An notable exception to the relaxed rules about yellow fronts is the new stock on Greater Anglia. Due to the large amount of level crossings in that region, it was decided that the yellow fronts should stay regardless of how bright the headlights are.
@@Lolwutfordawin Same in New South Wales Australia where the XPT has a yellow front but also has flashing strobe lights which flash when the air horn is activated and reflector tape pieces down the sides of the whole train and people still drive into the side of the train. If a car driver's attention is taken by looking at a mobile phone they're not going to see the train whatever colour it's painted. Others try to beat the trains over level crossings and get hit and killed by trains even though there are flashing red lights but no boom gate barriers. In Adelaide South Australia they've recently installed cameras on roads that can take photos of drivers using their mobile phone when driving. At present they're only in a few locations and within a month they're reaped over $2M in fines because so many people are under the total control of their phone. A message comes in and they immediately reach for the phone and text back whilst driving. Even hands free isn't safe because you're concentrating on what the person on the phone is saying and not concentrating solely on your driving which on today's crowded roads is more important than ever before.
Only exception I could find within British rail was the Waterloo & City line where the figures it would be unnecessary to have yellow when it’s operating entirely underground
When Thailand bought a fleet of Class 158s from BREL, they were supplied in the same livery as their British Rail counterparts, but with the branding in Thai rather than English. They had matching yellow fronts too.
@@BibTheBoulderTheOriginalOne Curious. I think there's an old British Transport Films feature "Driving The Train" from early DMU days that discusses use of the horn at crossings.
@@BibTheBoulderTheOriginalOne considering some of the other strange UK laws about noise restrictions, presumably it was changed because people find the tooting annoying
Here in the states Yellow and Black hazard stripes are often applied to locomotives and cab cars (DVT's to use the UK term) in commuter service. Amtrak has also applied these stripes to cab cars converted from the old Metroliner EMU's. This is for passenger safety at stations and to make the train more visible at road crossings. Trying to beat the train to the crossing is almost a national sport over here. There are engineers over here in double digits when it comes to hitting cars at crossings.
I've often wondered whether, instead of the alternating "ditch lights", it'd be more effective to have lights arranged in a V and cycle through them from bottom to top, creating the effect of "growth" and making the train look like it's approaching faster than it is. But... Florida Man.
@@6yjjk Actually the flashing "ditch lights" seem to be effective. As for Florida Man, well Brightline has been very effective at removing stupid drivers from road crossings. The locomotives they use (as well as Amtrak's) have removable noses that can be quickly replaced after removing stupid car drivers from road crossings. If you search for "Brightline Florida" you'll see lots of videos of this in action.
that isn’t true wt all, the yellow/black are only on a small number of cab cars. several have added stripes to the ends but every system has their own choices of colors and looks for cab cars Boston has NEVER had anything like that even with the newest cab cars purchased: only lights and horns.
You'd be surprised how quiet a steam loco can be when it wants to be. Once many years ago I was half way up an embankment cutting back long grass and shrubs by hand with a long handled bill hook. So just swishes and the odd chopping thud. A quiet rural location with just bird song for company. So imagine my surprise when a large steam loco whistled on the track just below and behind me. It was doing a shunt move and had coasted down a slight gradient to clear some points and the whistle was an acknowledgement to the chap at the ground frame who was throwing the points over. Absolutely silent as far as I could tell. Sure, as soon as it started back over the points it started chuffing again.
I wouldn't call myself a "train nerd" and I live 250 miles from London so can't say I use the Tube much lol but I find your vids among the most interesting and informative on TH-cam. Thank you.
Then there's the red light at the back. Not just a rear warning light. Originally it was to allow signallers to be sure that a train hadn't come apart. If there was no red rear lamp, then a bit of the train was missing, presenting a serious hazard on the line.
I suspect part of the reason for the lack of yellow fronts on trams is that, without exception, they're fitted with both a 'bell' or similar, and a VERY loud horn plus, as they rarely exceed 30kph when sharing roadspace with vehicles/pedestrians, the driver can sound their approach in good time (and drivers are not backwards in sounding off).
Probably also for the fact that they can also stop in a much shorter distance in emergencies, and that they're "usually" in the road and no other vehicle needs a special front either...
The other reason is that trams almost always run on "visual braking distance" rules. meaning: the driver needs to be able to stop within the distance they can see. (if there's another tram or vehicle stopped on the track) Trains on the other hand have signals to take care of that, and their braking distance often exceeds the visibility of the driver.
Steam locos/trains sneaking up on you? Well my live steam model locos are quite quiet and can definitely sneak up on the unsuspecting victim ( they are 7/8” scale, so big and bl@@dy hot at 60psi working pressure), and they only have red buffer beams. Another excellent video from Jago
The KCR Metro-Cammell EMUs used in Hong Kong had yellow fronts too. There was a recent TVB documentary talking about the history of the KCR, the interviewee said it's because all electric trains in Britain were required to have yellow ends at that time, he said the law came about as electric trains are much quieter than diesels. He probably thought so because the KCR EMD diesels the Metro-Cammell EMUs replaced never carried yellow ends. It infuriated me so much when watching... Ok rant over. 🤣
In the US,a number of traction companies[Streetcar operators],got together to come up with visibility standards! They came up with the,now standard colors,Traction Yellow,Traction Orange,and Traction Red! All bright,high gloss colors! The Traction Yellow is also used on Construction equipment[Caterpillar],and is carried over for fire engines,etc.! Short history,but overlaps British Railways! Forgot,this operation occurred in the 1920's! Thank you 😇 😊!
and then the standard was dropped when it was unnecessary and impractical and utterly useless…and the attempt at standard high visibility for fire trucks was exposed as being a fraud by a psychologist who lied about the findings the only standards actually left are the fire trucks assigned to airports which have slime yellow to set them apart from regular trucks
In the UK in the 1970s British Telecom did research into the best colour to paint its vans so that they would be as clearly visible as possible in all weather and lighting conditions, because they are often stationary on or next to the road while their crews are working on telephone wires. As a result of this research the colour of the vans was changed from olive green to bright yellow. When the government sold British Telecom and turned it into a private company in the mid 1980s the first thing the company did was to repaint all its vans in pale grey.
regarding safety etc.: In, I think the 1970's, BR introduced TOPS or Train OPerating System for safety and efficiency. They had, it was said, a backup system in case it went wrong called Back On The Old Manual System.
From the early 2000s, the Dutch railways abandoned the rule of always making the front of the train yellow, with the livery of the SLT trains being in white and blue. That was carried over to the FLIRT and SNG units of the 2010s. But more recently, they repainted FLIRT and SNG to have a yellow front again, to make them stand out more. So I guess even in this day and age, the yellow is still considered useful.
