BRITISH RAILWAYS BOARD.

Original company liveries initially continued after nationalisation. The new house flag was announced on 15 February 1949: navy blue with white diagonals edged dull red and then white, and a central blue disc bordered white-red-white. The badge is a yellow lion astride a red-and-white wheel. Proportions were 12:7. Brown 1958 instead shows a red lion, and wheel colours vary. Mitchell records an added rampant lion on the Scottish Region funnel in 1962 without illustrating it; Haws gives unchanged London Midland funnels through 1964.

Lord Warden’s port funnel and Duke of Lancaster’s starboard funnel document B169. Its flag blue is called British Rail blue and described as pale in Marine News, although the FOTW adjustment uses a darker shade.

Mitchell dates B1050 to 1967, but Rosanoski judges its funnel arrows reversed.

The double-arrow consists of two-way traffic arrows on parallel lines representing tracks, designed by Design Research Unit. Land flags have a flame-red field and shipping flags blue, both with white arrows. Nick Job specifies Rail Red/Flame Red/Azo Orange BS 361 C 593 and Rail Blue BS 361 C 114. The ordinary logo has its top arrow pointing right, but the Corporate Identity Manual requires the flag’s top arrow to point towards the staff. With the hoist at the viewer’s left this reverses the familiar logo, and is intentional. Several flag books and FOTW labels therefore present or identify the reversed versions incorrectly.

Job’s corrections specify length-to-height 2:1, the thinner negative form of the symbol and the staff-pointing top arrow. His earlier red was too light and the blue insufficiently dark or green. Rosanoski stresses that the manual shows single-sided flags: the pole changes sides in a reverse view, but the upper arrow still points towards it. Thus a version labelled “Wrong Version” may actually be correct, while the displayed 1965–199X red version points towards the fly.