BR MK1 Maroon SK

BR MK1 Maroon SK

Type: CORRIDOR SECOND (SK)
Built: 1951 - 1963
Seating: 48 (W & S regions, 64), in 8 compartments.
Length: 64.5 feet
Weight: 33 tons
Era: 1956 - late 60s
BR Region: ALL

The Corridor Second, presented here as No 26060 allocated to the Western Region, mounted on BR1 bogies with original window mounts and fitted internally with tungsten lighting, wooden interior panelling and steam heating.

The Corridor coach being one of the first and most numerous of the Mk1 desgins, follows the tradition of the popular 'corridor' design from the pre-nationalised companies. Designed for standard passenger use the seating arranged into eight compartments, each with its own window, seating three abreast. Each compartment accessed by a two foot wide corridor running down one side of the coach - hence the term 'corridor' coach.

Foldaway armrests were provided, and on crowded trains these could be lifted back into the seat thus providing an additional two seats per compartment. The Southern and Western region Second class compartments were fitted with no armrests, thus seating eight people to a compartment. In time, as coaches moved around the network, the nature of six and eight seated compartments presented problems to operational managers regarding seat reservation. To the extent that many armrests were removed or sewn into the upright positions.

Two toilets are provided, both at the same end of the coach, on opposite sides of the centre isle.


USE

This type of coach would be found on mainline passenger trains on all regions of British Railways, during mid 1950s to late 1960s.


LIVERY

A change of government in 1951 saw the passing of a new Transport Act that lead to the abolition of the Railway Executive in 1956, giving the Regions much more autonomy in their actions. One such regional development led to the London Midland, Southern and Western regions adopting new liveries based on their former pre-nationalised companies.

Urged on by the desire to replace the Crimson and Cream livery with a single coloured livery for ease of maintenance and cleaning, the Maroon livery made its first appearance in the spring of 1956. Instigated by the London Midland Region (the largest BR region) - this livery closely matched that of the former London Midland and Scottish Railway, whose lines outside of Scotland the LM region now controlled.

Maroon was adopted as the standard livery for coaching stock - replacing Crimson and Cream - on all regions, except the Southern. Coach ends were painted black until 1964 where upon new painting techniques, developed at the Southern Region's Eastleigh works, started the trend to paint the coach ends in the same colour as the body sides.

The Maroon livery lasted until the Blue Grey corporate livery was unveiled in 1965. During the mid 50s and late 60s, many rakes would be formed with a mixture of coaching stock bearing old and new liveries.


THE MARK 1 PROGRAMME

After the Second World War, wartime conditions highlighted the need for better standards in regards to vehicle lengths, profiles and couplings, for stock working between the 'Big Four' companies. A commission of senior officers was duly appointed by the UK 'Railway Companies Association' to create and implement a set of dimensions that would be applied to all future stock from each company. Although completed, the standards were not implemented, as nationalisation was imminent.

On nationalisation in 1948, the commission's findings were used by the new 'British Railways Carriage Standards Committee' as the basis to developed the 'C1 Restriction' profile - a set of standards governing coach length, profile and bogie centres. Thus from this the classic Mark 1 design was born, the prototypes unveiled on 18th September 1950, production coaches entering revenue service in March 1951. The Mk1 became the standard design for all new coaches between 1951 and 1964. Built using standard components - frame, coach ends and bogies - the body sides constructed from panelled sections with standard door and window fittin

Author: Stephen Dark/Alexander Barnard

BR MK1 Maroon SK
• config.txt 5.97KB
mk1_maroon_sk_art
mk1_maroon_sk_art_512.texture.txt 93 bytes
mk1_maroon_sk_art_512.tga 1.00MB
mk1_maroon_sk_art_icon.texture.txt 95 bytes
mk1_maroon_sk_art_icon.tga 32.02KB
mk1_maroon_sk_body
env.texture.txt 26 bytes
env.tga 48.53KB
mk1_maroon_sk.texture.txt 36 bytes
mk1_maroon_sk.tga 1.50MB
mk1_maroon_sk_body.pm 458.74KB
mk1_maroon_sk_shadow
black.texture.txt 28 bytes
black.tga 812 bytes
mk1_maroon_sk_shadow.pm 72.61KB