I think the story was the LEDs on SNGs weren't that bright (which was causing near accidents or something?), so they had drivers put the headlights on full (not full beam) to make them stand out more before they painted the fronts.
Thank you for the explanation. I'd always assumed the yellow front was for safety and visibility, but then I was confused as to why some trains, like the Grand Central and Trans Pennine trains, didn't have them. Now all is clear.
A problem with high intensity lights is that very bright lights on the front of an oncoming vehicle can make it very difficult to judge the speed accurately even in bright sunlight.
As someone who lives near to pedestrian crossings at grade without signal controls, my jaw dropped when you mentioned that aspect of the need for high visibility. I only calmed down when you reminded us that modern stock have better lights. Phew!
When I was a kid (in the 90s) Polish Railways locomotives had usually yellow front panels. For some reason there were few expections (some painting schemes on EMUs; SM42 shunters were usually green with orange stripes).
Thank you, Jago. Another excellent and informative video. I think it is commendable that when the replica "Blue Pullman" was created, the people concerned then upgraded the headlights to allow the yellow front panel to be left as it should be..all blue. Excellent.
Hey Jago @ 0:58 - Very True - I think that I'd strongly agree with you there - If you can't hear a Steam Loco coming - then there is something wrong with you!!! 😉 Thank you for sharing this interesting info!!! 🙂🚂🚂🚂
It would appear that Jago has a phobia of showing us one of the new Satsumas and derivatives, class 8xx, with their very bright headlights. Thanks Jago for saving us from these bessts. Main line steam locos are carrying high intensity lights in combination with their noise 😊
IMO, the relaxation of the requirement was a massive downgrade. The yellow fronts on mainline trains are iconic, they're part of the identity of the british rail network! Even if they aren't necessary for visibility any more, they should be kept for branding purposes alone.
It also still works, all Belgian trains have it as a standard livery and so did the Dutch trains. Rules were also relaxed there but a bad accident later they reverted the change. They didn't even wait for repairs to repaint the new SNG units with a yellow front. It still makes a difference so you can more easily see the train from the corner of your eye in full daylight.
@@ordinaryorca9334 Having recently been to the railway museum in Utrecht, you are generally correct, but there are numerous examples of old Dutch trains that don't have yellow fronts. I'm not sure what year the yellow and blue NS livery came in, but before that, they didn't have yellow fronts.
How funny. Here in Los Angeles it's the opposite. Our older trains didn't have yellow fronts, but ever since the Kinki-Sharyo P3010s rolled out in 2016 with their iconic yellow livery, other trains have started painting their fronts yellow too! Despite the fact that most of our system is light-rail, we have a lot of at grade crossings here, so it makes sense why visibility would be a high priority.
A good explanation, thank you. I know this off topic a bit, but in the late 1960s early 1970s many municipalities started painting fire trucks/engines/appliances other colours but red. The Home Office did a survey/study and deemed yellow as the most visible colour to the human eye, but everything should be painted traditional red!
An entirely sensible bit of branding. If a giant yellow vehicle came hurtling down the road enough drivers would not know it was a fire appliance to get out of its way. A giant red vehicle would not have the same problem. Everyone in britain has been taught since childhood that fire engines are red.
@@francesconicoletti2547 I agree with you and I understood at the time. Big red fire trucks/engines of my childhood. Before the Home Office rules to keep red, we saw yellows and lime greens being used and for the reason you described it caused confusion. When I got to North America I never understand why police cars and ambulances had red flashing lights. The UK was always blue. Mind sets I guess.
It seems that now, in Canada at least they’ve gone to the British and european standard of both blue and red flashing lights on police and fire vehicles. I’ve seen ambulances also adopting that standard. Before that it was only a single red light or at most two reds.
Plus on a small note, most track workers now have a line blockage to work on the tracks so less needed for yellow fronts. if there's a worker on the track and trains are moving its for emergency work, or are in a position so that the lines can be opened for line traffic.
Thank you for keeping the actual volume level consistent with your voice-over even when demonstrating how trains are loud. The actual fact that you can't hear the speech communicates that quite effectively. I'm not sure if you run these through a compressor with sensible settings, or just balance-match by ear, but you did a good job. It's weird that that's become unusual! But so much TV now is like "make the explosion _actually_ loud! Make the shouting _actually_ loud!" when, like, there's so many other auditory cues to tell us when something is supposed to be loud or quiet. 90s TV had pretty much all the dialogue at the same level regardless of the situation the person was in.
I thought the yellow and black chevrons on shunting and industrial locomotives were referred to as 'wasp stripes' rather than 'Jago.... Err I mean hazzard stripes'. I guess the latter is more 'on message' given the channel name. Also, rather confusingly, loco sheds often had the same 'wasp stripping' on the doors/roller shutters thus making it difficult to spot a shunting locomotive!! 😊
It's great to hear about how small touches make (or made) trains safer for people and as technology improved, the older ways could yield. But "yellow fronts" is a long term: I suggest "y-fronts" as a shorthand. I'm sure that idea isn't pants.
In just about every other country, the rule is "yo numpty, that there's a train track, if you don't expect a train coming your way you're on your own". Of course the US, Canada, Brazil, Australia, and possibly others have adopted the practice of honking excessively, effectively teaching people to not have any respect for trains or railroad crossings, because a train will honk at them anyway when it shows up the triangle light arrangement on trains also came about to make it easier to tell the difference between trains and road vehicles
Better a yellow front than a yellow belly, like here in the US. We're afraid of any infrastructure that doesn't directly benefit car and plane companies.
The visibility experiment started, I believe, in early 1960, when “dull green” Brush Type 2 diesel-electric, built in 1957, was painted all over in Golden Ochre, also known by some as Golden Yellow. Being a rather bronzey/mustardey shade, it wasn’t a success and the loco was repainted back to green, albeit with the by-then-mandatory small but much brighter-yellow end panels as shown in your video. It was decided that sister D5578 was, at the same time, to be painted all over in Electric Blue, as chosen for the early (from 1959) Class AL1-AL6 (later 81-86) AC electric locos, but there is some doubt as to whether this was ever actually applied. E&OE.
@@highpath4776I think it was only some Class 52s ( Westerns) that had this livery, class 42s ( Warships ) tended to be green, and 35s ( Hymeks) were generally green with white cab window surrounds.
This was something I did wonder about but never felt interested in researching. I just guessed the yellow fronts were for safety purposes (e.g. don't touch the front since you might get hurt) so I was sort of right.
