Post-Privatisation strongest brands

[bramling]

Inspired by the NSE thread. What if any of the post-privatisation TOC brands are still referred to or were referred to the longest after demise? In this neck of the woods it’s only South West Trains which is still spoken of. I believe Avanti replaced Virgin pretty quickly. I still refer to Greater Anglia as First Great Eastern but I don’t think anyone else does so.

Thinking of the brands which have stuck, in no particular order:
* Merseyrail
* Great Western
* GNER (there's still a few people who refer to them)
* Virgin (albeit gradually being forgotten)
* c2c (goodness knows why)
* South West Trains
* Chiltern

Ones which have been largely forgotten or likely will be
* WAGN
* Avanti West Coast
* Thames Trains
* Silverlink
* Central Trains
* Arriva Trains Wales
* Midland Mainline

As to whether there's any pattern to the above, hard to say!

 

[Sad Sprinter]

Thinking of the brands which have stuck, in no particular order:
* Merseyrail
* Great Western
* GNER (there's still a few people who refer to them)
* Virgin (albeit gradually being forgotten)
* c2c (goodness knows why)
* South West Trains
* Chiltern

Ones which have been largely forgotten or likely will be
* WAGN
* Avanti West Coast
* Thames Trains
* Silverlink
* Central Trains
* Arriva Trains Wales
* Midland Mainline

As to whether there's any pattern to the above, hard to say!

Add to that the Connex brands and First Great Western Link (lol)

 

[LowLevel]

Thinking of the brands which have stuck, in no particular order:
* Merseyrail
* Great Western
* GNER (there's still a few people who refer to them)
* Virgin (albeit gradually being forgotten)
* c2c (goodness knows why)
* South West Trains
* Chiltern

Ones which have been largely forgotten or likely will be
* WAGN
* Avanti West Coast
* Thames Trains
* Silverlink
* Central Trains
* Arriva Trains Wales
* Midland Mainline

As to whether there's any pattern to the above, hard to say!

Crikey, don't suggest MML has been forgotten, that would be tantamount to heresy around here

Forgotten by the world at large probably, but still fondly remembered by the travelling regulars, largely because of the free tea and coffee despite the TOC meeting it's end nearly 18 years ago!

 

[frankmoh]

My original intention was to talk about post 1994 brands that have since demised, but are still regularly referred to.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 7 Jul 2025 ==

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South Western Trains (1996-2017). Kind of hard to quell a dead brand when half of the trains coming into SWR stations are in the SWT livery.

On another note see London & South Eastern Railway (2006-2021) for extremely obvious reasons.

London & South Eastern Railway sounds like a failed 1850s railway or something, not the owners of Southeastern!

 

[Strathclyder]

I'm terribly sorry but I find NX Scotrail completely forgettable. To me, it starts with bland livery that didn't seem to have even remote significance to the area it served (bar the name), a colour pallette that had nothing new/bold/exciting or even especially cohesive about it, and a livery that looked incomplete, especially on the 2 car units, where one vehicle had a swoosh and the other just lines.

I guess it's a combination of many things, nostalgia bias and differing tastes (have never said my tastes were good!) chief among them, that swayed me toward NX ScR. Not really helped by the fact that First have been the dominant bus operator in my part of the country for as long as I've been alive, thus seeing variations of Barbie everywhere kinda made First ScR's branding efforts looked kinda same-y to me at the time.

The current Saltire livery, however, I think ticks all your boxes. It's memorable, distinctive, unique and smart - not to mention unmistakably Scottish. You guys north of the border, in many many ways including the brand, really are spoilt when it comes to having a very well put together railway that does make me awfully jealous!

Oh I can't deny that ScR Saltire is a strong, distinctive and unmistakably Scottish brand - ScR Saltire first appeared in 2008 on a 170 iirc; god that makes me feel old - and I can't see it changing significantly anytime soon. I guess it's the same old lingering nostalgia bias and also seeing it everywhere that has taken the edge off it for me personally. Not that I'd want it to vanish of course, the thinking and reasoning behind it was and is sound.

 

[Russel]

Inspired by the NSE thread. What if any of the post-privatisation TOC brands are still referred to or were referred to the longest after demise? In this neck of the woods it’s only South West Trains which is still spoken of. I believe Avanti replaced Virgin pretty quickly. I still refer to Greater Anglia as First Great Eastern but I don’t think anyone else does so.

