A special project celebrating 45 years of excellent service by Merseyrail's Class 507 and Class 508s trains has been realised in a collaboration between the rail operator, Liverpool City Region Combined Authority, Angel Trains, and Stadler.
The project celebrates the impressive leap forward that the units brought to Merseyrail and has led to the creation of a nostalgic heritage wrap, which is now being sported by 507001.
507001 Marks, the very first Class 507 delivered to the rail operators network, arriving in to Birkenhead North Depot way back in 1978 and has had a remarkable career to date including:
- Being coupled with unit 002 on the 25th of October 1978 in order to form a Royal special as Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II enjoyed a trip from Moorfields to Kirkby before unveiling the brand new look for the Merseyrail system.
- In November 1978, 001 moved into passenger service and marked the very first Merseyrail public service with the 07.39 from Southport to Liverpool Central
It is fitting that 001 has seen a celebratory return to its original livery in order to celebrate the years of service from engineers, guards and drivers who worked tirelessly on the impressive units over the decades.
Members of the public also recognise the iconic units as part of the city region's culture over the past 45 years, taking people to and from work and, no doubt, some days and nights out to remember.
Celebrating the Class 507 and 508s in style with the heritage livery is a perfect way to recognise the unit's hardworking life on the network and no doubt will delight many people to glimpse 001 over the next few months before a final farewell is made.
Very nice but we are forgetting about the rolling stock we have now the 777 fleet witch we have a few problems with and the old stock look nice in there new delivery I would like to see these brought back into service till we have sorted out the 777 fleet and the little gremlins that are causing a few problems I think if we listen to the people who use the service it would be a great service
Management instead of presenting to anoraks in my opinion should present themselves for complaints and explanations when those of us crammed onto 3 coaches on the norther line especially weekends when shoppers and football fans increase numbers are kin fed up. Also why are the bogs constantly out of use?
It is DDA. There’s a 313 done the same way but that was painted rather than vinyl wrapped.
That way of doing B/G livery does have a prototype, however, the 4VEC and 3 TIS units on the Isle of Wight had theirs the same way in the 70s and 80s so it’s OK.
Looks superb but it’s a pity about the passenger doors… Probably a DDA requirement but a good effort all the same…