'South Western Railway' - branding (discussion)

[59CosG95]

I think I can very faintly remember the 377's briefly displaying them when first introduced as well.

Chiltern still seem to use them on some of their 168 and 165 services. Not sure why though!

 

[jimm]

Occasionally also on the 450s, mainly when operating off their normal routes (e.g. via Epsom). Further afield, GWR trains on the NDL still often display two-number headcodes, which are something of a mystery as they don't accord with the two-number codes shown on RTT.

GWR Turbos working to all sorts of places display two-figure headcodes - so long as the driver has set up the destination display.

They have nothing to do with headcodes on realtimetrains. They were introduced by Network South East on GW and Chiltern routes when the Turbos were delivered and operate on exactly the same principle as those on former Southern Railway services, with each pair of figures corresponding with a particular destination and stopping pattern, though I've no idea when they were last publicised in GW-land. Someone may have a list.

First don't appear to have any objections in principle to using this type of route codes - the 165/1s and 166s all got new destination displays able to show them when the customer information system was renewed a few years ago - but whether they will survive once the Turbos get to Bristol (in the absence of a set of such route codes there) or the new South Western trains are built remains to be seen.

 

[JaJaWa]

Suppose I'm 4 days late...

 

[3141]

Suppose I'm 4 days late...

When Sea Containers and MTR were drawing up a joint bid for the South Western franchise in 2006, Christopher Garnett showed the design of the logo they would use if they won. It was based on the GNER logo, i.e. GSWR, so it had some resemblance to this one.

 

[Blaahh]

Suppose I'm 4 days late...

Haha!

 

[agerj001]

Suppose I'm 4 days late...

Shame that's not the real one, that actually looks far better than some current designs out there for other franchises!

 

[Suraggu]

I did say earlier in this thread about LSWR branding...
Il get my coat.

 

[physics34]

Suppose I'm 4 days late...

Doubt they will use a design like this as the GWR one has the bigger W because thats what the original GWR design had.

 

[cjmillsnun]

Why would you think there is any possibility of this, given the new fleet of 387/2s just introduced?

The 460s weren't old when they were removed and swapped with the piggies were they?

History has a funny way of repeating itself.

 

[fgwrich]

Doubt they will use a design like this as the GWR one has the bigger W because thats what the original GWR design had.

But... the LSWR did style itself as the LSWR for many years though. Who knows, I guess we'll find out in the next week or so. I do rather like that design as posted above!

 

[fairysdad]

So, the day before the franchise change, there have *finally*(!) been some information released about how South Western Railway will be branded, with some information being found here on the Office of Rail Regulation's website.

I quite like the logo, a light blue stylized version of the SW route, although it's placement within the wordmark is a little off, can't quite put my finger on where; I reckon the words should be aligned with each other with the logo placed either offset to the left or top, or alighed to the 'South Western' text to the right of 'Railway'.

Interesting, and I've never really thought about it before, that Stagecoach didn't really have a logo for SWT (or for East Midlands Trains), just the wordmark - their Twitter avatar just showing a version of the 'swoop' used on the front of their blue trains.

Some other thoughts:
Stations: SWT tended to go for a fairly neutral station branding, with (IIRC) platform signs following Network Rail's instructions, so these shouldn't really need to be changed. That said, they seemed to be the only franchise that followed NR's instructions, so there's the chance that SWR will see the NR guidelines as an SWT style, so will change.

Livery: I never used to like the non-white SWT livery, personally finding the primary colours used very garish. I still do for the blue trains (the 458s with no black banding around the windows look like plastic toys) but a year of using the red ones have made me get used to it! I expect we may see an end to the three different liveries depending on the status - thinking about it, no other company (EMT excepted) seem to use this style, so it seems a very 'Stagecoach' thing to do. I'm partially expecting a white base livery with the light blue highlights, which will actually be quite a dull livery really, but there we go.

(As an aside, I've never fully understood the operational difference between SWT's white and blue units...)