It’s interesting how the LNER Azumas have kept a part yellow front but other companies with 800’s haven’t, like Lumo and TPE, etc. I liked the large amount of footage from various heritage railway yards. We should have ‘Jago on heritage railway tours’ vidoes.
Person's working on the track should have lookouts. Those person's are not to be distracted. The PTS rule book is quite clear on this. On top of which if you are on the track you should be aware of you surrounding especially if the lineis open to traffic
Some of those newer headlights were absolutely blinding for maintenance workers. If you got landed with being a lookout and one of the freightliner 66's was coming, you had to look away even in bright sunlight at 1 mile or more. Granted you could see them coming and give a warning to the gang, but you also needed retina implants afterwards having had them burnt out by a miniature sun mounted on the front of the loco. As usual in Britain, we went from one extreme to the complete opposite.
@@batman51 It wouldn't matter if they did complain. With the current regime, anything done in the name of safety can't be criticised, however misguided or even wrong it is. I'm glad I retired and don't have to put up with it anymore.
im a bit sad about the yellow panel going i thougt it brought bit of unity to the national network. i hope that more operators choose to keep it in future rather than going for a rather drab grey or black front.
Thanks for covering an interesting subject. It pleases me that we have the insect world to thank for the yellow and black hazard warning colours. Wasps and bees use similar stripes to caution us of their stinging ability if provoked, and insects like hoverflies copy the livery to protect themselves in the same way, disguising the fact that they have no stings at all . . .
Thanks for the video. Interestingly as an employee of a railway where most of our trains are white/silver I've had the opposite property where a yellow train blended in coming through a construction site full of yellow builders sand and miscellaneous yellow construction equipment. Wasn't a near miss but wasn't great either
The reason was that about that time British Rail started to introduce reflective signs. They don't work with marker lights of about two candle power so proper high intensity headlights needed to be fitted so that there was enough light for the signs to reflect and actually be seen by the driver.
I have to say (and many don't agree with me), but I don't like UK trains without yellow ends - they don't really look, well, British. And I'm certainly no "little Englander" on such matters. The really weird one for me is Merseyrail's 777s - they're in a yellow livery but they still went for an all-black front. Although I suppose it makes the illuminated "M" show up better.
I thought that the idea behind withdrawing the requirement was that they could then be painted any colour that went with the main livery. I think an inverse Henry Ford rule should have applied - you can have any colour you like as long as it isn't black!
@@Titan604 I certainly think it was motivated by aesthetic desires more than anything else. I don't know what consultations were carried out but I have met trackside workers who reckon the first they knew of it was seeing one go past on site.
I'm not actually convinced that yellow is more visible than many other colours. For instance, what are the statistics for car accidents - are fewer people hit by yellow cars, than light green of light blue, for instance? Although, of course, fewer people WOULD be hit by yellow cars ((outside of New York) because no one in their right mind drives a yellow car! But I digress. Clearly black and yellow stripes are the way to go. Or am I just being waspish?
It is indeed the case that yellow cars have proportionally fewer accidents. White cars are almost as good, apart from some collisions with snowploughs.
I've been researching "modern" traction liveries (along with allocations, detail changes and other geek-rich info) for future publication in an online database. Finding out when small yellow panels, then yellow ends, then (sometimes) urgh yellow cabs were added. By 1st Jan 1962 only 14 locos had the yellow panels. D121 was the first to have them painted on, D129 the first to be delivered with them, both in Dec 1961. Electric locos seemed to take longer to have them added than the louder diesels. Class 33s were also stubbornly resistant to yellow paint until the end of the 60s. Of course, being BR, nothing was straight-forward. Western decided to paint their engines Maroon, LMR and Scottish painted most of their AC and a handful of DC locos in a lighter Electric Blue and by 1967 there was a bewildering array of Green with large yellow ends, Blue with small panels, Maroon with none, you get the picture. Some green locos had the new BR logo applied making it difficult to assess from a black and white photo whether what you're looking at was blue, green, black, maroon or beige (yes, that's right "beige"). It took from 1965 until 1980 to eradicate the green livery, the last mainline loco being 40106. Well it was until someone decided to keep it green for railtours and special events. There are many different opinions on whether it was painted blue then back to green or whether it was seen outside Crewe Works with blue undercoat. By the end of the 70's BR had soften its stance on everything looking the same and new liveries were being trialed. A year or so earlier and 40106 wouldn't have been so lucky to gain such celebrity status. Livery information for multiple units is harder to research, mainly because their numbers were less coveted by trainspotters so while there are loads of photos of DMUs and EMUs in the 60s they are rarely noted with anything more than the class type. So I may be some time with this project.
A suggestion for a future video along similar lines, "why British tail lamps flash" as opposed to constantly on. In Ireland we require two constant on, a result of the Cherryville Junction crash of 1983
When I a was working on Class 710 stock at Bombardier we were going through the process of justifying the Orange front end and one of the tests we discussed and carried out was to do with the visibility, from the point of view of a driver of another train, of a person in 'full tango' (hi-viz jacket and trousers) walking in front of a 710. At ballast level the Orange panel starts around five feet from the ground so the majority of the person's body is actually seen against a dark background.
The only visible difference between class 08 and 09 shunters is the yellow and black hazard stripes. (Aside from the cab number.) The 09s have a reversed pattern - that is black where the 08 has yellow and yellow where the 08 has black. It's one of those nagging differences. Unless you know, the fronts look different but you cannot immediately see why.
Irishrail seem to employ/have employed a similar policy with their rolling stock (including suburban trains like the DART, although recent mockups for their replacements don't feature any such yellow panel). Worth noting also that when the LUAS tram launched in 2004 it was almost entirely grey before being forced to add a yellow panel and strip around the entire tram to improve visibility.
