Livery under Great British Railways

[Sad Sprinter]

What about an emergence of the "Alphaline" brand for non "Intercity" intercity routes? Personally I would a million times over prefer Network SouthEast to "Alphaline" which reminds me of 4 hr+ journeys on a 158. Always loved seeing those 158s run through Clapham Junction though when I was a child.

 

[birchesgreen]

All over blue would be nice, maybe with grey around the window area for inter city services. Yellow front ends natch.

 

[Neptune]

What about an emergence of the "Alphaline" brand for non "Intercity" intercity routes? Personally I would a million times over prefer Network SouthEast to "Alphaline" which reminds me of 4 hr+ journeys on a 158. Always loved seeing those 158s run through Clapham Junction though when I was a child.

Another hark back to the not as glorious as some people seem to think days of British Rail (I lived it and worked for it, it wasn’t as great as people seem to be making out). Also remember, BR kept moving their brand on during its 50 or so years, its image didn’t freeze in time like so many people seem to want now. I just don’t get it.

If privatisation hadn’t have happened and BR lived on I’m certain the liveries seen in the mid 1990’s wouldn’t exist anymore. They would have been changed (modernised) at least twice since then.

A new modern image needn’t be garish. You can easily have fresh, modern and classy if you get the right designers involved.

Does any other company have people constantly harking back to the past when it’s due a rebrand?

 

[Sad Sprinter]

Another hark back to the not as glorious as some people seem to think days of British Rail (I lived it and worked for it, it wasn’t as great as people seem to be making out). Also remember, BR kept moving their brand on during its 50 or so years, its image didn’t freeze in time like so many people seem to want now. I just don’t get it.

If privatisation hadn’t have happened and BR lived on I’m certain the liveries seen in the mid 1990’s wouldn’t exist anymore. They would have been changed (modernised) at least twice since then.

A new modern image needn’t be garish. You can easily have fresh, modern and classy if you get the right designers involved.

Does any other company have people constantly harking back to the past when it’s due a rebrand?

There is literally very little that has been memorable or worth keeping since privatisation. If I had to hark back to a privatisation era brand, it would be either Midland Mainline, GNER or Anglia Railways. The reason why the BR era I think it's so romanticised is because it was a time before the soulless corporate-blah set in on the railways before "First Great Whatever", "Abelio Greater Who Cares". BR at least, felt like a "railway".

And even brands that were halfway decent never stuck around for very long. Wessex Trains lasted 5 years for example. So it wasn't like people got a chance to really grow up with them.

I understand there is a hint of irony that people in the late 80s and 90s felt Network SouthEast was completely naff. But it has a fanbase that no other post-privatisation brand, apart from Xillennial Virgin Trains enthusiasts (not myself, I hated them).

 

[Deepgreen]

I fervently hope for unified livery. No problem with different variations for types of service as long as interchangeability is considered (SWT, for example, often used blue-liveried units on suburban (red) services and vice-versa sometimes). The most important thing is a livery which can represent a unified network, even with variations, and which can accommodate clear external signage. There should be no reason why cantrail stripes can't come back - yellow for first, red for catering, etc.) but they need to be clear and stand out from the base livery. I happen to like a dark green, but whatever is chosen needs to be elegant and practical, not some of the garish rubbish which has been foisted on us under privatisation. There is a psychological argument for elegance/restrained colours fostering more respect, rather than a livery which already looks part-graffiti! Regional variations are all very well, but they limit the interchangeability of stock over time without adding confusion or requiring urgent re-painting. Suburban and long-distance is perhaps the simplest distinction to make, but even that is not all that simple.

 

[eldomtom2]

Considering the reveal of the Great British Energy logo, I would not be surprised if we ended up with something like the red-white-and-blue double arrow we've seen crop up a few times.

 

[Neptune]

There is literally very little that has been memorable or worth keeping since privatisation. If I had to hark back to a privatisation era brand, it would be either Midland Mainline, GNER or Anglia Railways.

3 companies that absolutely kicked the backside of what BR offered when they were introduced. All totally different approaches to branding too and shows what can be done with a little forethought. MML went all out modern, GNER went for a modern twist on a classic style theme and AR went for simple but effective.

I was also a fan of what stagecoach did by having a unified brand but with different liveries for different service types but a united scheme internally.

The reason why the BR era I think it's so romanticised is because it was a time before the soulless corporate-blah set in on the railways before "First Great Whatever", "Abelio Greater Who Cares". BR at least, felt like a "railway".

