Has anyone yet said anything about the fares structures on the two routes to Southend? Whatever 'logic' might suggest, unifying them would mean either one route having a cut, the other an increase or some combination thereafter. A fair amount of political criticism inevitable, unless everyone gets to pay less (not very likely....!)
Also, on the GBR 'unified map', what happened to all the red, white and blue stuff? If they could make that less prominent, or drop it altogether, that would be better. Flag colours and identities is not the railway's cup of tea, IMHO!
I suppose what was Greater Anglia would have said before that their route to Southend is a longer distance, yet covered in a shorter time, in order to justify their more expensive price, though I don’t think that the price disparity is commensurate with the small time saving. I don’t know what pricing was like in the pre-Network SouthEast days.
Pre-privatisation, the Great Eastern also had the newer, nicer trains, which is also the case now, though I don’t personally think the difference between a Class 720 and Class 357 is as big as I vaguely remember the difference between a Class 321 and the Class 302s, Class 310s, and Class 312s that they used to have on LTS being - I personally find the Class 357s more comfortable with their seats and being less narrow, with the only slight advantage of the Class 720s being their more modern colour PIS.
In the National Express days, there were arguments between passengers and staff, because both National Express East Anglia trains and National Express c2c trains said “National Express” on them, so some people assumed that they were interchangeable, but they were still run separately.
GBR Anglia and Great Northern also have 2 routes to Cambridge, where Anglia has the longer, slower, and cheaper route, with less-comfortable trains in the Class 720 vs. the Class 379s and Class 387s, though Great Northern occasionally has the less-comfortable Class 700s as well. I don’t know how fares worked during the WAGN time, when both routes were under the same TOC.
The GBR Anglia map currently retains the Greater Anglia red and c2c purple. Other signage (wayfinding, etc.) looks to be more black and white in colour, which I personally prefer to the red, white, and blue.