Interestingly, some of the early BR-lookalike diesels used in Western Australia didn't have a full yellow warning panel like the British variants. What they had instead was a stripe that ran across the body of the locomotive and curved down on the nose end to form a down-facing arrow. When these diesels were painted green, this arrow was either painted red with yellow lining, or just yellow to the same shade as the BR warning panels. However, when WAGR became Westrail and decided to change colours to orange this stripe became blue. Originally I always used to think this was an artistic choice. But, considering that many WAGR DMU's also carried Warning stripes like the BR shunters on the ends, there is evidence to suggest that the WAGR stripe found on all of the 1st gen diesels both loco and railcar, is in fact Western Australia's answer to BR's warning panels. That's just a theory anyway. Now I'm beginning to wonder what a Class 20 painted in MRWA maroon and cream would look like if the MRWA's wheel crest on the loco's front was replaced by a full yellow warning panel... probably wouldn't look very good if it didn't look right on the blue pullman
The British rail blue with the yellow snout looked great on Hornby sets when I was a little lad during the early 1980s. On a school trip to Normandy when I was 12 I got a SCNF train set that was compatible with Hornby. Cool, but not a Hornby Deltic or class 37 etc. Making Hornby locomotives look good is not the reason for the yellow though. 😆 P.S. I had a few interests back then. Train sets. My BMX and mods for it. Scalextric. Revell model ships and planes. Dungeons and Dragons. These new gadgets called space invader machines that gobbled up my spare change. Fish and chips - and Mars bars, because mum always cooked super healthy vegetarian food, so I had to pay for my own junk food. I ended up doing three paper rounds every morning to pay for it all. 12 quid per week. I was rolling in money! Now most of my hobby money goes on electric guitar stuff or PC builds. BTW. When the news agent opened in the morning about a dozen paper boys would gather around a stack of papers to check something out. Nope, not the football scores. Yep, to check out the latest page three. Our other great interest. Knockers. 🤣
Poland and Hungary always used to as well, and CSX in the States. I really do think a train looks incomplete without it, and no one could deny that it catches the eye from a distance.
Another stand-out contribution from Jago of Five Oaks..... NZ goods train diesels , also on the Wellington-P. North passenger trains are in the Kiwirail colours of yellow and orange...the Wellington electric units are ( originally) shiny brushed steel with bright fluorescent lime green bands ... with flashing ditch lights when approaching crossings or stations..... says LeviNZ.
Joking aside for a minute, I'm really glad someone with your profile has chosen to discuss this issue. I think moving away from yellow warning panels/ends/stripes is a big step backwards in railway safety. IMO, there is nothing that catches the eye more effectively than these panels. It was a simple, genius idea that has no doubt saved many, many lives.
Here in New Zealand, I started noticing the yellow on the front of trains several years back, and never really observed any great advantage 😊for visibility. Back in 2010, I even noticed it on a heritage EMU that had been restored, not long before the class was retired. Somehow it didn't look right.
I grew up with seeing most trains having yellow ends, so I taken it for granted. The only problem now is, when it's dark some lights can be too bright.
Interestingly enough, here in NL the rulings on a yellow or white panel on the front for visibilty were abolished in the early 2000's as well, but the rules were being put back in place again after a couple of incidents with the new SNG units, so now all Dutch trains (or at least the NS ones) need to have a yellow or white panel on the front again.
I do prefer the standard yellow warning , it seems safer . Lookit the last shot of a blue train coming from the blue yonder towards potential track workers .
I'm (originally) Dutch, this for context. The trains of the Dutch railways, NS, had all trains yellow. As from the 2000s, this has been abandoned by the Dutch authorities, so Dutch trains have different colours. But the NS has recently decided to REPAINT all their fronts of the (local) trains with the old yellow colour! And again, for the very same reason as before. Visibility! For info, they are currently (dark) blue. Other operators use mostly white.
In the land of Colonists, the Long Island Rail Road M7 EMU stock actually have just such a yellow panel, for just such a reason, I. E., crossings all over the system. Furthermore, their DE30 and DM30 locos sport yeller about the driving cabs, a bit more stylistically.
More importantly, why don't they all have smiley Thomas the Tank Engine fronts?
Yeahh
Because sadly they are not on Sodor
What are you talking about? The engines on the Mainland have faces too!
To be fair, the Great Northern class 365s had happy faces (unfortunately they were withdrawn from service in 2021)
I always felt Mavis the Diesel's hazard stripes matched her personality.
So, as a Hazzard, does Jago have a Yellow Front?
🤣
Actually, yellow with black diagonal stripes! 😂😂 ( Sorry Jago )
@@alanclarke4646high visibility fluorescent or just bright yellow/orange? 🤣
@@bostonrailfan2427more probably an old donkey jacket with an orange panel on top back
An notable exception to the relaxed rules about yellow fronts is the new stock on Greater Anglia. Due to the large amount of level crossings in that region, it was decided that the yellow fronts should stay regardless of how bright the headlights are.
The trams in Manchester are all yellow (save for some grey on the sides), and people and cars still get hit by them. So I wouldn't worry too much!
Yup a Range rover got totaled by one only yesterday. Banana shaped Range-rover with only a loose panel on the front of the tram .
@@wideyxyz2271Perhaps all Range Rovers should be painted bright yellow? :-)
@@owengoodspeed5763and there drivers
Same in Dresden, Germany. Trams are huge, entirely yellow, run on predictable routes and still people manage to drive their cars into them regularly.
@@Lolwutfordawin Same in New South Wales Australia where the XPT has a yellow front but also has flashing strobe lights which flash when the air horn is activated and reflector tape pieces down the sides of the whole train and people still drive into the side of the train. If a car driver's attention is taken by looking at a mobile phone they're not going to see the train whatever colour it's painted. Others try to beat the trains over level crossings and get hit and killed by trains even though there are flashing red lights but no boom gate barriers.
In Adelaide South Australia they've recently installed cameras on roads that can take photos of drivers using their mobile phone when driving. At present they're only in a few locations and within a month they're reaped over $2M in fines because so many people are under the total control of their phone. A message comes in and they immediately reach for the phone and text back whilst driving. Even hands free isn't safe because you're concentrating on what the person on the phone is saying and not concentrating solely on your driving which on today's crowded roads is more important than ever before.
Only exception I could find within British rail was the Waterloo & City line where the figures it would be unnecessary to have yellow when it’s operating entirely underground
I missed that one, good point!
And the Vale of Rheidol locos, painted in BR corporate blue, but without yellow ends
@@JagoHazzard I thought you'd mentioned that in a pervious video? 🤔
@@JagoHazzard see - what would you do without us??
@@paulhaynes8045 Lead a full, rich and happy life? 🙂
When Thailand bought a fleet of Class 158s from BREL, they were supplied in the same livery as their British Rail counterparts, but with the branding in Thai rather than English. They had matching yellow fronts too.
Glad you cleared that one up - I often wondered about the yellow fronts.
This was also the reason for the two tone horn on BR trains, to make it distinct from road vehicles at a level crossing.
Which begs the question why they changed the horn code when approaching a crossing to a single long blast on the high/loud tone
@@BibTheBoulderTheOriginalOne Curious. I think there's an old British Transport Films feature "Driving The Train" from early DMU days that discusses use of the horn at crossings.