Absolutely agree but a unified railway feel needn’t hark back to the past. It is a great opportunity to totally relaunch the railway with a style which can kick start it.

Harking back to the past is not what is needed here. Only enthusiasts and those with an axe to grind against their current employers seem to want to rewind to the past when things weren’t as great as they seem to make out (there were just as many IR problems then and it wasn’t as safe a system as now for 2).

And even brands that were halfway decent never stuck around for very long. Wessex Trains lasted 5 years for example. So it wasn't like people got a chance to really grow up with them.

Is that really what people want? To cling onto something they grew up with? Do rail enthusiasts really hate change that much?

I understand there is a hint of irony that people in the late 80s and 90s felt Network SouthEast was completely naff. But it has a fanbase that no other post-privatisation brand, apart from Xillennial Virgin Trains enthusiasts (not myself, I hated them).

NSE was an excellent brand but it’s 30+ years ago now. Things move on. I really wish people could see that this is the once in a generation opportunity to relaunch the railways with something fresh and modern, not just a chance to rewind the clock 3 decades (I guess they wouldn’t accept BR wages quite as readily). Some things are best left in the past and for me as a user and eventually employee of BR, that’s the best place to leave it.

 

[JLH4AC]

I would like the Great British Railways' livery to be a modernised Intercity/regional livery with national/regional and sector variations. Apart from the colour of the bottom stripe being standardised to show the type of service, (I.e red for intercity, purple for regional, teal for night trains, red and yellow for postal and no set colour for local/urban trains.) the transport bodies should be able to colour the trains that come under their purview as they see fit so that can though higher order transport bodies would ideally make it so on trains that directly fall under purview the top stripe is red for English trains, blue for Scottish trains and green for Welsh trains. The logos would be the appropriate national/regional/sector variation of the British Rail logo, trains that are operated on behalf of local transport bodies should have dual logos including both the appropriate variation of the British Rail logo and the logo of that local transport body. The liveries of the privatisation era operators of that given region should ideally inspire the regional liveries.

What is the obsession with a unified livery - the rail blue days were grim.
A unified livery stinks of a distant government imposition, with a whiff of communism. Local liveries give a feeling of local ownership (our trains) and people care more about things they identify with.
The only unified thing should be the double arrow.
There is also the rather important fact that if you make it all look the same then it gets associated with the lowest denominator. Rather than express glamour the shiniest intercity service is still the same people who make one’s commute so grim. It’s all stereotype British Rail, rather than “their trains are rubbish, but our ones are better”. See car makers and all their brands to remove the nice stuff from the ordinary - Lexus, Cupra…. They don’t stick SEAT badges on Bentleys.

Because a unified livery (Be it a single standardised livery or a single template that variations are made from.) makes feel like a properly integrated system. It is far from uncommon for a single operator to have unified livery even if they serve a national company as designing multiple liveries costs money and branding is only as good as the brand recognition it helps maintain, nothing is communist about it especially considering that the state railways of several communist/socialist nations don't/didn't have unified liveries ethier due to allowing the railway subsidiaries to have their own liveries or due to locomotives with older/foreign liveries not being repainted.
As you can see above I do think that locals should be able to maintain separate national/regional identities within the framework of a unified set of liveries so that it looks like an integrated system instead of various independent operators that just happen to all owned by the DtF.

 

[whoosh]

There is literally very little that has been memorable or worth keeping since privatisation. If I had to hark back to a privatisation era brand, it would be either Midland Mainline, GNER or Anglia Railways.

I'll just leave this here:

Mainlining Style (Midland Mainline visual identity 1996-2004)

For my money, the best new visual identity of all Britain’s early privatised train companies belonged to Midland Mainline, the intercity operator which ran trains from London St Pancras to Le…

thebeautyoftransport.com

 

[Sun Chariot]

Considering the reveal of the Great British Energy logo, I would not be surprised if we ended up with something like the red-white-and-blue double arrow we've seen crop up a few times.

Ah, the memories

29/07/1981 - Ipswich.

Best viewed original size. 47583 "County of Hertfordshire" at Ipswich - 29/07/1981. - - - - - -

www.flickr.com

 

[vuzzeho]

I think one detail a lot of people aren't considering is that whatever livery comes is being designed for completely new generations. BR ended 30 years ago - it's not unreasonable to think that the people who would've commuted everyday on BR and remember what it was like without romanticising it are no longer commuting. Mix that with the idea that retro liveries/aesthetics are becoming popular again and it seems like maybe a modern twist on some BR identities might be what's incoming. Let's just hope a good design firm is chosen for it - I've always loved PriestmanGoode's work.