Some companies - not just TOCs - have publicly accessible style/branding guidelines; if South Western Railway are likely to do this, I would be quite interested in seeing it! I tend to like that sort of thing. I came across an old one for where I work yesterday, it's also quite interesting to see how often they were broken!

 

[MCR247]

Reading through TfL very thorough (what else would you expect!) guidelines did used to be quite interesting to be fair, not sure if its still publicly available though

 

[BestWestern]

(As an aside, I've never fully understood the operational difference between SWT's white and blue units...)

White was for the 'top link' mainline services, and I believe the blue was 'outer suburban' level stuff. This was muddled somewhat with the demise of the 442s, when blue 450s took over fast Portsmouth - Waterloo runs.

 

[swt_passenger]

Do we really need 3 threads on the go at the same time discussing SWR livery and branding?

 

[JaJaWa]

Think I uncovered that document! (Although it’s now everywhere!)

Here’s the logos extracted

 

[goblinuser]

Think I uncovered that document! (Although it’s now everywhere!)

Here’s the logos extracted

Ugh, another poorly made cheap brand to blight every station, train, and town it touches :cry:

 

[61653 HTAFC]

Think I uncovered that document! (Although it’s now everywhere!)

Here’s the logos extracted

Why does that logo look like Lionel Messi's armpit?

 

[devonexpress]

I really hope that's another mock/fake one. Its horrible. I thought First where going for a similar style to GWR? or was that all a lot of rubbish made up by children again?

 

[387star]

The railways will be a mess of liveries soon to rival greater anglia

 

[sciisfun]

I really hope that's another mock/fake one. Its horrible. I thought First where going for a similar style to GWR? or was that all a lot of rubbish made up by children again?

nope, The GWR style one was a fake, its been discussed on the main takeover/franchise awarded thread

 

[F Great Eastern]

The railways will be a mess of liveries soon to rival greater anglia

GA is quite tidy, 'one' was far worse with approx 10 liveries on the network at one point!

 

[JaJaWa]

There will a Desiro branded from September 4 I believe

 

[AlexNL]

That's looking pretty smart, I like how the letters SWR wrap around the logo between the cab window and the first passenger door.

 

[HarleyDavidson]

I'm now starting to realise why a lot of metal posts on certain buildings are being repainted in a charcoal grey gloss paint, if that unit picture is correct.

 

[gswindale]

Looks hideous!

Couldn't First/MTR afford to pay a design company to come up with something? Or are they trying to get people into the industry from an early age by running a kiddies competition?

I have to agree that the fake LSWR mockup was much better.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk

 

[Via Bank]

I like the "SWR" logo mark. Nice and minimalist, almost continental.

 

[AlexNL]

I wonder what the striping would look like on the other side of the Desiro. I think it would look best if the stripes were mirrored so that they follow the slanted front of the Desiro. However, that would look odd in combination with the diagonal lines in the SWR logo.

SNCF have a mirrored version of their logo for use on the sides of trains where the normal shape of the logo would look odd, but with the SW route map being part of the SWR logo this can't be done.

 

[LOL The Irony]

I like the "SWR" logo mark. Nice and minimalist, almost continental.

Looks bland. That stupid sky blue thing has 0 meaning. It needs "Railway" to remind people this is a train company and not some random business. Need I say more?

 

[AlexNL]

Looks bland. That stupid sky blue thing has 0 meaning. It needs "Railway" to remind people this is a train company and not some random business. Need I say more?

It's just a name that states where the company is active and what they do. The same criticism can be said about lots of other brands and their logo's.

Do SWT, EMT and Virgin really need to have "Trains" in their name to remind people that they're a... TOC? Do BA really need to have Airways in their name to remind people that they're an airline? Do Thames Water really need the word "Water" in their name to tell people that they do something with water?

First/MTR could've asked a branding agency to come up with a special name, but would that have been better than simply combining region + activity?

 

[Wivenswold]

Hmmm, not sure though it's not a brilliant quality image.

There's a whiff of British Rail late 70's about it. I like the colours but the design is far too busy for my liking.