@@BibTheBoulderTheOriginalOne considering some of the other strange UK laws about noise restrictions, presumably it was changed because people find the tooting annoying
@@thesteelrodent1796 I don't know, but it does not make sense to me.
@@thesteelrodent1796in which case, don't live in Tooting 😅
Here in the states Yellow and Black hazard stripes are often applied to locomotives and cab cars (DVT's to use the UK term) in commuter service. Amtrak has also applied these stripes to cab cars converted from the old Metroliner EMU's. This is for passenger safety at stations and to make the train more visible at road crossings. Trying to beat the train to the crossing is almost a national sport over here. There are engineers over here in double digits when it comes to hitting cars at crossings.
I've often wondered whether, instead of the alternating "ditch lights", it'd be more effective to have lights arranged in a V and cycle through them from bottom to top, creating the effect of "growth" and making the train look like it's approaching faster than it is.
But... Florida Man.
@@6yjjk Actually the flashing "ditch lights" seem to be effective. As for Florida Man, well Brightline has been very effective at removing stupid drivers from road crossings. The locomotives they use (as well as Amtrak's) have removable noses that can be quickly replaced after removing stupid car drivers from road crossings. If you search for "Brightline Florida" you'll see lots of videos of this in action.
that isn’t true wt all, the yellow/black are only on a small number of cab cars. several have added stripes to the ends but every system has their own choices of colors and looks for cab cars
Boston has NEVER had anything like that even with the newest cab cars purchased: only lights and horns.
I like the sound of that idea @@6yjjk
You'd be surprised how quiet a steam loco can be when it wants to be. Once many years ago I was half way up an embankment cutting back long grass and shrubs by hand with a long handled bill hook. So just swishes and the odd chopping thud. A quiet rural location with just bird song for company. So imagine my surprise when a large steam loco whistled on the track just below and behind me. It was doing a shunt move and had coasted down a slight gradient to clear some points and the whistle was an acknowledgement to the chap at the ground frame who was throwing the points over. Absolutely silent as far as I could tell. Sure, as soon as it started back over the points it started chuffing again.
You know it's a good video when you stick around for the whole thing even after realizing the title is *not* "Why do British Trains wear Y-fronts?"
🤣🤣🤣
At least the 2 titles weren’t combined into “why do British trains have yellow Y-fronts”.
You're in urine jokes? why?
British trains are pants. Y-fronts would, therefore, be redundant.
As those Y fronts are heated they could be looked upon as a Willie/Camel Toe warmer for the last thing you want is frost bite in certain areas.
I wouldn't call myself a "train nerd" and I live 250 miles from London so can't say I use the Tube much lol but I find your vids among the most interesting and informative on TH-cam. Thank you.
Then there's the red light at the back. Not just a rear warning light. Originally it was to allow signallers to be sure that a train hadn't come apart. If there was no red rear lamp, then a bit of the train was missing, presenting a serious hazard on the line.
I believe all workers are still obliged to look and check if they can, to ensure the train is complete and undivided
I suspect part of the reason for the lack of yellow fronts on trams is that, without exception, they're fitted with both a 'bell' or similar, and a VERY loud horn plus, as they rarely exceed 30kph when sharing roadspace with vehicles/pedestrians, the driver can sound their approach in good time (and drivers are not backwards in sounding off).
Probably also for the fact that they can also stop in a much shorter distance in emergencies, and that they're "usually" in the road and no other vehicle needs a special front either...
The other reason is that trams almost always run on "visual braking distance" rules. meaning: the driver needs to be able to stop within the distance they can see. (if there's another tram or vehicle stopped on the track)
Trains on the other hand have signals to take care of that, and their braking distance often exceeds the visibility of the driver.
Steam locos/trains sneaking up on you? Well my live steam model locos are quite quiet and can definitely sneak up on the unsuspecting victim ( they are 7/8” scale, so big and bl@@dy hot at 60psi working pressure), and they only have red buffer beams. Another excellent video from Jago
The KCR Metro-Cammell EMUs used in Hong Kong had yellow fronts too. There was a recent TVB documentary talking about the history of the KCR, the interviewee said it's because all electric trains in Britain were required to have yellow ends at that time, he said the law came about as electric trains are much quieter than diesels. He probably thought so because the KCR EMD diesels the Metro-Cammell EMUs replaced never carried yellow ends. It infuriated me so much when watching... Ok rant over. 🤣
In the US,a number of traction companies[Streetcar operators],got together to come up with visibility standards! They came up with the,now standard colors,Traction Yellow,Traction Orange,and Traction Red! All bright,high gloss colors! The Traction Yellow is also used on Construction equipment[Caterpillar],and is carried over for fire engines,etc.! Short history,but overlaps British Railways! Forgot,this operation occurred in the 1920's! Thank you 😇 😊!
and then the standard was dropped when it was unnecessary and impractical and utterly useless…and the attempt at standard high visibility for fire trucks was exposed as being a fraud by a psychologist who lied about the findings
the only standards actually left are the fire trucks assigned to airports which have slime yellow to set them apart from regular trucks
In the UK in the 1970s British Telecom did research into the best colour to paint its vans so that they would be as clearly visible as possible in all weather and lighting conditions, because they are often stationary on or next to the road while their crews are working on telephone wires. As a result of this research the colour of the vans was changed from olive green to bright yellow. When the government sold British Telecom and turned it into a private company in the mid 1980s the first thing the company did was to repaint all its vans in pale grey.
My great grandfather was a platelayer in Folkstone back in the day. He was killed on the railway.
An In-laws realtive worked in a goods yard, slow moving wagon took him out - the space between tracks at points narrows
When I started on the railway in 1980, we might as well have had candles for frontal lighting! Headlights did not come in until about 1984
regarding safety etc.: In, I think the 1970's, BR introduced TOPS or Train OPerating System for safety and efficiency. They had, it was said, a backup system in case it went wrong called Back On The Old Manual System.
3:41 If V.I.N.CENT were a train.
Kids, ask your, what, great grandparents?
I'm so old.
Well the money BR spent on buying them certainly disappeared down a black hole given their rather curtailed operational lifespan.
From the early 2000s, the Dutch railways abandoned the rule of always making the front of the train yellow, with the livery of the SLT trains being in white and blue. That was carried over to the FLIRT and SNG units of the 2010s. But more recently, they repainted FLIRT and SNG to have a yellow front again, to make them stand out more. So I guess even in this day and age, the yellow is still considered useful.
I think the story was the LEDs on SNGs weren't that bright (which was causing near accidents or something?), so they had drivers put the headlights on full (not full beam) to make them stand out more before they painted the fronts.
