Tabbard colours

[whole diary]

[ellendune]

I.E a bright green GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) staff member should be very visible in crowd of passengers anyway!

I didn't realise that GWR staff are now bright green in colour.  This must make recruitment very difficult.  I assume they are now placing recruitment adverts only on mars, where as we all know little green men (and presumably women) are know to originate.   

[devonexpress]

I didn't realise that GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) staff are now bright green in colour.  This must make recruitment very difficult.  I assume they are now placing recruitment adverts only on mars, where as we all know little green men (and presumably women) are know to originate.   

Haha, I meant the uniforms

[ChrisB]

If only they wore 'bright' green! The current iniform means they can't be seen over 10 yards in a crowd!

[grahame]

Pink - the new Orange

I understand that henceforth, Orange hi-vis tabards will be used to identify rail staff, with a new colour being introduced for community volunteers. Proud to wear the new colour for the first time yesterday



As yet, pink hivis tabards are not the easiest things to source when you realise at short notice that you should have them.  But worth the effort and they made us - err - highly visible - in the Melksham Carnival Parade.

[eightonedee]

Did you wear them with Pride?

[grahame]

Did you wear them with Pride?

Exactly the linkage I anticipated. I have a pride in what we've achieved in Melksham with the train service (though I am more than a little p**sed off this morning with zero trains running because they're short staffed!).  And I am delighted that three out of four of our team took that same mature pride in being rail volunteers and wore them right through the parade.

[TaplowGreen]

Did you wear them with Pride?

Exactly the linkage I anticipated. I have a pride in what we've achieved in Melksham with the train service (though I am more than a little p**sed off this morning with zero trains running because they're short staffed!).  And I am delighted that three out of four of our team took that same mature pride in being rail volunteers and wore them right through the parade.

Melksham Pride! 

[broadgage]

I.E a bright green GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) staff member should be very visible in crowd of passengers anyway!

I didn't realise that GWR staff are now bright green in colour.  This must make recruitment very difficult.  I assume they are now placing recruitment adverts only on mars, where as we all know little green men (and presumably women) are known to originate.   

This may explain the ongoing staff shortages.

[Bmblbzzz]

However BTP^▸ (British Transport Police) and fire brigade are almost always to be seen in yellow, even if trackside. Something I've yet to work out seeing as everyone else MUST wear orange to some degree or another.

From my own railway training: an orange hi-vi cannot be mistaken for a green or yellow signal when trackside - the yellow ones have a greenish tinge, and might.  When BTP et al. are trackside, nothing is running so their hi-vi colour is not an issue.

Orange is used as it is considered the least natural colour, so it is unlikely to be mistaken for anything else, in some circumstances yellow can blend in a bit. I've always wondered why there hasn't been widespread switch to orange on the roads as I always find it is visible from a greater distance than yellow.

I have seen footage on several tv programmes of BTP trackside on active railways.

Brief perusal of Youtube suggests that in USA, some at least trackside staff wear yellow hi-viz and some road workers wear orange.

[ellendune]

Orange is apparently preferred in the UK^▸ (United Kingdom) as Yellow attracts flies!

[broadgage]

Orange is apparently preferred in the UK^▸ (United Kingdom) as Yellow attracts flies!

I understood that orange was selected by "the railway" for high visibility clothing because almost everyone else used yellow and the railway wanted to be different.

[grahame]

Orange is apparently preferred in the UK^▸ (United Kingdom) as Yellow attracts flies!

I understood that orange was selected by "the railway" for high visibility clothing because almost everyone else used yellow and the railway wanted to be different.

I understand that too - but with the specific reason that the orange ones are for people who are trained to be on the track only so that they are easily identified as being authorised to be there by train drivers. So the "want to be different  " is for a good reason, even though it might sound odd.

[Electric train]

Orange is apparently preferred in the UK^▸ (United Kingdom) as Yellow attracts flies!

I understood that orange was selected by "the railway" for high visibility clothing because almost everyone else used yellow and the railway wanted to be different.

I understand that too - but with the specific reason that the orange ones are for people who are trained to be on the track only so that they are easily identified as being authorised to be there by train drivers. So the "want to be different  " is for a good reason, even though it might sound odd.

The choice of orange by British Railways back in the late 1960's / early 1970's was to reduce the risk of a driver confusing a track workers Hi Vi with a yellow hand signal.

For a similar reason temporary safety fencing used on the lineside is blue in colour, when the plastic net fence was first used to help protect staff in the late 1980's the only colour available was orange.  Drivers raised concerns that occasionally they saw the orange netting from a distance and had to apply emergency brakes because the track workers were not moving to a position of safety.

The Orange Hi Vi is not an indication of someone holding PTS^▸ (Personal Track Safety) (Personal Track Safety) everyone who goes within the railway boundary has to wear full PPE, full body orange Hi Vis clothing with reflective stripes, a hard hat, eye protection, cut 5 gloves and steel toe boots with sole protection (note "rigger boots" are not permitted)
The indication that someone has a full PTS is the colour of the hard hat non PTS or those in probation wear blue with white for those with PTS.

The use of colours other than orange at stations is in part to identify public facing staff from "operational" staff

[ellendune]

Orange is apparently preferred in the UK^▸ (United Kingdom) as Yellow attracts flies!

I understood that orange was selected by "the railway" for high visibility clothing because almost everyone else used yellow and the railway wanted to be different.

That may have been the case, but that is no longer the case as most of the rest of the construction industry seems to have adopted orange!

[grahame]

The choice of orange by British Railways back in the late 1960's / early 1970's was ....

Many, many thanks for the details ... and pulling my earlier simplification in the direction of accuracy