Are Southeastern an identity confused TOC

[tbone]

Back to the original question, I'd imagine the reason why Southern, London Midland and SouthEastern have separate identities, as opposed to first group TOCs is down to the parent companies.

With regards to their respective bus fleets, Firstgroup trade as first throughout the country, with a constant livery (albeit with a few variations). Go Ahead, meanwhile, trade as different companies with local names, Go North East, the Oxford Bus Company and Southern Vectis being just a few examples. They all have different identities and different liveries.

That is probably why there is no uniform 'govia' fleet livery and consistent branding.

 

[bicbasher]

The only uniformed branding I've seen on Govia's bus operations is the use of the collective Go Ahead London branding for most of it's bus companies owned in the capital with the exception of Metrobus. London Central, London General, Docklands Buses and Blue Triangle, although the individual companies are shown as part of the branding.

To the average passenger, they wouldn't be aware that Brighton & Hove, Metrobus and the collective Go Ahead London are part of the same group, the same for their TOC's. It wasn't like that during the Connex era when the brand was used on the South Central and South Eastern franchises.

 

[Eagle]

All the Go South Coast operators have the Go-Ahead logo on the side of the bus, but nothing more.

 

[swt_passenger]

The only uniformed branding I've seen on Govia's bus operations...

Surely 'GoVia' is specifically the joint Go-Ahead/Keolis rail franchise grouping and so isn't relevant to Go-Ahead's bus operations?

 

[transmanche]

Surely 'GoVia' is specifically the joint Go-Ahead/Keolis rail franchise grouping and so isn't relevant to Go-Ahead's bus operations?

True, but then the First/Keolis-operated TPE uses First's branding throughout.

 

[Eagle]

True, but then the First/Keolis-operated TPE uses First's branding throughout.

It used to use the Keolis logo as the 'i' in 'Transpennine'.

 

[transmanche]

It used to use the Keolis logo as the 'i' in 'Transpennine'.

But not any more.

 

[ert47]

Sorry to go on a bit of a tangent, but with Crossrails' Roundel being purple and having the potential for the trains to have a "TfL rail" livery, would it look a little too similar to Southeasterns current livery?

 

[transmanche]

Sorry to go on a bit of a tangent, but with Crossrails' Roundel being purple and having the potential for the trains to have a "TfL rail" livery, would it look a little too similar to Southeasterns current livery?

It's amazing what some people ask for in an FOI request. In this one about how the purple shade was chosen for Crossrail; Tfl said, "This colour was chosen for its differentiation from other rail services, other line colours already on the map, colour contrast within the built environments in which it will appear (stations and trains) and its suitability for reproduction on printed and digital media."

But yes, if TfL follow form and have a white train, with a blue skirt and 'mode' colour doors, the livery will be similar; except Crossrail will have purple doors (Pantone 526) and Southeastern's are at best 'lilac'. I guess it'll be no different to where Southeastern's units which still have (Connex) yellow doors meet London Overground units with orange doors (Pantone 158C).

 

[ert47]

But yes, if TfL follow form and have a white train, with a blue skirt and 'mode' colour doors, the livery will be similar; except Crossrail will have purple doors (Pantone 526) and Southeastern's are at best 'lilac'. I guess it'll be no different to where Southeastern's units which still have (Connex) yellow doors meet London Overground units with orange doors (Pantone 158C).

I can see your point, however SE trains with Yellow doors have grey skirting. While both Blue/Purples might not be the same shade, they could look very similar.

 

[SF-02]

In terms of train cleanliness and appearance, I have found that it has improved vastly. One of the first journey I took with Southeastern was from Beckenham Junction to Victoria (before I was a rail enthusiast) on an old 465 with NSE seat covers. The 465s now look much smarter and generally cleaner than they did then and the Electostars have had a decent refresh inside recently. With stations, some (Canterbury West for example whose subway used to smell terribly of urine about ten years ago) are much better whilst others still leave a lot to be desired (the Folkestone stations spring to mind).

For the vast majority of cases, I think Southeastern does the best they can with the resources available.

Didn't southeastern allow the class 508s to go off lease just a couple of years after being refurbed around 2008? The 508s were replaced by cascaded class 465/66's which instead could have been used to lengthen routes elsewhere such as those Sevenoaks trains, and the always packed Dartford to Victoria route which has just 4 cars on certain rush hour diagrams. Another use for the 465/66's would be to extend to 12 car running on Dartford and Sevenoaks lines. Network rail have spent a long time and a fair amount of money extending remaining platforms to 12 cars which will be completed this summer, but as yet there is no stock to run on them.

 

[rebmcr]

While both Blue/Purples might not be the same shade, they could look very similar.

Especially if dirty.

 

[3141]

If you had my colour vision, you wouldn't need to worry about whether it's purple, lilac, blue or whatever. I think the colour they use is blue. Purple is another name for dark blue. Lilac is a form of paler blue.

Someone in an earlier post referred to cultures where the words for blue and green are the same. I'd be surprised if the majority of them had some form of defective colour vision, though that's a possible explanation. When I was a young child I thought the green colour used on traffic lights at that time (late 1940s) was blue. Nowadays it's white.

It's my ambition to take over an IC225 or a pendolino and drive it from London to Scotland!