivors were LM Region allocated and this, as will be seen from notes for other classes, is perhaps not a coincidence. 20014 was withdrawn whilst still in green in 1976 and was the only 20 to escape corporate blue.
20141 became the last surviving mainline green loco in normal service, still in green when photographed at Glasgow Works on May 17^th 1980, almost 14 years after the first members appeared in blue.

Class 24

Not many Class 24s lasted long enough to run in green after renumbering, most probably due to the fact that they were falling due for overhaul in the early days of Rail Blue and most passed through Derby in the late 1960s and early ‘70s.
Again, most of the green TOPS locos were LM based, the LM Region seeming to be the least diligent at repainting its loco fleet into blue, often outshopping after a heavy general without repainting whilst some regions repainted their locos at the first available opportunity. Strangely though, the mostly LM-based Class 45s were all blue pre-1970.
Those of you with copies of the 1975 Combined Volume may ask “What about 24021?” which is illustrated therein with a lion and wheel emblem but this loco was in fact blue!
Wholesale withdrawal of Class 24 began in 1975 and 24090/2 and 136 were withdrawn whilst still green. 24092 was rather odd in that it had a double arrow symbol on its very tatty green livery to the end, 24081 was the same but this one did get a coat of blue and later became the last member in traffic.
Those familiar with the 24s in their last years will recognise many of the last survivors in the above list, presumably their survival was due to receiving overhauls around 1974/5. This seems odd considering they were earmarked for withdrawal, but as I said in the introduction there seems to be little logic in this subject.

A very difficult class to be sure of, almost no photographs of these locos in green with TOPS numbers seem to have made it into print and were it not for the photo collections of friends there would be little evidence for most of these bar text references, which can be unreliable to say the least.
The numbers are spread fairly evenly across the whole class with LM-based examples once again featuring prominently. A few LM-based locos had not even received full yellow ends in 1973/4 and there is the slight possibility that 7659 (25309) may have received its TOPS number before overhaul and Rail Blue.
It was spotted (coupled together with the other remaining yellow panel example 7600!) at Willesden on January 8^th 1974 by arch livery guru Ron Halestrap with old numbers, but did it briefly run with the new?
Both were at Crewe for overhaul and repaint by late February, 7600 with its pre TOPS identity and chalked on number.
25006/36/8/40/3/53/8 and 218 were in all over green, the rest were the later variant with the different body design and two-tone green livery.
25043 was the last green Class 25 of all, the last two-tone green example was 25102, both going blue in 1976.

Despite a fair number of this class remaining green well into the 1970s, just these two made it into TOPS and neither lasted too long, both receiving blue by 1975. 27001 retained the attractive white bodyside stripe but 27024 was in a less pleasing plain green.
The ScR was quite keen with the blue paintbrush and until the transfer of 20146 and 149 to the region in 1976 had temporarily eliminated main line green locos.

Class 31

The least known and certainly least photographed green TOPS loco, 31294 ran for maybe six weeks or so in traffic on the WR from February 15^th 1974 when it was renumbered, to its entry into Doncaster works on April 6^th and subsequent emergence in Rail Blue, and it is my most sought after photo reference.
The 31s were mostly ER-based and the ER was no slouch with blue paint, most of the remaining green 31s (i.e. the ones that had seen the longest spell without works attention) were cleared out to the WR in the early ‘70s to replace withdrawn hydraulics. There is also the very distinct possibility that 31286 can be added to the list, of which more later.

Class 37

It’s odd that despite the keen interest shown in the 37s today no such interest seemed to exist in the 1970s, and the 37 is the least photographed and least reported main line class of all. As with the 25s, the photo collections of friends and much cross-checking of independent text references have been invaluable.
There is a much quoted rumour that 37207 retained small yellow panels into 1974 even being seen at Paddington on April 8^th whilst still numbered 6907 after deputising for a failed 47 on an express from South Wales. However, after much research into this story and the perusal of several photographs, I think it can safely be dismissed as a mistake for a very dirty loco with a clean patch due to headcode panel cleaning.
37232 was unusual in that it had a double arrow symbol on green livery, not unique amongst green 37s but this was the only one I know of that received a TOPS number.
Some sources report 37106 as green, but I have to say I have no evidence as to the accuracy of this. Indeed reports to suggest the opposite exist, leaving 37009 as the only confirmed split-headcode 37 in green with a TOPS number. With the exception of this one, Thornaby’s 37250 and Stratford’s 37265/7, all the other members were South Wales allocated, their survival in green being probably due to their relatively recent construction in 1964/5 before the introduction of Rail Blue (note that most are numbered in the higher series), and the subsequent gap before they fell due for general overhaul. (Although to confound this, 6992 appeared in Rail Blue in 1968.)
It is more probably due to the fact that the South Wales freight-only locos possibly ran relatively low mileages due to their confinement to a small geographical area and use on slow freight trains so taking time to accrue enough engine hours for a general overhaul. Last one into blue was 37244 in October 1976.

Class 40

The only Class 40 to go to the breakers in green livery, 40 039,
pictured here at Tinsley, four months after withdrawal in May 1976.
(Photo courtesy Mark Harrington.)

