Great British Railways - First Train in New Livery

[Ashley Hill]

Awaiting the GWR class 57 version... !

57301 must be the obvious candidate. Here is a image of the nearest Gemini could come up with it in GBR livery.

 

[Goldfish62]

I think common sense will eventually come through and they will amend it over time. IMO intercity needs to come back as a separate sector with its own livery

Yes, I agree. Once GBR is set up it will be for them to decide what liveries and overall brands to use. Hopefully before then only a relative handful of trains will have been painted in the GB News livery.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 21 May 2026 ==

That’s definitely been the case. Back in the days of SWT I was waiting at Havant station when a Waterloo train (2 x Class 450) rolled in. A woman who had obviously missed the announcement or hadn’t looked at the display hastily asked another passenger ‘is this the Worthing train?’ to which the other passenger replied ‘no, you need a green train, the blue ones go to London’.

Wind the clock the clock forward and the same conversation would be "no you need a blue train, the blue ones go to London".

 

[The_Train]

From the sublime Intercity, to the subtleness of Regional Railways, to the pride of Network SouthEast........

.....to this monstrosity

 

[Andyh82]

I can’t believe they’ve signed of rebranding an LNER Azuma

At the moment if you see a class 800 in say Leeds, it stands out from the rest, being sleek and modern, and clearly ‘that’s the train that goes to London’

If everything is going to ultimately be painted the same, if you see an Azuma side on, it won’t look much different, to the average person, from a class 158

In my opinion they are taking the whole ‘only have one brand, one livery’ thing a bit too far, surely flagship intercity services should stand out? It’s like the buses in London and Manchester where they spend a fortune on brand new electric models, but then they look identical to the 15 year old diesels they replace, because they won’t ever paint anything in a different livery.

I still wonder how they will market the railway without the separate brands, for example GWR focus on their route and sell it well, GBR won’t be able to do that.

 

[Leyland Bus]

From the sublime Intercity, to the subtleness of Regional Railways, to the pride of Network SouthEast........

.....to this monstrosity

Did people whinge about trains being repainted in BR days? Did they whinge about new trains being built/bought (APT aside?)

I do think this is all a bit hyperbolic, the individual isn't really that concerned about repainting trains, it happens all the time, its normal... Its also been said countless times that the vast majority will be done within their normal cycle, so I don't see why it would be an issue?

 

[Ashley Hill]

Also, it will take that longer to complete the process of colouring in all these trains

Considering that BR green lingered on a few locomotives until about 1978 I think it would be accepted that a change to GBR livery wont just happen in an instant.

 

[mmh]

Is there any european country that has a) one livery for all trains, and b) has a livery consisting so much of their flag. This seems to be so over done and in your face that I just don't understand it

Scotland.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Scotland.

The Inter(7)City trains have a different livery there, though they seem to be suggesting the 222s won't.

 

[Goldfish62]

The Inter(7)City trains have a different livery there, though they seem to be suggesting the 222s won't.

Which will be a shame if it comes to pass.

 

[Deepgreen]

I agree whole-heartedly with the nationalisation (and regard privatisation as the most damaging thing to happen to UK railways since Beeching) but I hate this livery. It looks cheap and disjointed. However, onwards and sideways...if the service is better over (a long!) time, then that's all that matters.

 

[williamn]

Find it strange from an 'optics' point of view that the first rebranded train is in the South of England - yo'd have thought it would make more sense politically to do one elsewhere.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 21 May 2026 ==

I had heard that it was the LNER design team who came up with the livery. How true, I do not know.

I think it was done in house at the DfT to 'save money'. The LNER team would never come up with something as bad as this. Maybe they refined it but... silk purse, sow's ear...

 

[Bletchleyite]

Find it strange from an 'optics' point of view that the first rebranded train is in the South of England - yo'd have thought it would make more sense politically to do one elsewhere.

GTR is a reasonably decent if basic operation these days. I think rebranding Northern will take rather longer as it would poison the brand.

 

[Deepgreen]

I noticed a weird thing on the BBC's story - they have removed all the unit numbers in their old shot of the approach to Victoria - why?! Do they think it's like car registrations and they need to protect the owners?!

 

[The_Train]

GTR is a reasonably decent if basic operation these days. I think rebranding Northern will take rather longer as it would poison the brand.

Interesting that you bring Northern up actually. Isn't there a push up there to have trains under the "Bee" branding with that 323 in yellow? How will things like that now work? Are we going to see local mayors fighting with the Government over who controls trains in their areas?

 

[Bletchleyite]

Interesting that you bring Northern up actually. Isn't there a push up there to have trains under the "Bee" branding with that 323 in yellow? How will things like that now work?

