Great British Railways - First Train in New Livery

[43096]

“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.

Of course "British Rail" is the shorter, snappier version of that - but they'd never go back to that, even though Scotland is coping just fine with the pre-privatisation "ScotRail". "GB Rail" would have been much better.

 

[GEC465]

I assume a 700 is next considering how those are being rapidly cleaned up and the white end slashes being removed

 

[Andyh82]

I’m surprised they are keeping the “Great” prefix, you can imagine Boris Johnson blustering over a lecturn announcing the name. I’d have thought Labour wouldn’t want that image. The livery does look very GB News, not just the use of the flag, but the abstract use of the flag is exactly in the same way they do it.

Also it makes the memes about it “not being great” like an open goal the next time there is disruption on the railways

 

[HighlandStorm]

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

Not sure the rendering mock up of the 222s means very much in that regard, early ScotRail released renders of HSTs had the 'SpotRail' livery. Particularly odd to drop the I7C style, when the EMR 222s grey/light grey with blue window strip is almost ready made for ScotRail to just vinyl over the purple ends with a variation on the existing power car livery!

 

[StephenHunter]

I’m surprised they are keeping the “Great” prefix, you can imagine Boris Johnson blustering over a lecturn announcing the name. I’d have thought Labour wouldn’t want that image. The livery does look very GB News, not just the use of the flag, but the abstract use of the flag is exactly in the same way they do it.

Also it makes the memes about it “not being great” like an open goal the next time there is disruption on the railways

The British flag should not be the sole property of the right.

 

[thomalex]

I’m surprised they are keeping the “Great” prefix, you can imagine Boris Johnson blustering over a lecturn announcing the name. I’d have thought Labour wouldn’t want that image. The livery does look very GB News, not just the use of the flag, but the abstract use of the flag is exactly in the same way they do it.

Also it makes the memes about it “not being great” like an open goal the next time there is disruption on the railways

Given a Labour government launched 'Great British Energy' last year and have just announced the 'Great British Summer Savings' initiative I wouldn't be so sure.

Personally I don't mind it, and think it will become GBR rather quickly, which isn't unlike DB, SNCF, SBB, NS etc. in other European countries.

I do think we're still in very early days here however and for all the grand announcements we're very much in a interim phase. The parliamentary bill to create GBR hasn't even been passed yet so exactly how it will operate still hasn't yet been fully defined. Once it is up and running I'm sure we'll see adjustments.

Personally I'm hoping for services to be split into clear regional and intercity brands. Regional services brand and livery should be able to carry some level of distinction in different areas of the country (such as colour) while fitting within the core national GBR brand (GBR South East, GBR Northern etc). National services should then carry a distinct Intercity style brand and livery which is common across the nation (GBR Intercity).

 

[43096]

Not sure the rendering mock up of the 222s means very much in that regard, early ScotRail released renders of HSTs had the 'SpotRail' livery. Particularly odd to drop the I7C style, when the EMR 222s grey/light grey with blue window strip is almost ready made for ScotRail to just vinyl over the purple ends with a variation on the existing power car livery!

The 222s are getting a full refurbishment and repaint for ScotRail.

 

[winks]

The new livery looks fine on that class of train. Also the font looks better applied in white on a coloured background than it does on a white background. Going forward it will be a shame to lose the GWR logo and the green, but not sure how you can keep both as some have suggested

 

[nlogax]

To be honest I'm fed up to the back teeth with 'Great British' anything. Nothing becomes great (especially nothing British) purely by marketing it as such, but that's a wider conversation than is feasible inside a thread about train liveries.

Back to how the design looks on an actual train - it's ok. Not awful, but I also think it's too fiddly to find its way onto every single bit of rolling stock that's in the frame to receive it. My guess is it'll be simplified or modified somehow in coming months.

 

[mmh]

I’m surprised they are keeping the “Great” prefix, you can imagine Boris Johnson blustering over a lecturn announcing the name. I’d have thought Labour wouldn’t want that image. The livery does look very GB News, not just the use of the flag, but the abstract use of the flag is exactly in the same way they do it.

Also it makes the memes about it “not being great” like an open goal the next time there is disruption on the railways

Labour love a bit of a Union Jack as much as the next party. Just do a Google image search for "Labour Party conference" and you'll see.

(no replies about ships please, I am well aware)

 

[Islineclear3_1]

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 ==

Just what I thought but at least a 387 is a product of Derby (where I presume the GBR headquarters is/will be)

 

[8ace]

GTR is the TOC with the most passengers miles and three of it's four brands serve Brighton, so I can see the logic behind this choice.

 

[adc82140]

What I'm wondering is, assuming that not every individual operator will remain a standalone operator, e.g. Greater Anglia and c2c will surely at least both be something like Great British Railways -- Eastern -- or something like that, at what point do we stop using the current names c2c and go forward with the new ones?