The bigger sisters of the 37s are contrastingly well represented in print, and photographic evidence is easy to come by. Most of the green TOPS 40s are well photographed (especially 40106!) with two exceptions. Livery scholars will note the absence of 40189 and 190 from the above list and despite numerous printed sources listing these two (some going so far as to say they were scrapped in green), I have to say that years of research have failed to provide a single photograph of either in that livery. I can say conclusively that both were blue upon withdrawal and any references to their scrapping in green can be disregarded; the only 40 (apart from early accident victim 322) to go to the breakers in green was 40039, scrapped at Crewe in October 1976.
Others frequently listed as green TOPS in error are 40128/61/93, all of which were blue before TOPS, 393 as long ago as 1969.
Most of these had the numbers on the cabside but a few such as 40039/52 had them on the bodyside behind the cab doors. 40017/22/35 still carried their nameplates as green TOPS locos, certainly during 1974 and perhaps until repainting in blue. I’m unsure about 40010/8/31.
Everyone knows 40106 as green TOPS, repainted as a celebrity loco in 1978, but there is a persistent rumour that refuses to die, stating it was repainted briefly into blue and ran in traffic for a few days, or onto Crewe diesel depot and back to the works. I cannot confirm or deny this story as no really conclusive evidence can be found either way, if true then someone must have photographed it. To be fair, several do claim to have seen it as far away as York, but I would love to know the final answer.

Class 47

47 262 pictured at Penzance in July 1975. The locomotive shows
the classic practice on the Class 47's of crudely painting over the old cabside number (D1962) only for it to be revealed again after several months of wear.
(Photo courtesy Mark Harrington.)

Most numerous main line class in green TOPS was, as you would expect, the 47.
A similar situation to the Class 20 existed with the 47s, they were still under construction when Rail Blue was introduced and nos.1953-61 (not numerically the last but the last to be constructed) entered service in that colour scheme, never appearing in green.
The bulk of the class did not fall due for major works attention for several years after the adoption of Rail Blue; this, coupled with Crewe’s odd penchant for outshopping locos in green in the early 1970s, sometimes even ETH fitting them at the same time, ensured plenty of survivors into the TOPS era.
Indeed at the start of 1971, apart from 1953-61 and early repaint 1932, the whole of the block 1785-1999 was still in the attractive 2 tone green with full yellow ends, as well as many in the earlier series.
The majority of the green TOPS-ers were not as you would expect the low mileage non-boiler fitted freight-only 47/3s, but steam heated 47/0s, including namer 47091 “Thor” complete with red backed nameplates at first, yet also included were several ETH fitted 47/4s. Most were from the old 11xx series allocated to the ECML but there was also 47494 allocated to the WR, which, as 1936, was fitted with ETH heating in October 1971 yet escaped blue livery, as did most 47s having heavy general repairs at the time. It survived to be the last green 47/4, receiving a TOPS number on February 5^th 1974 and blue in a general overhaul during December ‘74/January ‘75.
There were a number of minor livery variations amongst green TOPS 47s. Most had the old number deleted and a TOPS number applied to the drivers side window, others had the new number applied to the bodyside where it would have been on a blue loco and 47356 had both, number on the drivers side cab and also on the bodyside at the opposite end although on one side only. Strange.
47267 retained its WR red route classification disc and 47262’s old pre-TOPS number 1962 was clearly visible under the secondman’s cab window where the blue overpainted panel wore thin.
47195/256, 47356/8/66/7/9 all remained green into 1977, with the last succumbing to blue in September with one exception. 47256 suffered fire damage at the end of 1977 and was repainted all-over green without a BR logo by Cardiff Canton, carrying on in traffic like this until May 1978 when it entered Crewe and emerged in blue in October.

Probables and Possibles

There are a number of locos that I have references for that have been listed elsewhere as green TOPS, but which I cannot verify with photographic evidence and which works records, etc. do not back up. Sometimes they are from conflicting text references, my own memories of unrecorded spotting days and sometimes from incorrectly captioned pictures, and in all cases I do not feel justified in including them in the main list until proven beyond all doubt.
This list is not long but for the sake of completeness and in the hope that someone can say for certain what does or does not belong here, I have included it with this article.
I do not really doubt the majority of this list I must say, almost all of these with the exception of the class 20s which I feel are inaccurate and 40189/90 mentioned previously can fairly safely be said to be green TOPS.
Certainly most were green under their pre-TOPS numbers in 1973 and 1974, but I just want a little more proof, cynic that I am.

Well there it is, if not absolutely the “definitive” list, it is at least the most definitive and accurate I know of! And it’s arguable that after such a long passage of time the “definitive and final” list may well be impossible to achieve, many spotting notes of the era having inevitably long since gone the way of the dodo, even photographic collections sometimes too. And of course it’s equally inevitable that some of you who read this will say, 'what about 08 so and so, that was green and it’s not listed', and I freely admit that there are bound to be a few that have slipped the net that ran for months, weeks or even just days in green with a TOPS identity. If anyone can add to/subtract from this list I’d be delighted to hear from you (providing you can prove it of course!), so please do follow it up. Anyone with queries relating to specific locomotives such as dates, livery variation etc, please don’t hesitate to contact me at russell.saxton@ntlworld.com

©Copyright Russell Saxton 2003/4/5/6 and may not be reproduced in any form without his express permission. This article first appeared in issue 87, August 2003, of Rail Express magazine. Many thanks go to Russell for allowing the use of his work on Rail Blue.