Great British Railways: Station identity and livery unveiling (09/12/25)

[Bletchleyite]

As a fully paid-up member of the tofu-eating wokerati, I think that the way you take the sting out of the right-wing use of flags is for everyone else to use them more.

Agree. I actually like the flags on the lamp posts (and stuff you see in Germany and Poland like flags of the city flying at the front of buses), just not the reason the former got there.

 

[XCTurbostar]

I suspect at least some of the imagery will be used to feed back into the process and improve the livery. Remember - its unlikely anyone other than the DfT has seen the images, not even Network Rail or TOCs will have.

 

[OneTrackMinded]

the design was created in-house rather than by a design consultancy...

Huge thank you to DfT civil servant number 753926.

 

[PLY2AYS]

I wouldn’t have minded the design on an 80x if it were similar to or even a copy of the LNER Azuma design. But with a white border to the red stripe and then the Union flag blue either side of that…

If anyone can use a spot of generative AI to mock that up, that would be a great sight (in my opinion)

 

[AlterEgo]

Wow! Rangers fans will love it!

Will the interior be orange?

 

[physics34]

I see it as confidence and patriotism*, not insecurity.

Is Switzerland insecure?

We have a unique problem in England that our flag has become associated with racism, but the best way to counter that is to reclaim it.

* Patriotism, not nationalism. Patriotism is not racism and does not require racism. Pride in your country is not negative and can include a desire to welcome those who would like to come to it to share in its success.

Spot on

 

[SynthD]

Why are there multiple shades of blue and red? This livery loosely inspired by the flag, and a flag for a livery are far apart for me.

The right can be woke by another name when it suits them, but that's not relevant here yet. After another day in the news cycle, we might know.

 

[physics34]

British Airways have often done a good job at this with their liveries.

Except when they lost their marbles when they had different tail designs for a couple of years

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 9 Dec 2025 ==

Does this mean anything in actual words? As a graphic designer, my professional opinion is that it's bloody awful. There's a reason train liveries pretty much always flown along the length, rather than restarting on every carriage.

Agree... the movement of the train should be taken into account.... stripes are well known to fit the asthetics

 

[birchesgreen]

Except when they lost their marbles when they had different tail designs for a couple of years

Though i thought this looked good, i remember being at HK airport and seeing 3 BA jumbos with different tail designs, they looked like they ruled the world.

 

[Jan Mayen]

And here's the uniform for staff on the repainted trains/units:

(runs for cover)

Both the funniest and worst fashion I've ever seen!

 

[signed]

I’m sorry what? Multiple French flags are flown outside every train station and school for that matter.

Those are official buildings, which of course will have the flag, I am talking outside of official business.

 

[Dougal2345]

I think the British Airways identity is a great example of using the flag in an understated and classy way.

Actually BA had some 'livery controversy' back in the 90s, where garish designs attracted opprobrium from Mrs Thatch herself - "We fly the British flag, not these awful things" - not sure what she would make of the GBR designs

 

[thomalex]

Source -

https://x.com/genevieve_holl/status/1998299555629355043?s=20

So this looks quite good and I think has the answer here. A blue train with a red and white combined line which runs the length of the train with a bit of a red flair at the front of the train. This could look very classy.

I genuinely think this is a very early draft and have been thrown together over a couple of weeks, one of which has been applied to a train. For the livery itself they will start with their vision and it will be fairly heavily reworked as its worked up into a developed set of designs.

 

[Jan Mayen]

Actually BA had some 'livery controversy' back in the 90s, where garish designs attracted opprobrium from Mrs Thatch herself - "We fly the British flag, not these awful things" - not sure what she would make of the GBR designs

Didn't she use her hankie to cover up the tailfin of a model aircraft with a new tail design?

 

[Class 800]

There’s a huge amount of nostalgia around the ‘renationalisation’ of Britains Railway typified by this post. Am I the only one who remembers how utterly rubbish it was as a passenger? Even worse if you wanted to use it for freight. No normal passenger cares that much about the branding, they care about their trains to turning up on time and being fairly priced.

I wasn't alive to live the days of BR. From what I've heard InterCity specifically performed well, better than the other sectors by quite a way, and it makes sense to me that it should even now have a brand of its own. and as far as branding goes, Swallow is probably one of the best.

Swallow could have been used for "standard" InterCity services, with a modified emblem perhaps of an eagle for the highest-speed services (HS1 and HS2).

 

[Halwynd]

I always liked the simplistic red stripe DB ICE livery, which is no doubt less expensive to apply and maintain. There was a version where the German flag colours were used and it steems to me that a similar version could be used in the UK: red/white/blue for England, azure or caledonian blue in Scotland and red/green for Wales:

Like this:

InterCityExpress, Deutsche Bahn AG logo, ICE4 XXL Federal Republic of Germany with special livery, Germany flag, Ulm, Baden-Wuerttemberg, Germany Stock Photo - Alamy

Download this stock image: InterCityExpress, Deutsche Bahn AG logo, ICE4 XXL Federal Republic of Germany with special livery, Germany flag, Ulm, Baden-Wuerttemberg, Germany - 2R2G1RJ from Alamy's library of millions of high resolution stock photos, illustrations and vectors.

www.alamy.com

 

[MadCommuter]

I suspect at least some of the imagery will be used to feed back into the process and improve the livery. Remember - its unlikely anyone other than the DfT has seen the images, not even Network Rail or TOCs will have.