Thank you for the explanation. I'd always assumed the yellow front was for safety and visibility, but then I was confused as to why some trains, like the Grand Central and Trans Pennine trains, didn't have them. Now all is clear.
A problem with high intensity lights is that very bright lights on the front of an oncoming vehicle can make it very difficult to judge the speed accurately even in bright sunlight.
As someone who lives near to pedestrian crossings at grade without signal controls, my jaw dropped when you mentioned that aspect of the need for high visibility. I only calmed down when you reminded us that modern stock have better lights. Phew!
Excellent topic. Thanks
British trains and yellow ends fit so well. Trains without it look odd especially when they had yellow paint before.
When I was a kid (in the 90s) Polish Railways locomotives had usually yellow front panels. For some reason there were few expections (some painting schemes on EMUs; SM42 shunters were usually green with orange stripes).
Thank you, Jago.
Another excellent and informative video.
I think it is commendable that when the replica "Blue Pullman" was created, the people concerned then upgraded the headlights to allow the yellow front panel to be left as it should be..all blue.
Excellent.
Hey Jago @ 0:58 - Very True - I think that I'd strongly agree with you there - If you can't hear a Steam Loco coming - then there is something wrong with you!!! 😉 Thank you for sharing this interesting info!!! 🙂🚂🚂🚂
It would appear that Jago has a phobia of showing us one of the new Satsumas and derivatives, class 8xx, with their very bright headlights. Thanks Jago for saving us from these bessts. Main line steam locos are carrying high intensity lights in combination with their noise 😊
3:55 dude went from sad to positively bereft!!
IMO, the relaxation of the requirement was a massive downgrade. The yellow fronts on mainline trains are iconic, they're part of the identity of the british rail network! Even if they aren't necessary for visibility any more, they should be kept for branding purposes alone.
It also still works, all Belgian trains have it as a standard livery and so did the Dutch trains. Rules were also relaxed there but a bad accident later they reverted the change. They didn't even wait for repairs to repaint the new SNG units with a yellow front. It still makes a difference so you can more easily see the train from the corner of your eye in full daylight.
@@ordinaryorca9334 Having recently been to the railway museum in Utrecht, you are generally correct, but there are numerous examples of old Dutch trains that don't have yellow fronts. I'm not sure what year the yellow and blue NS livery came in, but before that, they didn't have yellow fronts.
How funny. Here in Los Angeles it's the opposite. Our older trains didn't have yellow fronts, but ever since the Kinki-Sharyo P3010s rolled out in 2016 with their iconic yellow livery, other trains have started painting their fronts yellow too! Despite the fact that most of our system is light-rail, we have a lot of at grade crossings here, so it makes sense why visibility would be a high priority.
Thanks Jago. Always interesting, informative and fun.
A good explanation, thank you.
I know this off topic a bit, but in the late 1960s early 1970s many municipalities started painting fire trucks/engines/appliances other colours but red. The Home Office did a survey/study and deemed yellow as the most visible colour to the human eye, but everything should be painted traditional red!
A lot add shark stripes , which seem to work best
An entirely sensible bit of branding. If a giant yellow vehicle came hurtling down the road enough drivers would not know it was a fire appliance to get out of its way. A giant red vehicle would not have the same problem. Everyone in britain has been taught since childhood that fire engines are red.
@@francesconicoletti2547 Unless they were the Green Goddess RAF/Army ones, or the Yellow Ones airside at Airports
@@francesconicoletti2547 I agree with you and I understood at the time. Big red fire trucks/engines of my childhood. Before the Home Office rules to keep red, we saw yellows and lime greens being used and for the reason you described it caused confusion.
When I got to North America I never understand why police cars and ambulances had red flashing lights. The UK was always blue. Mind sets I guess.
It seems that now, in Canada at least they’ve gone to the British and european standard of both blue and red flashing lights on police and fire vehicles. I’ve seen ambulances also adopting that standard. Before that it was only a single red light or at most two reds.
Plus on a small note, most track workers now have a line blockage to work on the tracks so less needed for yellow fronts. if there's a worker on the track and trains are moving its for emergency work, or are in a position so that the lines can be opened for line traffic.
I'm guessing that people get hit by trains more because they don't look rather than looked and didn't see.
Before or after the high visibly panels and lights went in making trains easier to see ?
Having had to be on the track in an official capacity. a yellow front certainly does make the approaching train more obvious, lights or no lights.
Thank you for keeping the actual volume level consistent with your voice-over even when demonstrating how trains are loud. The actual fact that you can't hear the speech communicates that quite effectively. I'm not sure if you run these through a compressor with sensible settings, or just balance-match by ear, but you did a good job.
It's weird that that's become unusual! But so much TV now is like "make the explosion _actually_ loud! Make the shouting _actually_ loud!" when, like, there's so many other auditory cues to tell us when something is supposed to be loud or quiet. 90s TV had pretty much all the dialogue at the same level regardless of the situation the person was in.
0:20 _"... some trains need a lot a lovin' and some trains don't."_ 🎵
Conspicuity: the quality of being noticeable or easy to see. When I got into rail over a decade ago, I learnt a new term!
I love the types of videos you do that answer questions we all think but never look for the answer. You learn something new every day
a colourful tale
What an amazing collection of engines and rolling stock.
I thought it made them more visible.
That's a great explanation! Thanks Jago!
trams get into minor accidents fairly common so it would be very interesting to see if you painted some trams yellow and see if it would change
I thought the yellow and black chevrons on shunting and industrial locomotives were referred to as 'wasp stripes' rather than 'Jago.... Err I mean hazzard stripes'. I guess the latter is more 'on message' given the channel name.
Also, rather confusingly, loco sheds often had the same 'wasp stripping' on the doors/roller shutters thus making it difficult to spot a shunting locomotive!! 😊
It's great to hear about how small touches make (or made) trains safer for people and as technology improved, the older ways could yield. But "yellow fronts" is a long term: I suggest "y-fronts" as a shorthand. I'm sure that idea isn't pants.
i do think that the yellow fronts should stay because they're iconic
In just about every other country, the rule is "yo numpty, that there's a train track, if you don't expect a train coming your way you're on your own". Of course the US, Canada, Brazil, Australia, and possibly others have adopted the practice of honking excessively, effectively teaching people to not have any respect for trains or railroad crossings, because a train will honk at them anyway when it shows up
the triangle light arrangement on trains also came about to make it easier to tell the difference between trains and road vehicles
Better a yellow front than a yellow belly, like here in the US. We're afraid of any infrastructure that doesn't directly benefit car and plane companies.
