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Travelling this week, I saw staff in no fewer that four different colour tabards ...

(http://www.wellho.net/pix/tabbards.jpg)

Most of us know orange ... but where on rail do you find yellow, blue and green?

Down this way I've seen the passenger assistance in a green one, (I think, or it may have been the cleaner)

Blue seems to be Network Rail (at NR stations) and Chiltern wear them too

.......Is it the hi vis Pride March this weekend? ;-)

Saw two in pink as my train pulled in to a SouthEastern station today Saturday. Wasn't really paying attention to which station it was though, I'm not familiar with that line.

I sort of think I've worked out:
Orange - General rail aware
Yellow - General not rail aware (seen Swindon)
Green - Customer information / assist (seen Swindon)
Blue - Network Rail (seen Glasgow Central)
Pink - Network Rail Customer assist (example https://www.networkrail.co.uk/Network-magazine-Oct-2015.pdf )

Wouldn't they all be wearing rainbow tabards, then ?

............now that would be worth seeing!  ;D

To my mind orange means that they might be doing something important or at least safety critical (fixing the train, oiling the points, standing and watching colleague do one of the above) and are in HiVis to make them conspicuous to train drivers rather than passengers. 

Other colours of Hi Vis are just to make them more visible to passengers.

I would be more inclined to approach staff in non-orange HiVis.  Those in orange I might be more aware that they might have other duties and not want to be disturbed, but those in non-orange HiVis I would regard as fair game for inane passenger questions. 

Yes: Orange is the required colour for high visibility gear for any railway staff working 'trackside' or on 'safety critical' duties. They should not be distracted.

Anyone wearing any other colour of hi-viz is indeed 'fair game', I think.  ;)

However BTP 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.

If orange is better than yellow for visibility, why are the fronts of trains painted yellow and not orange? 

I'd always assumed that trackside clothing was orange so it could be conspicuous in front of more background colours including greeny-yellow vegetation and the yellow paint applied to trains and wagons.   If a TOC decided its new livery was to be mainly orange you could see how that would potentially increase the danger for trackside workers in orange HiVis in a way that NR "flying banana"* does not

*an HST used as a track measurement train and painted, like much rail plant, completely in yellow. 

Now you mention it, I suspect orange is partly used because train ends are yellow, although due to brighter and more reliable headlights, it appears the yellow is gradually disappearing - mentioned on another thread somewhere iirc. Now I think of it, when I worked trackside (10+ years ago so things may have changed a little), it was not permitted to wear any yellow, red or green clothing which could've been mistaken for signal flags, so this is another reason for orange - it's not a signal colour.

I suspect you would see objection from the unions and HSE if there were any mainly orange train liveries proposed! Indeed, trackside fencing (the plastic sort used to delineate safe working areas to remove the need for lookouts) once was orange, but was changed to blue to provide contrast with hi-vis clothing after feedback from train drivers.

Yellow front ends are no longer de rigeur I understand - recently removed from safety regs.

I'd forgotten that.  Seems like a retrograde step if you ask me.  Even if it is less important to have yellow front ends than it used to be, It is not as if the requirement to have yellow front ends carries any cost (yellow paint is the same price as other colours)

Yellow 'front ends' were not required under the previous group standards.   The requirement was only for a 1 sq m patch, the vast majority of yellow applied in recent years is for aesthetic purposes as part of the overall livery. 

The other point is that the 'yellow patch' requirement is only relaxed for trains with the very latest headlight specifications, the lights that are so bright that they are the first thing seen even in daylight.

Paul

It has been explained to me in the past, though, where I asked for some yellow paint that it looks dirtier much quicker than alternatives and so the maintenance costs are significantly higher.

So ToCs want to save money by washing trains less regularly and the supine regulator thinks making it harder for the public to see just how filthy their neglected trains really are is a good enough justification for relaxing a safety standard? I am all for relaxing regulations where there is substantial cost and negligible benefit, but I am afraid this justification is rather weak because it only exists in an environment where a basic thing like regular and thorough train washing is neglected. 

(I am playing devils advocate)

I think the point is that on new builds (that are likely to have the required lights),TOCs can choose that pane's colour to go with their company colour scheme? Or any other colour, I guess that might mean something.

What's wrong with that, if the lights are now the safety feature on new build, rather than the yellow panel. If the RSSB are happy, then shouldn't you be?

Well I am an old curmudgeon and so I am never happy.  I guess my problem is that I don't trust the TOCs as far as I could throw them and I am a little sceptical about RSSB which is of course owned by the TOCs and so can therefore in no way be regarded as independent and impartial (this has a bearing on arguments about DOO as well).  It just strikes me that freedom to brand the front of their trains as they like is just the sort of nonsense that a TOC would prioritise over other more sensible concerns. 

I can well believe that the new high intensity of lights provide great safety.  I can well believe that the new high intensity lights are safer than a yellow panel.  As to whether lights plus  a yellow panel is safer than just lights, I doubt .   

By your argument, you'd have all trains painted in that yellow then...because tgat wiuld be the safest yet

I find it interesting that London Underground trains have red fronts even when running overground and London Overground trains have yellow fronts even when running underground.

