Great British Railways: Livery, branding and appearance?

[AdamWW]

If repainting must be done then I'd go for the same livery for everything. Probably something similar to NSE, not for sentimental reasons but the colours march the theme Boris clearly wants...

The railways are not for enthusiasts so it is wishful thinking for a return to 1980s InterCity liveries and logos.

People mention confusion for passengers if there isn't regional liveries etc. Passengers look at the information board to know what train it is not the livery...

I think we'll have to wait and see what they mean by: "There will be a new brand and identity for the whole system, built upon the double arrow, with national and regional sub-identities."

I don't think there was a suggestion that Scotland and Wales should lose their current liveries (and I suspect they would have a fight on their hands if they tried).

 

[MotCO]

I reckon all over white with different bold colour door highlights (for visual disability compliance) to denote region, matching font colour and a prominent red BR logo.

I like some of these suggested liveries. Another option is to have the same base colour for all rolling stock, but paint the doors in the colour of TOC. Then if stock moves between companies, you only have to paint the doors.

Great minds think alike

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 22 May 2021 ==

As Michael Flanders once pointed out, every other country's stamps have the name of the country on them, but UK/GB never did, because they were the original stamps, and didn't need to specify a country.

But we have the Queen (or King) on all (?) our stamps instead.

 

[popeter45]

would need a case for transfer of the cally from TS to GBR but would be an idea for a unified sleeper brand separate/ consession contract from other intercity services?

 

[ChilternTurbo]

I don't think harking back to the past (especially one that increasing numbers don't remember) with swallows and 1980s Intercity branding is really the way to go?

I agree. Whilst I fondly remember the Intercity brand and think that the marketing campaigns behind it e.g. the 'Relax' TV ad campaigns were highly successful, it's something that was and looks very much of it's time. We need a modern take on this and digging up corporate identities that have been dead for 25 years isn't the way forward...

 

[AdamWW]

I agree. Whilst I fondly remember the Intercity brand and think that the marketing campaigns behind it e.g. the 'Relax' TV ad campaigns were highly successful, it's something that was and looks very much of it's time. We need a modern take on this and digging up corporate identities that have been dead for 25 years isn't the way forward...

Perhaps not, but they do seem to have chosen to revive a corporate identity that goes back a but further than that.

 

[CBlue]

Perhaps not, but they do seem to have chosen to revive a corporate identity that goes back a but further than that.

Boris De piffle Johnson and co. have form for this sort of thing of course, having done similar nostalgic trips as London mayor with that silly bus.

It'll doubtless get watered down once reality and paperwork bites.

 

[jon0844]

Boris De piffle Johnson and co. have form for this sort of thing of course, having done similar nostalgic trips as London mayor with that silly bus.

It'll doubtless get watered down once reality and paperwork bites.

The new staff uniforms will be like

(Photo shows man covered top-to-toe in Union flags)

 

[AdamWW]

Boris De piffle Johnson and co. have form for this sort of thing of course, having done similar nostalgic trips as London mayor with that silly bus.

It'll doubtless get watered down once reality and paperwork bites.

I really can't see expanding the use of a logo that has remained as part of the railway throughout privatisation as equivalent to procuring buses designed to look a bit like Routemasters.

A far better parallel would be the way London has reverted to all-over red buses with the roundel on rather than operator branding and the "80% red in zone 1 rule" or whatever it was.
I haven't noticed much in the way of objections to this.

 

[Devonian]

Is the body text [of the Williams-Shapps Plan] in Rail? I doesn't look like it to me, but then I think Rail 2 comes in various different flavours and I don't know what they all look like.

Rail Alphabet 2 is used for text in Network Rail's design guidelines, and works very well, but in the Williams-Shapps Plan it's Helvetica Neue for text. Rail 2's signage and text 'flavours' look pretty similar to each other (I think the signage version has slightly narrower letters), but not terribly similar to the original Railway Alphabet: the numbers are the parts which match most closely.

While Railway Alphabet was completely neutral - and often indistinguishable from something like Helvetica without careful study - the new version is actually quite distinctive. It's quite a clever update that doesn't look too 'of the moment' or too '1965' either: it's definitely not just a revival of an old identity, just a return to the basic principles of signage design that work just as well today as they did in 1965.

We need a modern take on this and digging up corporate identities that have been dead for 25 years isn't the way forward

It's possible to reference old identities with a modern take: GWR and Southern for example, which had both been dead for a lot longer, were deliberate attempts to do just that in very different ways. I suspect the intention will be to do something that is reasonably up-to-date but fairly timeless, so that it has a chance of lasting at least as long as it takes to update everything. Mind you, given that it's only a few years since the supposedly 'permanent brands' of LNER, EMR etc have been introduced, nothing is certain. If InterCity returned, I'd expect it to be nothing more than a sub-brand to highlight inter-city services provided by each region, as it is on EMR, with a common minimum service standard.