The visibility experiment started, I believe, in early 1960, when “dull green” Brush Type 2 diesel-electric, built in 1957, was painted all over in Golden Ochre, also known by some as Golden Yellow. Being a rather bronzey/mustardey shade, it wasn’t a success and the loco was repainted back to green, albeit with the by-then-mandatory small but much brighter-yellow end panels as shown in your video. It was decided that sister D5578 was, at the same time, to be painted all over in Electric Blue, as chosen for the early (from 1959) Class AL1-AL6 (later 81-86) AC electric locos, but there is some doubt as to whether this was ever actually applied. E&OE.
what about the western region hyradlics in sand livery?
I have a fleet of Brush type 2s ( TOPS class 31 ) ( well 3, in 00 guage )
@@highpath4776I think it was only some Class 52s ( Westerns) that had this livery, class 42s ( Warships ) tended to be green, and 35s ( Hymeks) were generally green with white cab window surrounds.
This was something I did wonder about but never felt interested in researching. I just guessed the yellow fronts were for safety purposes (e.g. don't touch the front since you might get hurt) so I was sort of right.
Well that certainly puts a new gloss on things, especially if buffered!
It’s interesting how the LNER Azumas have kept a part yellow front but other companies with 800’s haven’t, like Lumo and TPE, etc. I liked the large amount of footage from various heritage railway yards. We should have ‘Jago on heritage railway tours’ vidoes.
"Oh look, there's something coming toward me really fast I hadn't noticed, but now I come to think of it, it's big and y..."
I’m scared you can read minds I was thinking this about 15 mins ago at the dinner table
There's a Y-Fronts gag somewhere, but I can't quite make it work.
Person's working on the track should have lookouts. Those person's are not to be distracted. The PTS rule book is quite clear on this. On top of which if you are on the track you should be aware of you surrounding especially if the lineis open to traffic
Some of those newer headlights were absolutely blinding for maintenance workers. If you got landed with being a lookout and one of the freightliner 66's was coming, you had to look away even in bright sunlight at 1 mile or more. Granted you could see them coming and give a warning to the gang, but you also needed retina implants afterwards having had them burnt out by a miniature sun mounted on the front of the loco. As usual in Britain, we went from one extreme to the complete opposite.
I have always believed that excessively bright headlights are counter-productive to railway safety.
And they are not much fun for passengers either. Do drivers of trains going the opposite way not complain?
@@batman51 It wouldn't matter if they did complain. With the current regime, anything done in the name of safety can't be criticised, however misguided or even wrong it is. I'm glad I retired and don't have to put up with it anymore.
18000 Gas Turbine started Black with Silver stripes.
im a bit sad about the yellow panel going i thougt it brought bit of unity to the national network.
i hope that more operators choose to keep it in future rather than going for a rather drab grey or black front.
Thanks for covering an interesting subject. It pleases me that we have the insect world to thank for the yellow and black hazard warning colours. Wasps and bees use similar stripes to caution us of their stinging ability if provoked, and insects like hoverflies copy the livery to protect themselves in the same way, disguising the fact that they have no stings at all . . .
0:44 Oh those noises were the train! I always thought it was Jago.
I'll get my coat.
In fact a tooting Jago. Not his Northern line cousin though, Tooting Jago. I seem to have left my coat somewhere else. 😊
Thanks for the video. Interestingly as an employee of a railway where most of our trains are white/silver I've had the opposite property where a yellow train blended in coming through a construction site full of yellow builders sand and miscellaneous yellow construction equipment. Wasn't a near miss but wasn't great either
You also may want to discuss why Trains in the UK didn't have proper headlights until the around the 1980s
I think the idea is that pedestrians etc see the white(ish) front light(s) and get out of the way PDQ
He does, from about 4 minutes or so into the video.
The reason was that about that time British Rail started to introduce reflective signs. They don't work with marker lights of about two candle power so proper high intensity headlights needed to be fitted so that there was enough light for the signs to reflect and actually be seen by the driver.
As an American, I second this.
Yes, but why didn't they have bright headlights before the '80s? Was it just the usual British Rail laziness, slovenliness and incompetence ???
I have to say (and many don't agree with me), but I don't like UK trains without yellow ends - they don't really look, well, British. And I'm certainly no "little Englander" on such matters.
The really weird one for me is Merseyrail's 777s - they're in a yellow livery but they still went for an all-black front. Although I suppose it makes the illuminated "M" show up better.
I thought that the idea behind withdrawing the requirement was that they could then be painted any colour that went with the main livery. I think an inverse Henry Ford rule should have applied - you can have any colour you like as long as it isn't black!
@@Titan604 I certainly think it was motivated by aesthetic desires more than anything else. I don't know what consultations were carried out but I have met trackside workers who reckon the first they knew of it was seeing one go past on site.
I'm not actually convinced that yellow is more visible than many other colours. For instance, what are the statistics for car accidents - are fewer people hit by yellow cars, than light green of light blue, for instance?
Although, of course, fewer people WOULD be hit by yellow cars ((outside of New York) because no one in their right mind drives a yellow car!
But I digress. Clearly black and yellow stripes are the way to go. Or am I just being waspish?
It is indeed the case that yellow cars have proportionally fewer accidents. White cars are almost as good, apart from some collisions with snowploughs.
I've been researching "modern" traction liveries (along with allocations, detail changes and other geek-rich info) for future publication in an online database. Finding out when small yellow panels, then yellow ends, then (sometimes) urgh yellow cabs were added. By 1st Jan 1962 only 14 locos had the yellow panels. D121 was the first to have them painted on, D129 the first to be delivered with them, both in Dec 1961. Electric locos seemed to take longer to have them added than the louder diesels. Class 33s were also stubbornly resistant to yellow paint until the end of the 60s.
Of course, being BR, nothing was straight-forward. Western decided to paint their engines Maroon, LMR and Scottish painted most of their AC and a handful of DC locos in a lighter Electric Blue and by 1967 there was a bewildering array of Green with large yellow ends, Blue with small panels, Maroon with none, you get the picture. Some green locos had the new BR logo applied making it difficult to assess from a black and white photo whether what you're looking at was blue, green, black, maroon or beige (yes, that's right "beige").
It took from 1965 until 1980 to eradicate the green livery, the last mainline loco being 40106. Well it was until someone decided to keep it green for railtours and special events. There are many different opinions on whether it was painted blue then back to green or whether it was seen outside Crewe Works with blue undercoat. By the end of the 70's BR had soften its stance on everything looking the same and new liveries were being trialed. A year or so earlier and 40106 wouldn't have been so lucky to gain such celebrity status.