I occasionally still hear XC referred to as Virgin by other passengers, usually due to the voyagers still having almost full Virgin interior I'd guess...

Agree about Greater Anglia, I still find myself calling it Great Eastern, especially the Clacton route, maybe because until only the full introduction of the 720s there was still plenty of FGE liveried stock around!

 

[yorksrob]

I suppose we have Virgin Trains to "thank" for those damned, cursed self-flushing toilets that infest their former networks.

The sooner those things are gone, the better.

 

[py_megapixel]

I suppose we have Virgin Trains to "thank" for those damned, cursed self-flushing toilets that infest their former networks.

The sooner those things are gone, the better.

Self-flushing toilets?

 

[yorksrob]

Self-flushing toilets?

Yes, when you're sat on the damned things.

 

[BottleTheWater]

• Virgin Trains seemed to have a strong brand when it was around.
• CrossCountry still seems to have a strong brand, particularly under Virgin and Arriva.
• GWR under their new livery and the introduction of the IETs seems to have cultivated a very strong brand.
• The national railways of ScotRail, TfW and Translink are obviously strong but apart from ScotRail they have a much broader mandate covering numerous forms of transport and along with Scotrail are very long term brands.
• Chiltern Railways is a strong brand too but it might be more to do with its service rather than the branding itself.
• Outside this SWR/SWT and Thameslink are strong brands that rode on the success of their route names but aren't strong because of any particular effort to make the brand look good.

I would say that currently GWR is the strongest brand, followed by CrossCountry and SWR/T. I mean brand and not service quality perception..

GNER was popular at the time it was around but I am not sure whether it would be worthwhile reintroducing the brand.

 

[py_megapixel]

Yes, when you're sat on the damned things.

Ah, do you mean the ones in stations which have those little black motion sensors on the wall behind?

 

[yorksrob]

Ah, do you mean the ones in stations which have those little black motion sensors on the wall behind?

Yes. One would have thought that they ought to deploy after ones motion, not during it.

 

[John Luxton]

Surely the strongest of all brands must be GWR?

It never really went away okay back in BR days many referred to it as "the western" but it didn't take long to become First Great Western and then GWR. The fact that one can visit older stations and see signage from both pre and post nationalisation eras with Great Western Railway or GWR must reinforce that.

 

[Tetchytyke]

Strongest one has to be GNER, to the extent that the train operator code is still GR, even after all these years.

 

[JBuchananGB]

Surely the worst and most forgettable brand must have been "One"

 

[renegademaster]

Surely the worst and most forgettable brand must have been "One"

First Capital Connect wasn't that long ago but Thameslink has completely superseded it.

 

[bramling]

Surely the worst and most forgettable brand must have been "One"

Good shout on this one. Terrible brand all round.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 11 Jul 2025 ==

First Capital Connect wasn't that long ago but Thameslink has completely superseded it.

Interestingly, the brand "Capital Connect" pre-dated FCC. It was used by WAGN for a time as a sub-brand for their inner-suburban class 313 operated services on the Welwyn and Hertford routes.

Compared to what we have now, the FCC years were a period of relative stability, especially on the GN side. Nonetheless they weren't overly popular with passengers.

 

[frankmoh]

First Capital Connect wasn't that long ago but Thameslink has completely superseded it.

Well wasn't the original route from the NSE days called Thameslink anyway? I seem to remember seeing a sign saying Thameslink in "We Serve The South".

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 11 Jul 2025 ==



Here is a picture of an NSE sign for Thameslink. 1988 at the earliest.

 

[BottleTheWater]

First Capital Connect wasn't that long ago but Thameslink has completely superseded it.

I used to use FCC a lot but even I remember it as Thameslink. The current branding is minimal but it seems to be strong.

 

[frankmoh]

I used to use FCC a lot but even I remember it as Thameslink. The current branding is minimal but it seems to be strong.

Strong enough to get on the Tube map! (Then again it was on the Tube map back in 1990-1998)

 

[GRALISTAIR]

Virgin, Chiltern, LNER

 

[Hadders]

Well wasn't the original route from the NSE days called Thameslink anyway? I seem to remember seeing a sign saying Thameslink in "We Serve The South".