 

[StephenHunter]

Rail Alphabet wasn't used for body text, mind.

 

[BrianW]

Perhaps not, but they do seem to have chosen to revive a corporate identity that goes back a but further than that.

Organisations in trouble down the years divert focus onto logos etc. Over 300 posts on this thread
Not that they are unimportant, and certainly not without interest, though maybe not 'the main thing'.
I rather concur with contributors relating this to flag-waving Mr de Piffle. Opportunity for Her Majesty to be wheeled out to launch the new 'corporate identity' with the flag logo where yellow used to be on a GB-manufactured train the Royal Scotsman/ North Great Briton 'headed' by Concrete Bob McAlpine (other McAlpines available?), departing KX Platform 9 3/4 at 9.45/10 o'clock?
Such fun.

 

[AdamWW]

While Railway Alphabet was completely neutral - and often indistinguishable from something like Helvetica without careful study - the new version is actually quite distinctive. It's quite a clever update that doesn't look too 'of the moment' or too '1965' either: it's definitely not just a revival of an old identity, just a return to the basic principles of signage design that work just as well today as they did in 1965.

One of the most distinctive aspects of Rail (1) to me is the very short distance between the top of the lower case "f" and the bar. Rail 2 looks a bit more normal to me in that respect (lower "x" height?)

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 22 May 2021 ==

Organisations in trouble down the years divert focus onto logos etc. Over 300 posts on this thread
Not that they are unimportant, and certainly not without interest, though maybe not 'the main thing'.

Certainly not the main thing for most people...but then this is only one thread of many discussing the report.

 

[HSTEd]

Best option is probably just to paint all-over one dark colour, with white highlights for doors and the double arrow.

Kinda like the current GWR livery.

Each region could have a different colour, dark green, dark red, dark blue, etc.

 

[YorksLad12]

Is the body text in Rail? I doesn't look like it to me, but then I think Rail 2 comes in various different flavours and I don't know what they all look like.

(Also, since I was forced to update Windows and despite installing the latest display drivers manually, my computer has become a bit creative in how it displays text...)

Page 2 of the pdf though just says that it's used for the headings in the document.

My bad. I missed the bit that says *the headings* are Rail Alphabet 2. That'll teach me to wait until the full corporate ID manual comes out

 

[birchesgreen]

I wonder if the new rolling stock livery will be a bit like the LNER one, only with added blue

 

[AdamWW]

One thing I would really hope we'll get is a return to first class being indicated by an obvious yellow line.

I presume that whatever happens we'll at least have consistent rules on how to indicate first class and wheelchair and bike spaces etc.

 

[jon0844]

One thing I would really hope we'll get is a return to first class being indicated by an obvious yellow line. I presume that whatever happens we'll at least have consistent rules on how to indicate first class and wheelchair and bike spaces etc.

Standard icons/symbols and colours is a definite benefit. No idea why this wasn't a thing even with the current setup. Colours for first class or an accessible coach should be standardised.

 

[YorksLad12]

Standard icons/symbols and colours is a definite benefit. No idea why this wasn't a thing even with the current setup. Colours for first class or an accessible coach should be standardised.

Pretty sure the Rail UK forums branding team members are on it...

 

[BrianW]

Standard icons/symbols and colours is a definite benefit. No idea why this wasn't a thing even with the current setup. Colours for first class or an accessible coach should be standardised.

Agree totally, however ...
What about Quiet coach; family coach; ...
Wondering whether 'First Class' is due a rebranding; after all we are ALL First Class!
And/or maybe 'Standard' will be levelled up. Great British Class System?
Prime? Ministerial? Class
Boris coaches- like Bikes?
Rees Mogg class?
Ward Prowse? Sir David Gower? Lord Botham ... Helena Bonham Carter ...
Greater ... Greatest British Class
Empire Class?
I'd better stop; taking all my belongings with me.

 

[Gareth]

The flag got hijacked by the nationalists, and many people who are proud to be British won't fly the flag to avoid being associated with them. That's the problem. People become scared to fly the flag, and those who demand we protect the flag are the very people that stop others from doing so.

Like I've already said on this topic: this is a sneering English middle class myth, egged along by those who don't like our country and don't wish it well, from without and within. It became associated with the "far right" because those who didn't like it to begin with decided it was"far right".