Replied here as it's not to do with GBR and is speculative: https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/how-might-bee-network-etc-rail-branding-work.302411/

 

[8ace]

Image of 387172 in new GBR livery at platform 7 Brighton station. My pics

 

[williamn]

GTR is a reasonably decent if basic operation these days. I think rebranding Northern will take rather longer as it would poison the brand.

Oh I meant more that there's a perception that the South gets all the attention and cash. So to rebrand a first train in the North of the UK (not necessarily Northern) would make more sense to me

 

[Class73Electro]

View attachment 204560

Was this a public open day kind of event or private?

 

[8ace]

Was this a public open day kind of event or private?

It was private, the P7 was fenced off and there was security guards - that was as close as I could get (2x zoom)).
I quite liked the livery but not the red arrow bits on the middle two coaches - they shoulld do something more like NSE did. Also not sure about the two shades of red and blue, the difference is subtle which makes it look like the colour is wrongly applied/faded (particularly the red).

 

[tutacre]

I do think people who join railway enthusiast type forums are more likely to overblow things like this.

Already got 7 pages on what amounts to discussion of a paint scheme on a railway carriage.

I would find it hard to believe that GBR/DfT etc (probably via consultants/design agencies etc) haven't gone to quite a few focus groups with passengers from all backgrounds and asked their views on it, to get this far, and with enough confidence to make it a political and ministerial announcement. It must therefore have performed reasonably positively with decent data to back it up. I'd also imagine it's been via charities, equality groups etc for their feedback and refinement.

It would also appear from my limited time on this forum, that you are generally quite left leaning - when the mood of the country is shifting massively towards Reform/right of politics - with British or national identity a huge part of that.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I do think people who join railway enthusiast type forums are more likely to overblow things like this.

Out of my FB friends that aren't generally rail people only 2 have commented. One called it the "GB News train" (I guess he's against any use of the flag because of its use by the Right), the other said he liked it.

 

[Busman]

Because the unit is not due for repainting. More money being hosed up the wall on a re-livery that isn't necessary.

Why are current TOCs having their brand new livery plastered all over trains when it's going change to the GBR?

 

[Warrior2852]

I lament the loss of varied liveries and trains actually looking interesting that this will bring. It's a horrid design that sacrifices a lot of what makes the railway visually appealing for the sake of overinflating the importance of the Union Jack. It's all just rather sad really what's happening here.

 

[dodecahedron67]

See I actually think the base blue is a really nice shade and would look smart as just the base blue with white doors. The red and union-jacking of it ruins it.

 

[Bletchleyite]

See I actually think the base blue is a really nice shade and would look smart as just the base blue with white doors. The red and union-jacking of it ruins it.

The base blue is pretty much the same colour Lumo is using.

 

[Class 466]

Incidentally, on the TPE livery I think the pale grey is the base paint coat, with the extra colours applied over it as vinyl due to the livery complexity. The Chiltern Mk5s were done in vinyl as the paint coat would have still been well within warranty. Same with the South Eastern 707s.

The entire livery is vinyl on TPE

 

[Ben Anslow]

57301 must be the obvious candidate. Here is a image of the nearest Gemini could come up with it

Better than the original

 

[MotCO]

Interesting that they are keeping a yellow front. I wonder if that will feature on all trains?

 

[bramling]

I do think people who join railway enthusiast type forums are more likely to overblow things like this.

Already got 7 pages on what amounts to discussion of a paint scheme on a railway carriage.

I would find it hard to believe that GBR/DfT etc (probably via consultants/design agencies etc) haven't gone to quite a few focus groups with passengers from all backgrounds and asked their views on it, to get this far, and with enough confidence to make it a political and ministerial announcement. It must therefore have performed reasonably positively with decent data to back it up. I'd also imagine it's been via charities, equality groups etc for their feedback and refinement.

It would also appear from my limited time on this forum, that you are generally quite left leaning - when the mood of the country is shifting massively towards Reform/right of politics - with British or national identity a huge part of that.

I’m certainly not left-leaning, and I heavily dislike it. I have no issue with people asserting identity where appropriate, however I just don’t feel a train is the place for it - for the record I also dislike other attempts to use trains as political canvases - for example the NHS, (what is someone’s opinion of) “progress”, advertising, or whatever.

“British Railways” would have done fine for me, a descriptor of exactly what the institution is. I’d prefer multiple liveries, however if we must have a national one then by all means use blue and red in there, but it doesn’t have to be taken to extreme, and in particular attempting to pastiche a flag.

 

[Warrior2852]

Interesting that they are keeping a yellow front. I wonder if that will feature on all trains?

A lot of the trains they're sticking it on don't have powerful enough headlights to remove the yellow.