Regional Railways Shadow Franchises

[XCTurbostar]

Hi Guys,

Looking through some articles and Wiki pages, it appears that during 1994, BR created shadow franchise's in preparation for Privisatisation. I can see this occured with NSE and InterCity.
However, I cannot seem to find any evidence that suggests this occured visually with Regional Railways?

Wikipedia mentions that RR was split into 8 'Operating Units' but it doesn't appear that they had any branding other than Regional Railways until they were won by private companies. Does anyone have any other information that would suggest otherwise?

Thanks for your responses!

 

[Jorge Da Silva]

Hi Guys,

Looking through some articles and Wiki pages, it appears that during 1994, BR created shadow franchise's in preparation for Privisatisation. I can see this occured with NSE and InterCity.
However, I cannot seem to find any evidence that suggests this occured visually with Regional Railways?

Wikipedia mentions that RR was split into 8 'Operating Units' but it doesn't appear that they had any branding other than Regional Railways until they were won by private companies. Does anyone have any other information that would suggest otherwise?

Thanks for your responses!

Wiki claims https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_companies_operating_trains_in_the_United_Kingdom they were broken up into:

• RR North West (later First North Western, now Northern and TransPennine Express)
• RR North East (later Arriva Trains Northern?, now Northern and TransPennine Express)
• RR Scotland (now ScotRail)
• RR Valley Lines (later the Valley Lines, now Transport for Wales)
• RR Merseyrail Electrics (now Merseyrail)
• RR Central (later Central Trains, now CrossCountry, East Midlands Railway and West Midlands Railway)

 

[XCTurbostar]

Wiki claims https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_companies_operating_trains_in_the_United_Kingdom they were broken up into:

• RR North West (later First North Western, now Northern and TransPennine Express)
• RR North East (later Arriva Trains Northern?, now Northern and TransPennine Express)
• RR Scotland (now ScotRail)
• RR Valley Lines (later the Valley Lines, now Transport for Wales)
• RR Merseyrail Electrics (now Merseyrail)
• RR Central (later Central Trains, now CrossCountry, East Midlands Railway and West Midlands Railway)

Ok, I see how this occurred now. Although, I cant find anything to suggest that those six brands actually appeared on trains, stations or timetables before 1997.

 

[pdeaves]

At least some of them had their own identity (as opposed to 'just' legal name) pre-privatisation, e.g.
Regional Railways North East
Central Trains

RRNE didn't relivery its trains (staff uniforms, or at least ties, changed). Central Trains? - Not 100% certain about train liveries but definitely uniform elements changed.

 

[M28361M]

"Merseyrail Electrics" was definitely around from 1 April 1994 (the date all the shadow franchises came into existence, I believe) although the PTE branding usually took priority so it was very rarely seen by passengers - the trains themselves retained the Regional Railways logos on the bodysides, until privatisation when the RR logos were simply painted over.

At https://ageofthetrain.retropia.co.u...trification-to-ellesmere-port-is-completed-in you can see a scan of a promotional leaflet dating from May 1994, and at the bottom you can see the "Regional Railways Merseyrail Electrics" logo that was used at this time.

Later on a new logo came about, featuring three vertical blue rectangles forming a stylised M, and three horizontal yellow rectangles suggesting an E. Not sure if that was post-privatisation though.

 

[Ianno87]

North West Regional Railways did create the "North West Express" brand and livery on some of it's Class 156 fleet.

Central also re-liveried some Class 156s into the grey Class 158-style "Express" livery.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Later on a new logo came about, featuring three vertical blue rectangles forming a stylised M, and three horizontal yellow rectangles suggesting an E. Not sure if that was post-privatisation though.

That was *only just* pre-privatisation, I believe, when the TOC was separated out from Regional Railways. At the same time North West local services were rebranded "NorthWest Regional Railways" (camel case) rather than "Regional Railways North West".

It was rare to see it used because Merseyrail Electrics has always operated under the general Merseyrail brand with the Merseytravel "upside down W" logo instead. You only really saw it on very formal correspondence e.g. if you wrote to them or in relation to things like strikes.

 

[sprinterguy]

Scotrail introduced the three piece "Swoosh" emblem, supposed to be a stylistic representation of the Scottish landmass, in blue, red and yellow at the time of the creation of the Train Operating Units in 1994. The brand was a strong one and it appeared pretty much EVERYWHERE, from stations to timetables.

It was carried by all stock in Strathclyde PTE orange and black livery, and usually appeared somewhere on Regional Railways stock of classes 150, 156 and 305, typically on the cab end. On class 156s, it also fitted into the light blue band of Provincial livery alongside "SCOTRAIL" insignia.

As noted above, Regional Railways North West also painted it's class 156s in a green stripe variant of Regional Railways livery for "Express" duties as they went through refurbishment, while the Central TOU adopted the class 158 "Express" livery for it's refurbished 156s.

 

[Merle Haggard]

I think there's several points worth making. The 'shadow franchises' were closely based on the Reg Rail (prev. Other Provincial Services) Sub-sectors set up around 1982 for all three passenger sectors and themselves based on the earlier Service Groups. Service Groups certainly existed in 1971, when I worked in passenger marketing.
In 1994, the date quoted, the BRB preferred the privatised structure proposed to be based on the sale of the business as a single entity and the Chairman put considerable effort into acquainting Government with the advantages, but at the time I don't recollect the 'Franchising' model to be ever discussed or even mentioned. It will be interesting to see if the Williams report at least recommends vertical integration, going at least some way to substantiating the BRB's view.
Sectorisation/sub-sectorisation greatly improved the businesses' understanding of the profitability or otherwise of their routes, with some surprises in both directions, and in my opinion it was a pity that it wasn't given more time for its benefits to emerge. Working in another business sector I found the greatest difficulty was in persuading the functional departments to allocate (or even understand) their costs. For instance, the CM&EE of the region that had, ten years earlier, decided that hydraulic traction was more expensive than electric persistently included costs for ETH maintenance against loco pools that contained only 47/0s. When challenged, the answer was "you can't expect our fitters to waste time writing down engine numbers" (when they're working on them???)...

 

[GrimShady]

At least some of them had their own identity (as opposed to 'just' legal name) pre-privatisation, e.g.
Regional Railways North East
Central Trains

RRNE didn't relivery its trains (staff uniforms, or at least ties, changed). Central Trains? - Not 100% certain about train liveries but definitely uniform elements changed.

ScotRail has been around since 1983.

 

[Jorge Da Silva]

ScotRail has been around since 1983.

that was a separate sector. Not part of Regional Railways

 

[pdeaves]

that was a separate sector. Not part of Regional Railways

Scotrail was an autonomous part of Provincial/Regional Railways.

 

[GrimShady]

that was a separate sector. Not part of Regional Railways

It's was a part of Provincial hence why we got stitched up with 158s.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

Wales & West seems to have escaped mention as part of RR.
They invented alphaline for their 158-operated express service.

 

[Mogz]

ScotRail has been around since 1983.

Likewise “Merseyrail” has been around since 1971.

 

[TUC]

Wiki claims https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_companies_operating_trains_in_the_United_Kingdom they were broken up into:

• RR North East (later Arriva Trains Northern?, now Northern and TransPennine Express)

BR North East became Northern Spirit for the first couple of post-privatisation years when it was owned by MTL.