And naturally, the actual far right, what relatively little of it there actually is (certainly in comparison to many European countries), don't care and fly the flag anyway. Far rightists in France fly the French flag, far rightists in Greece fly the Greek flag and so on. The Union Jack is not exceptional in this regard.

 

[AdamWW]

The DfT colour scheme for TLGN trains


Standard icons/symbols and colours is a definite benefit. No idea why this wasn't a thing even with the current setup. Colours for first class or an accessible coach should be standardised.

In my (not very educated) opinion, having chosen to fragment the railway things were set up pretty well so that it did still act as a coherent network (they could have abolished any operator tickets as being anti-competitive, or let them become an expensive irrelevance).

But I really think that they should have required the yellow lines for 1st class to be retained.

 

[moleman212]

Like I've already said on this topic: this is a sneering English middle class myth, egged along by those who don't like our country and don't wish it well, from without and within. It became associated with the "far right" because those who didn't like it to begin with decided it was"far right".

And naturally, the actual far right, what relatively little of it there actually is (certainly in comparison to many European countries), don't care and fly the flag anyway. Far rightists in France fly the French flag, far rightists in Greece fly the Greek flag and so on. The Union Jack is not exceptional in this regard.

Totally agree. You can see there are quite a few posters on this topic who sneer about the temerity of calling the new organisation 'Great British'...No doubt they would rather the trains were painted red with hammer and sickle symbols plastered over each carriage...

 

[Grumpy Git]

Totally agree. You can see there are quite a few posters on this topic who sneer about the temerity of calling the new organisation 'Great British'...No doubt they would rather the trains were painted red with hammer and sickle symbols plastered over each carriage...

Like I've already said on this topic: this is a sneering English middle class myth, egged along by those who don't like our country and don't wish it well, from without and within. It became associated with the "far right" because those who didn't like it to begin with decided it was"far right"

From my point of view, I'm afraid neither of you "get it" with regard to how politicians "wrap themselves up in the flag" as an attempt to appeal to a certain mind-set. It obviously works as you both seem unable to disentangle the argument we are having about it here.

I'm neither English middle class (whatever on earth that actually means) or dislike my country "from within" as you are so keen to suggest.

 

[birchesgreen]

Yes patriotism is wanting to make your country the best it can be, not waving a made in China union flag.

 

[mmh]

From my point of view, I'm afraid neither of you "get it" with regard to how politicians "wrap themselves up in the flag" as an attempt to appeal to a certain mind-set. It obviously works as you both seem unable to disentangle the argument we are having about it here.

I'm neither English middle class (whatever on earth that actually means) or dislike my country "from within" as you are so keen to suggest.

It, "wrapping themselves up in the flag," as an argument based on the words "Great British" being notable rather falls down though when none of Francais, Deutsche, Nederlandse, Italiane, Osterreichische, Schweizerische, Polskie, Magyar, Ceske, Danske, Eireann, and closer to home, Scot and Wales are considered noteworthy!

 

[Gareth]

From my point of view, I'm afraid neither of you "get it" with regard to how politicians "wrap themselves up in the flag" as an attempt to appeal to a certain mind-set. It obviously works as you both seem unable to disentangle the argument we are having about it here.

I'm neither English middle class (whatever on earth that actually means) or dislike my country "from within" as you are so keen to suggest.

I know full well about politicians "wrapping themselves up in the flag", I don't need to "get it", thank you very much. None of that's unique to this country though and I'd say this country has less of that than most.

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Yes patriotism is wanting to make your country the best it can be, not waving a made in China union flag.

And St George was a Turk....

 

[jon0844]

From my point of view, I'm afraid neither of you "get it" with regard to how politicians "wrap themselves up in the flag" as an attempt to appeal to a certain mind-set. It obviously works as you both seem unable to disentangle the argument we are having about it here.

I'm neither English middle class (whatever on earth that actually means) or dislike my country "from within" as you are so keen to suggest.

I think those posts are perfect proof of what I said. People who don't want to sleep on a Union Flag bed clearly hate the UK and might even be wannabe Communists.

 

[Gareth]

Yeah, because I so said that, didn't I.

 

[fat_boy_pete]

It's possible to reference old identities with a modern take: GWR and Southern for example, which had both been dead for a lot longer, were deliberate attempts to do just that in very different ways. I suspect the intention will be to do something that is reasonably up-to-date but fairly timeless, so that it has a chance of lasting at least as long as it takes to update everything.

Indeed and this includes the double arrow logo, which has subtly been changed. See https://twitter.com/_doublearrow/status/1396047704652931074?s=20 for a detailed thread on how.

 

[Gareth]

Not sure that's an improvement tbh. It's a design classic and needs leaving alone, in my opinion.