I saw it applied to gates at the low level station of Glasgow Central this morning. That will please the Rangers fans but not the other half of the city.

 

[WibbleWobble]

It is garish. Too many differing shades make it far too busy.

It just shows this (like the previous) government's obsession with shoehorning the flag everywhere. A simplistic design using the main colour palette would have been better, and a continuous rather than repeating design.

If this has been done in house, it shows. The government cannot do decent branding or design - just look at those awful HMRC tax app adverts!

 

[Peter Wilde]

Whatever … look forward to seeing the new GBR rolling stock livery on a Vale of Rheidol tank engine.

 

[thomalex]

I suspect at least some of the imagery will be used to feed back into the process and improve the livery. Remember - its unlikely anyone other than the DfT has seen the images, not even Network Rail or TOCs will have.

Exactly that. This is a government PR piece and they’ve asked someone to come up with a flag graphic for it which they’ve applied to various things including a train. It’s no more developed than that at this stage.

 

[Mat17]

Can't wait to see it on a 150.

It's really not great is it? I don't like red as a colour scheme. I don't mind the blue so much.

 

[Class 800]

I think this design would’ve been better for the 80x

Based off of the LNER Azuma of course.

(Pictures posted include AI edited mock ups of the LNER 80x Azuma livery, with an improvised GBR logo and majority blue livery where mostly white is present on current LNER trains)

It looks nice for sure, definitely more understated and premium. I wonder if you could do a version with the double-arrow instead of the GBR?

I personally would put the wording INTERCITY or GBR INTERCITY underneath the white line in the center of the coaches (either all of them or driving coaches only). And make that white line a bit thicker. There needs to be some brand differentiation. Would work well in that light font with some spacing between the letters.

 

[JaJaWa]

Just took this pic of a Fuxing Smart train in China.

If someone could kindly replace the Chinese (almost German) flag colours with those of the Union flag, I’d be interested to see what it looks like.

 

[Andyh82]

Red and Blue directly next to each other often looks garish. The Network SE livery that keeps being mentioned had white in between the two colours which makes it look softer

I’m not a fan of the ‘GBR’ lettering, it looks so basic. You only have to look at the logo type that LNER and GWR use to see its possible to make 3 or 4 letters look interesting

 

[Failed Unit]

Looks good - interestingly like the new MK5 Chiltern design


Good point - I expect for any ongoing deliveries or refurbishment programmes it is too late (without paying a cost for variation of the specification) to go for a change of livery. This does raise the issue for recently repainted or new units, it is going to be a long time until the livery is introduced on them (e.g ongoing Chiltern 168 programme) unless we are going to end up wasting further money on prematurely applying vinyl. It wouldn’t surprise me if the 175s are the first to be done given their current state and would be a logical starting point.

One for another thread, we can run a prediction for the last trains we expect to be seen in the "old" livery. In the past some companies didn't want to repaint trains unless something was improved. Certainly I don't expect many 15x to see the new livery (although the mk1 EMUs were reliveried after privatisation) - Likewise the EMR fleet will probably be 15 years before it is reliveried. Avanti will also be a long time as they have pretty much all got a repaint. We have a lot of new fleets / recent repaints out there.

 

[AlterEgo]

Agree. I actually like the flags on the lamp posts (and stuff you see in Germany and Poland like flags of the city flying at the front of buses), just not the reason the former got there.

On lamp posts? Awful. Makes places look like East Belfast.

Flags should be properly displayed on flagpoles.

 

[Sad Sprinter]

As a fully paid-up member of the tofu-eating wokerati, I think that the way you take the sting out of the right-wing use of flags is for everyone else to use them more.

That was my argument too.

 

[Steddenm]

Glasgow Central is apparently getting the new branding.
NR/GBR owns/will own all the stations after all, bar some local routes.

Looks to me like the Avanti branding but in more garish colours and in a more angular style.
The double arrow and GBR looks OK, it's the wider colour scheme which grates.
And what's that yellow panel on the end? Mostly not needed today. It just makes the colour palette worse.
We still don't know if all trains will get this branding, or just inter-city types like the 80x shown.

There is an image of local trains with the branding on them as well. I think it is a Class 350/444/450

 

[StuBeeDoo]

I think the new livery is a Marmite thing. Personally, unlike Marmite, I'm not a lover.

As a lover of all things retro, I would have preferred to see a 2020s take on either the swallow livery or the "executive" InterCity one, but with Great British Railways branding. I'm all for a bit of patriotism - i.e., a red, white and blue theme - but there is far too much blue for that, particularly with two different shades. Maybe lose the lighter blue???

 

[birchesgreen]

On lamp posts? Awful. Makes places look like East Belfast.

Flags should be properly displayed on flagpoles.

Especially after the flags have been up for a few months and are now fifthy and ragged.