No,  by my argument if trains were already painted yellow all over for good historical safety reasons and a new safety advance came along, the new safety advance would be mandated in addition to the old paint requirement rather than being allowed to replace it.  Only if the historical safety feature is disproportionally expensive or has another significant drawback (such as a reliability penalty) would you be allowed to do away with it.  Yellow paint is neither expensive nor otherwise problematic so it would not be allowed to be done away with.  I am not especially bothered by removing the yellow ends requirement on new stock.  I don't think it will lead to many lives lost.  But I do object, in principle, to the idea that a historical safety standard can be removed on grounds as flimsy as "it will allow us more freedom in our branding".

Of course some train are painted almost entirely yellow.  The HOOB electrification train for example. You could argue that is only because yellow is NR's brand.   

But stock already working would need an expensive upgrade to these new light standards before TOCs could even consider a repaint of the yellow ends - do you seriously think any TOC would spend that sort of money voluntarily just to obtain a more corporate look to their trains?

Too expensive in my view - it won't happen. But new stock....that's a different matter.

Yellow rear end could still be useful when a following train is between sections and unsignalled, as for example, at Maiden Newton, or at other stations where more than one train can occupy a platform.

How are the new standards different, and how different are they? You might imagine from the reports that new lamps have to be a lot brighter, but I suspect that's not the case. It's hard to be 100% sure, as the new RSSB standard (GM/RT 2131, replacing GM/RT 2483 and the earlier GM/RT 2180) refers to the LOC & PAS TSI 1302/2014/EU (which replaces both the previous TSIs - the Conventional Rail Rolling Stock (Locomotives and Passenger Carriages) TSI 2011/291/EU, and the High Speed Rolling Stock TSI 008/232/CE). And that TSI in turn refers to a standard, (BS) EN15153-1:2013, which isn't available free.

But a lot of the work that went into that standard was done by (or for) RSSB as part of project T530. In the final report*, it covers the history of train lamps (and much, much, more). The current idea of lamps for visibility is very recent in Britain - first proposed in 1984 - and the first experiments used car headlamp bulbs, of which it says: "...one version was understood to deliver a luminous intensity of 100,000 candelas when measured on axis. It is worth noting that this value exceeds any similar value in all Railway Group Standards involving train headlamps."

So brightness isn't an issue, even for high-speed trains. The minimum area or diameter was, but BS EN1513-1:2013 was revised to allow 150 mm diameter lamps, which is the same as GM/RT 2483. T530 was actually about glare, and the beam cut-off requirements are now stricter. However, LEDs are inherently directional, and ought to meet these more easily than halogen or discharge bulbs.

And most trains are getting new LED lamps anyway, to reduce maintenance, either at a refit (as for GWR's 165/166 fleet) or sooner. So maybe the cost isn't so great - but the requirement to consult everyone on a long list may slow down any changes.

* available from the RSSB's Spark database - you need to log on, but anyone can register.

It looks as if you have no idea just how much work the has been on this - research, discussion, reports, experiments, consultation, and who knows what else, going back years (and covered in RSSB report T530). That specific issue is of course covered - see this news item (http://www.europeanrailwayreview.com/26783/railway-extra/visibility-trains-whats-changing/) or the RSSB's original PDF (http://www.rssb.co.uk/Library/2016-03-visibility-of-trains-on-screen-version.pdf).

This includes a requirement to consider:

Out of interest, is it really necessary for dispatch staff on platforms to have tabard's on in the first place??  If they where to use the little dispatch lamps full time instead of the table tennis bats, then surely it would be visible on a long platform?

I.E a bright green GWR 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.    :o :P

Haha, I meant the uniforms :P

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

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

(http://www.wellho.net/pix/mrug_hihihi.jpg)

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.

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!  :)

This may explain the ongoing staff shortages.

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

Orange is apparently preferred in the UK 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) 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

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!

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

When the Underground starting issuing tabbards they where yellow but as pointed out above of the confusion with drivers and yellow signals they were soon changed to orange for any work on the track.

We were not allowed to wear hoods either as they would impair hearing. When I started as a booking clerk we never had uniforms and were not used near tracks except for detrainments. We were taught basic signalling and how to turn the traction  current off in emergencies.

Possibly to spare the embarrassment of being mistaken for George Osborne, who was always being photographed in yellow High Vis and a hard hat whenever a photo-opportunity arose! 

A TV show, Alex Rider, is being filmed right now two streets away from where I am. This involves a large number of staff in hi-viz clothing, of which there are three types: Yellow jackets, acting as "security" for the closed street; orange tabards, standing a little further in; and yellow tabards right up in the action. I don't know the exact delineation of orange vs yellow tabards but I doubt if it has to do with road (let alone rail!) safety. The actual actors, or people who might be actual actors, are all wearing black.

And in terms of visibility, there are hi-viz tabards which use both orange and yellow for the best of both worlds. Or is it so they can blend in with all backgrounds? I don't expect to see them on the railways.

I remember turning up at Witham 'box for late turn, to relieve Adrian Vaughan.  There were visitors - Adrian introduced me to railway photographer par exellence Ivo Peters, who was with a friend of his wearing the brightest reddest shirt I'd ever seen.  Idiot me was far more concerned with the redness of the shirt than I was in chatting to the great photographer.  My loss.  If his reputation meant anything, I guess Ivo would have stayed and chatted; he befriended many railwaymen.  Some of the pictures taken by ivo that day are in his book, "Railway Elegance", which I greatly recommend to all who appreciate semaphore signalling and D1000 locos.