 

[JLH4AC]

I think one detail a lot of people aren't considering is that whatever livery comes is being designed for completely new generations. BR ended 30 years ago - it's not unreasonable to think that the people who would've commuted everyday on BR and remember what it was like without romanticising it are no longer commuting. Mix that with the idea that retro liveries/aesthetics are becoming popular again and it seems like maybe a modern twist on some BR identities might be what's incoming. Let's just hope a good design firm is chosen for it - I've always loved PriestmanGoode's work.

Yeah the retro liveries should be designed for the era we are currently in so that they fit the trains and the current aesthetic trends of the era they are intended for. it would also be a waste to just throw away 30 years of visual identities for the sake of blind nostalgia. LNER, GNER and Midland Mainline have proved that well-regarded livery designs can be both modern and nostalgic.

Commuters between 40 and 59 still make up a considerable amount of the Commuters so there would be plenty of them that remember at least part of the British Rail Sectorisation Era, and Regional Railways and Network SouthEast liveries or direct variations thereof were kept in use by TOCs until 2002 or in case of Central Trains until 2008 some of those TOCs are remembered much more fondly than others.

 

[irish_rail]

Long as they don't go with whoever did the awful Virgin east coast liveries, they looked really really bad.

 

[Sun Chariot]

Long as they don't go with whoever did the awful Virgin east coast liveries, they looked really really bad.

In the 1980s, West Midlands Passenger Transport Executive produced  this

x.com

x.com

 

[vuzzeho]

In the 1980s, West Midlands Passenger Transport Executive produced  this

x.com

x.com

Looks like it'll be going via Amsterdam Centraal!

 

[irish_rail]

In the 1980s, West Midlands Passenger Transport Executive produced  this

x.com

x.com

Still less bad than a virgin east coast HST.

 

[76020]

So now it is all going to happen any ideas anybody?
My personal choice would be the Swallow Livery for Inter City Trains as I always thought it was very smart, for Suburban Routes I really do not know but I did not like the Network South East Livery to be honest. In saying all that it is a new start so new ideas will be out there.

 

[Meerkat]

So now it is all going to happen any ideas anybody?
My personal choice would be the Swallow Livery for Inter City Trains as I always thought it was very smart, for Suburban Routes I really do not know but I did not like the Network South East Livery to be honest. In saying all that it is a new start so new ideas will be out there.

Keep the variety - much better marketing and ownership.

 

[ricj]

Do you think this website might offer a hint at what a livery colour scheme might be? https://gbrtt.co.uk

And do you think that the operators that are already in public ownership (LNER, TPE etc) would be rebranded imminently/used a proof of concept before the other TOC's contracts end over the next few years?

 

[JLH4AC]

Do you think this website might offer a hint at what a livery colour scheme might be? https://gbrtt.co.uk

And do you think that the operators that are already in public ownership (LNER, TPE etc) would be rebranded imminently/used a proof of concept before the other TOC's contracts end over the next few years?

I would imagine that in the lead up to the Great British Railways official beginning operations the operators that are already in public ownership will go through a similar rebranding process as what happened when they were bought into public ownership. After that I would imagine that the National Great British Railways livery would be applied to inter-city trains and regional variations applied to regional trains, what form the regional variations will take and how many they will be will depend on if Labour will involve the local regions in the decision-making processes, and if regional branding will align with the official regions of England or the regional division or routes of GBR.

 

[irish_rail]

By all accounts I don't think a national livery looks likely. Just a continued mish mash of (publically owned) franchises with their own identity and livery. The confusing mess will no doubt continue. The only difference will be shareholders won't be benefitting, beyond that, I am increasingly skeptical.

 

[WAB]

I would imagine that in the lead up to the Great British Railways official beginning operations the operators that are already in public ownership will go through a similar rebranding process as what happened when they were bought into public ownership. Atlfer that I would imagine that the National Great British Railways livery would be applied to inter-city trains and regional variations applied to regional trains, what form the regional variations will take and how many they will be will depend on if Labour will involve the local regions in the decision-making processes, and if regional branding will align with the official regions of England or the regional division of GBR.

I think it is unlikely that train liveries will be divided in any way other than the operating divisions that GBR ends up with, for the simple practicality of keeping livered units on their routes. For example, trying to have separate North, South, East and West Yorkshire fleets would be an entire nightmare if the rest of the operation wasn't aligned with that.

 

[JLH4AC]

I think it is unlikely that train liveries will be divided in any way other than the operating divisions that GBR ends up with, for the simple practicality of keeping livered units on their routes.