There were two parts to First Capital Connect:

• The original Thameslink services that operated between Bedford and Brighton plus Sutton Loop etc. These formed part of the original Thameslink franchise.
• The Great Northern routes out of Kings Cross and Moorgate to Peterborough/Cambridge/Kings Lynn/Hertford North/Welwyn Garden City

People on the GN side never referred to the service as Thameslink. Thameslink only became a think on the GN side in 2018 when through running to Brighton and Horsham started (with spectacular shambles) in 2018.

 

[zero]

Over the past year, I've come across a number of people who had a sincerely held belief that Virgin still operates trains, which speaks to the strength of the brand.

When pressed, these people were either unable to state where in the country they thought Virgin trains might still be found, or they believed Virgin was still running on the ECML/WCML (and one person even named an XC route) despite having recently travelled on LNER and/or Avanti.

Some of these people used Virgin Trains Ticketing to buy their tickets which may have contributed to their confusion. Although I used that app several years ago to take advantage of a promotion, and recall (perhaps incorrectly) reading some text along the lines of "you can still buy tickets with us even though we don't run trains any more".

 

[eldomtom2]

First Capital Connect wasn't that long ago but Thameslink has completely superseded it.

It lives on for the time being at "King's Cross" in the Universal Florida theme park!

 

[frankmoh]

Over the past year, I've come across a number of people who had a sincerely held belief that Virgin still operates trains, which speaks to the strength of the brand.

When pressed, these people were either unable to state where in the country they thought Virgin trains might still be found, or they believed Virgin was still running on the ECML/WCML (and one person even named an XC route) despite having recently travelled on LNER and/or Avanti.

Some of these people used Virgin Trains Ticketing to buy their tickets which may have contributed to their confusion. Although I used that app several years ago to take advantage of a promotion, and recall (perhaps incorrectly) reading some text along the lines of "you can still buy tickets with us even though we don't run trains any more".

I seem to remember going on a Virgin train in 2022, even though at that time it was Avanti. Have they even repainted all the trains yet?

 

[Hadders]

I seem to remember going on a Virgin train in 2022, even though at that time it was Avanti. Have they even repainted all the trains yet?

All the Virgin branding was removed before Virgin train operation finished in December 2019.

 

[frankmoh]

All the Virgin branding was removed before Virgin train operation finished in December 2019.

How strange then. Maybe that journey was so unremarkable that my memory of it is actually just another Pendolino trip.

 

[bramling]

I used to use FCC a lot but even I remember it as Thameslink. The current branding is minimal but it seems to be strong.

Depends how one defines strong though. Here the local view is very much “Great Northern = the reliable nicer trains, Thameslink = the unreliable horrid trains”. I’d imagine similar applies south of the river, and presumably to some extent with EMR at Bedford and Luton.

Thameslink is well known for sure, but not necessarily for the right reasons. I recall it had the same poor reputation in St Albans when I used to use it from there in the 90s.

 

[frankmoh]

Depends how one defines strong though. Here the local view is very much “Great Northern = the reliable nicer trains, Thameslink = the unreliable horrid trains”. I’d imagine similar applies south of the river, and presumably to some extent with EMR at Bedford and Luton.

Thameslink is well known for sure, but not necessarily for the right reasons. I recall it had the same poor reputation in St Albans when I used to use it from there in the 90s.

Too many times I have spent at St. Pancras waiting for a train to London Bridge only to get hit with 2 trains to Sutton in a row. The service from Sevenoaks through Bromley South to Victoria is silly given how SE does that already.

 

[Sad Sprinter]

Surely the worst and most forgettable brand must have been "One"

One was genuinely one of the worst things about rail privatisation. Turning previous well-made brands needlessly into corporate slop (because that’s the word everyone uses these days). Anglia Railways was a beautiful brand, and it was turned into trash. Similarly Midland Mainline was turned into East Midlands Trains and GNER turned into *cringe*, National Express East Coast. I’d add Thameslink’s metamorphosis into FCC but the only saving grace is the First livery looked absoloutley hard on the Electrostars.

I’d also add the agreeable EWS brand turning into the state railway branding of another country - which no other government on the entire Earth would allow to happen.