I do think they should avoid making too many sub-brand things. So many operators could share one. Southern, Thameslink, SWR and Southeastern could ALL be "Great British Railways -- Southern", for example.

I have a gut feeling the likes of LNER, CrossCountry and Avanti services won't get a little end tag/suffix at all. I bet you're all hoping for "Great British Railways -- Intercity" and perhaps they might, but I have a feeling the Intercity services will just get Great British Railways with the suffixes saved for distinctly regional operations.

What will the legal name of Govia Thameslink Railway be after 30th May? So far for the other former operators it's just been a case of the name staying the same (SWR, LNER etc) or dropping the company title (Abellio Greater Anglia to just Greater Anglia). But dropping the 'Govia" just leaves "Thameslink Railway"...

 

[Bletchleyite]

What will the legal name of Govia Thameslink Railway be after 30th May? So far for the other former operators it's just been a case of the name staying the same (SWR, LNER etc) or dropping the company title (Abellio Greater Anglia to just Greater Anglia). But dropping the 'Govia" just leaves "Thameslink Railway"...

Greater Thameslink Railway.

 

[SECR 65]

What will the legal name of Govia Thameslink Railway be after 30th May? So far for the other former operators it's just been a case of the name staying the same (SWR, LNER etc) or dropping the company title (Abellio Greater Anglia to just Greater Anglia). But dropping the 'Govia" just leaves "Thameslink Railway"...

I think I read somewhere on the forum that it will be "Greater Thameslink Railway".......

 

[Hadders]

I understood that Greater Thameslink Railway was going to be the legal name but customer comminications from GTR about transfer of data say that the new legal operator will be Thameslink Southern Great Northern Limited.

Also, Thameslink Southern Great Northern Limited is listed at Companies House.

THAMESLINK SOUTHERN GREAT NORTHERN LIMITED overview - Find and update company information - GOV.UK

THAMESLINK SOUTHERN GREAT NORTHERN LIMITED - Free company information from Companies House including registered office address, filing history, accounts, annual return, officers, charges, business activity

find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk

There's nothing stopping the name being chamged to Greater Thameslink Railway at a future point though.

 

[JonathanH]

GTR is the TOC with the most passengers miles and three of it's four brands serve Brighton, so I can see the logic behind this choice.

Well, and also that it is the next operator to return to public ownership, and the train chosen isn't in the right colour scheme for its current operation in any case.

 

[Goldfish62]

I understood that Greater Thameslink Railway was going to be the legal name but customer comminications from GTR about transfer of data say that the new legal operator will be Thameslink Southern Great Northern Limited.

Also, Thameslink Southern Great Northern Limited is listed at Companies House.

THAMESLINK SOUTHERN GREAT NORTHERN LIMITED overview - Find and update company information - GOV.UK

THAMESLINK SOUTHERN GREAT NORTHERN LIMITED - Free company information from Companies House including registered office address, filing history, accounts, annual return, officers, charges, business activity

find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk

There's nothing stopping the name being chamged to Greater Thameslink Railway at a future point though.

It doesn't matter what the legal limited company name is. It doesn't have to bear any relation to the trading name(s). The only reason it's being changed is to drop the Govia bit.

 

[8ace]

Geoff Marshall vid

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

Another vid from the station car park of the unit entering the station

 

[Leyland Bus]

Geoff Marshall vid

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

Another vid from the station car park of the unit entering the station

Oh good, two different styles of numbers on the front, classy!

 

[StephenHunter]

That video makes clear that regional identifiers will remain. Are they going to merge c2c and GA into a single "Anglia"? They were distinct operations in NSE days - and indeed were different companies under Grouping!

 

[TT-ONR-NRN]

That video makes clear that regional identifiers will remain. Are they going to merge c2c and GA into a single "Anglia"? They were distinct operations in NSE days - and indeed were different companies under Grouping!

It made me laugh when she said “We’re not going to keep them all exactly the same, there will be no Great British Railways Avanti West Coast”

 

[StephenHunter]

West Coast would be a reasonable name though.

 

[37884]

701006 has been seen returning from Bournemouth now in the GBR livery!

 

[Krystal]

JUST IN FROM THE SOUTH WEST - Another train has been Union Jackified in another new GBR livery - it's 701006.

 

[XCTurbostar]

Just to confirm, the arrows livery is on every coach.

 

[James321]

I wondered GA class 720 will get the new GBR livery?

 

[sabanda]

Presumably everything will!

 

[Krystal]

Presumably everything will!

I shudder to think about the patriotic, uninspiring, copy and pasted caterpillars around the UK.

 

[brad465]

The GBR livery on the 701 looks a lot better than the existing SWR livery, so for me in terms of how the livery fares depends a lot on what previous livery it replaced.