Unless GBR operating divisions are realigned to match the sub-national transport bodies or other devolved bodies that would effectively be a return to the regions of 1967-1982 British Railways and likely would entail Northern and TPE regional services being split in two.

For example, trying to have separate North, South, East and West Yorkshire fleets would be an entire nightmare if the rest of the operation wasn't aligned with that.

Those would be local services, local trains that are branded so differently from the regional trains would likely be either owned by the local authority, or the unique branding was part of the agreement for the local authority to provide funding for the services.

 

[nw1]

Keep the variety - much better marketing and ownership.

Or alternatively, it could be seen as more of a mish-mash and less consistency.

I'd support something like the situation under Sectorisation (e.g. in England, IC, "NSE", and PTE areas having their own livery, with everything else being classed "RR") but not the post-privatisation situation which, above all, gives an image of an incoherent and unintegrated system.

So now it is all going to happen any ideas anybody?
My personal choice would be the Swallow Livery for Inter City Trains as I always thought it was very smart, for Suburban Routes I really do not know but I did not like the Network South East Livery to be honest. In saying all that it is a new start so new ideas will be out there.

IC, NSE and RR, with local PTE liveries would probably be my choice, as stated above. Plus Welsh and Scottish national liveries for "domestic" services. Not necessarily the exact same colour schemes as then, but those divisions.

Worked in the late 80s / early 90s, so why not now?

I think one detail a lot of people aren't considering is that whatever livery comes is being designed for completely new generations. BR ended 30 years ago - it's not unreasonable to think that the people who would've commuted everyday on BR and remember what it was like without romanticising it are no longer commuting.

I don't think that's true.

If we focus on the back end of the Sectorisation era in particular:

Someone commuting into work in 1993 aged 25 would now be 56, almost 15 years from retirement (if we assume retirement age rises a little further and this generation ends up retiring at 70).
Someone commuting into school in 1993 aged 13 would now be 44, and a long long way from retirement.

What is the obsession with a unified livery - the rail blue days were grim.
A unified livery stinks of a distant government imposition, with a whiff of communism.

Communism?

For my first three or four years of school commuting it was the "blue and grey" era, and as far as I am aware I didn't end up wanting to sell my soul to the Soviet Union.



(That said, I'd go with an updated version of NSE, IC and RR myself, simply because from the late 80s onwards I tended to prefer those aesthetics).

 

[Djgr]

Keep the variety - much better marketing and ownership.

An integrated network needs a common livery. We need to rescue the railways from its balkanised mess.

 

[Meerkat]

An integrated network needs a common livery. We need to rescue the railways from its balkanised mess.

Why? It’s bad for brand and marketing, and local ownership - people like and take better care of ‘their‘ trains rather than some faceless state blandness.
How often do trains get moved around? It’s not like they don’t need a repaint or freshen up at intervals anyway.
And of course it would be laughable to put forward this as a reason whilst proposing the state pay to repaint and brand everything on the system!

 

[signed]

An integrated network needs a common livery

A unified livery simply doesn't work from the public eye.

- In France, the first thing most regions did when recieving the transport powers was to set a custom livery on the trains and buses to get out of the bland AF Blue and Grey former SNCF TER Livery.
- In Italy, most regions have a specific livery and not the Trenitalia main one.
- Since opening to competition, the German states that switched to another operator for Regio trains changed the trains livery to more suit the state's image.

You need a clear regional identity on the trains and buses.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Why? It’s bad for brand and marketing, and local ownership - people like and take better care of ‘their‘ trains rather than some faceless state blandness.

A perfect balance there is Network SouthEast's line branding, or Regional Railways' use of the same base livery with different colours for each PTE. Creates a feeling of both national family and a local feel.

What we don't want is to stick with TOC branding - if we do the whole debacle of "that's not my TOC, not my problem" and "you can't use your ticket for this part of GBR on this GBR train even though yours was cancelled" nonsense persists.

 

[signed]

A perfect balance there is Network SouthEast's line branding, or Regional Railways' use of the same base livery with different colours for each PTE. Creates a feeling of both national family and a local feel.

Agreed

 

[nw1]

Why? It’s bad for brand and marketing, and local ownership - people like and take better care of ‘their‘ trains rather than some faceless state blandness.y co

"Their" trains in actuality being owned by one large, multinational PLC in most cases under privatisation of course, and operated by another.

How many TOCs are actually owned or operated by some kind of local business? Are SWR owned by a small family-run company from Hampshire, and their trains leased from a small Dorset-based leasing company?