Livery information for multiple units is harder to research, mainly because their numbers were less coveted by trainspotters so while there are loads of photos of DMUs and EMUs in the 60s they are rarely noted with anything more than the class type. So I may be some time with this project.
I like the steam train sneeking up on you 😂
Very interesting. Many thanks.
Older trams had gongs to warn of their approach, still killed by great aunt (she was deaf)
I love those blue (royal blue?) Scottish Pullmans!! 🤩
A suggestion for a future video along similar lines, "why British tail lamps flash" as opposed to constantly on.
In Ireland we require two constant on, a result of the Cherryville Junction crash of 1983
Nice little informative video. Thank you.
I think the wrap-around yellow panel with BR blue looks magnificent on the class 37s, class 47s and class 50s. It just somehow looks really powerful.
When I a was working on Class 710 stock at Bombardier we were going through the process of justifying the Orange front end and one of the tests we discussed and carried out was to do with the visibility, from the point of view of a driver of another train, of a person in 'full tango' (hi-viz jacket and trousers) walking in front of a 710. At ballast level the Orange panel starts around five feet from the ground so the majority of the person's body is actually seen against a dark background.
The only visible difference between class 08 and 09 shunters is the yellow and black hazard stripes. (Aside from the cab number.) The 09s have a reversed pattern - that is black where the 08 has yellow and yellow where the 08 has black. It's one of those nagging differences. Unless you know, the fronts look different but you cannot immediately see why.
Irishrail seem to employ/have employed a similar policy with their rolling stock (including suburban trains like the DART, although recent mockups for their replacements don't feature any such yellow panel). Worth noting also that when the LUAS tram launched in 2004 it was almost entirely grey before being forced to add a yellow panel and strip around the entire tram to improve visibility.
I was fully expecting "You are the yellow panel to my drab front".
If we didn't immediately rack our brains to think of exceptions, you'd be disappointed in us!
Interestingly, some of the early BR-lookalike diesels used in Western Australia didn't have a full yellow warning panel like the British variants. What they had instead was a stripe that ran across the body of the locomotive and curved down on the nose end to form a down-facing arrow. When these diesels were painted green, this arrow was either painted red with yellow lining, or just yellow to the same shade as the BR warning panels. However, when WAGR became Westrail and decided to change colours to orange this stripe became blue.
Originally I always used to think this was an artistic choice. But, considering that many WAGR DMU's also carried Warning stripes like the BR shunters on the ends, there is evidence to suggest that the WAGR stripe found on all of the 1st gen diesels both loco and railcar, is in fact Western Australia's answer to BR's warning panels. That's just a theory anyway.
Now I'm beginning to wonder what a Class 20 painted in MRWA maroon and cream would look like if the MRWA's wheel crest on the loco's front was replaced by a full yellow warning panel... probably wouldn't look very good if it didn't look right on the blue pullman
The British rail blue with the yellow snout looked great on Hornby sets when I was a little lad during the early 1980s. On a school trip to Normandy when I was 12 I got a SCNF train set that was compatible with Hornby. Cool, but not a Hornby Deltic or class 37 etc. Making Hornby locomotives look good is not the reason for the yellow though. 😆
P.S. I had a few interests back then. Train sets. My BMX and mods for it. Scalextric. Revell model ships and planes. Dungeons and Dragons. These new gadgets called space invader machines that gobbled up my spare change. Fish and chips - and Mars bars, because mum always cooked super healthy vegetarian food, so I had to pay for my own junk food. I ended up doing three paper rounds every morning to pay for it all. 12 quid per week. I was rolling in money! Now most of my hobby money goes on electric guitar stuff or PC builds.
BTW. When the news agent opened in the morning about a dozen paper boys would gather around a stack of papers to check something out. Nope, not the football scores. Yep, to check out the latest page three. Our other great interest. Knockers. 🤣
Nice sound on the steam locomotives.
Thanks for expanding our brains.
Poland and Hungary always used to as well, and CSX in the States. I really do think a train looks incomplete without it, and no one could deny that it catches the eye from a distance.
hi jago. for me a yellow panelling always represented a british train. it was very distinctive from other trains around the world .
Another stand-out contribution from Jago of Five Oaks..... NZ goods train diesels , also on the Wellington-P. North passenger trains are in the Kiwirail colours of yellow and orange...the Wellington electric units are ( originally) shiny brushed steel with bright fluorescent lime green bands ... with flashing ditch lights when approaching crossings or stations..... says LeviNZ.
Joking aside for a minute, I'm really glad someone with your profile has chosen to discuss this issue. I think moving away from yellow warning panels/ends/stripes is a big step backwards in railway safety. IMO, there is nothing that catches the eye more effectively than these panels. It was a simple, genius idea that has no doubt saved many, many lives.
When waste skips became the norm, extensive visibility studies were performed, which led to their colour being mostly yellow.
Here in New Zealand, I started noticing the yellow on the front of trains several years back, and never really observed any great advantage 😊for visibility. Back in 2010, I even noticed it on a heritage EMU that had been restored, not long before the class was retired. Somehow it didn't look right.
I grew up with seeing most trains having yellow ends, so I taken it for granted. The only problem now is, when it's dark some lights can be too bright.
Interestingly enough, here in NL the rulings on a yellow or white panel on the front for visibilty were abolished in the early 2000's as well, but the rules were being put back in place again after a couple of incidents with the new SNG units, so now all Dutch trains (or at least the NS ones) need to have a yellow or white panel on the front again.
Here we go boys. You know what time it is. It’s time to watch another Jago Video!
I do prefer the standard yellow warning , it seems safer . Lookit the last shot of a blue train coming from the blue yonder towards potential track workers .
I'm (originally) Dutch, this for context.
The trains of the Dutch railways, NS, had all trains yellow. As from the 2000s, this has been abandoned by the Dutch authorities, so Dutch trains have different colours. But the NS has recently decided to REPAINT all their fronts of the (local) trains with the old yellow colour! And again, for the very same reason as before. Visibility!
For info, they are currently (dark) blue.
Other operators use mostly white.
Fun fact hi-vis clothes on British Rail was orange so you didn't blend in with the yellow panel
In Australia hi-vis has to be orange on the rails because red, yellow and green are signaling colours for the drivers.
In the land of Colonists, the Long Island Rail Road M7 EMU stock actually have just such a yellow panel, for just such a reason, I. E., crossings all over the system.
Furthermore, their DE30 and DM30 locos sport yeller about the driving cabs, a bit more stylistically.