More National Rail Branding

[Sad Sprinter]

It seems most of the notices for COVID or station station signage for rerouted traffic flows for social distancing appear to be in standard National Rail branding. It was quite nice to see some uniformity and a change from (the often garish) TOC branding. It got me thinking, is there scope for more centralised branding in the railway? Replacing all TOC branding on timetables and possibly going as far to having a single National Rail livery on trains, complete with the double arrow symbol and relegating the owner of the franchise to a thin strip of branding at the bottom of the carriage?

 

[Class465pacer]

It would be very boring for every train in the country to have the exact same livery. One positive of privatisation is the many different liveries, good or bad it’s still variety.

 

[Philip Phlopp]

It would be very boring for every train in the country to have the exact same livery. One positive of privatisation is the many different liveries, good or bad it’s still variety.

It certainly is a positive if you've got shares in a paint and vinyl company. The reality is the constant merry-go-round of different paint, vinyls, seat moquette, signage and TOC brand names is a shameful waste of money, tens of millions of pounds which could have been spent on useful things like enhanced accessibility, better facilities and additional staffing.

 

[tbtc]

I really don't think that the cost of repainting station signs/ bins/ benches and trains every "seven" years or so is going to be a huge hardship in the grand scheme of railway costs (bearing in mind that most things need repainting every few years anyway, and there's never a TOC that insists everything is repainted in the first week of a franchise anyway).

BR were happy to tinker with liveries and repaint things pretty often anyway (and had their share of "garish" liveries!).

I say "seven" based on a typical franchise length - some are longer than that, some shorter.

However, I could agree with having a bland/neutral signage at stations - I don't think that stations need to "belong" to a TOC - the branding could certainly be nationwide/ uniform - however there's no reason it has to be the same "double arrow" brand that it was twenty five years ago - whilst it's something that the over forties will associate with trains, the idea of getting away from the current privatised model doesn't have to mean going back to how things were when we were younger (despite the nostalgia some have).

 

[londonteacher]

I agree that stations should all be the same. There is no need for specific designs for each TOC.

Also if all liveries were the same then there would be reduced costs overall. They could have something like Chiltern do by Arriva