Livery under Great British Railways

[Gareth]

Normal people don't need to "repossess" the flag. That's a wanky minglish middle-class meme.

Even so, using it as a livery is cheesy and obvious. As much as it would upset all the right people, best leave it to open top tour buses.

I quite like @Bletchleyite's suggestion of something akin to LNER's livery.

Hopefully, Merseyrail, or RailForTheLiverpoolCityRegion, will be left alone.

 

[signed]

Having a bold livery could be really great for the image. Scotrail has that covered nicely in my opinion. I don't know what could be best though, at least have a bright color as a base.

I am a bit biased, myself having a sweet spot for both the TGV Sud-Est bright Orange and WMT orange and purple liveries.

 

[Russel]

One of the favourite classic liveries on here seems to be Network SouthEast. That is in Union Flag colours.

The previous non Mainline Chiltern livery was too.

In short, it's almost certain the colours will be red, white and blue - but there's plenty tasteful that can be done with that.

NSE Was a decent livery, as was Regional Railways, Intercity, GNER, Original MML... but, they are all 30 year old designs and in 2024, they look dated.

 

[JLH4AC]

I don't think most people would really think of it that way. But I do kind of see your points and I wouldn't oppose regional colours such as keeping Merseyrail's yellow. After all I don't see Scotrail's Saltire being given up any time soon.

That is why I said some, yet people that think of it that way are likely very vocal about it and possibly could include notable figures in local government and the railway press. Unless Labour u-turns on massively devolution policies oversight of Merseyrail and the Overground is not going to be transferred to GBR, and existing powers of the UK's devolved governments would be mostly unaffected.

But ‘normal’ people/users shying away from using the flag makes the situation worse - better for the normal folk to repossess the flags (as has been achieved quite a lot by the National sports teams).

I am not calling for ‘normal’ people to shy away from using the flag, I want people to be proud to fly our flags. What I have a problem with is people wanting to put them on everything especially if it is to push a shallow/toxic nationalistic agenda.

 

[Class450/4DES]

I have mentioned this concept before and its just a bit easy too.
Use the current liveries used by the TOC's owned by the DfT.

E.g: SE's livery can be used for services that was apart of NSE's network, or... bring back the NSE toothpaste livery and branding?

 

[WAB]

the two possibilities I can think of off the top of my head are either trains run across county borders only to the first suitable interchange station or they manage an even share of service on the shared lines

Labour would be mugs to allow such a ludicrous state of affairs.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 20 Jul 2024 ==

One concept I think would work fairly well is to adapt the LNER livery for a recreated Intercity - it looks quite good, and you could easily swap LNER for INTERCITY with the N having the same "flash", while the red colour is on brand.

Yes. I do rather like the LNER brand.

One way to get some coherency would be to maintain the individual brand names, colours and iconography, but move to common fonts, brand collateral, uniform styles etc.

 

[gc4946]

One way to get some coherency would be to maintain the individual brand names, colours and iconography, but move to common fonts, brand collateral, uniform styles etc.

That could be a starting point once GBR is legally established, as an interim measure avoiding unnecessary repainting.
New, and refurbished trains complying with GBR's standards, would carry the newly designed GBR livery straight away.

 

[Meerkat]

One way to get some coherency would be to maintain the individual brand names, colours and iconography, but move to common fonts, brand collateral, uniform styles etc.

First of all……why does it need to be coherent?
Do VW group have a coherent branding across VW, Audi, Skoda, and Bentley?
I can only see pushing the “one nationalised railway” branding as a marketing negative.

 

[vuzzeho]

First of all……why does it need to be coherent?
Do VW group have a coherent branding across VW, Audi, Skoda, and Bentley?
I can only see pushing the “one nationalised railway” branding as a marketing negative.

Didn't the white paper that GBR is based on recommend coherent branding?
I feel like it won't be one livery for all trains, but different based on sectors/regions/whatever they choose.

There's also quite a number of differences between car brands (which focus on different sectors of a very large market) and one nationalised train operator.

 

[WAB]

First of all……why does it need to be coherent?
Do VW group have a coherent branding across VW, Audi, Skoda, and Bentley?
I can only see pushing the “one nationalised railway” branding as a marketing negative.

To promote a coherent national network
To encourage staff to think more 'one railway' and less siloed, whilst encouraging pride in their work and their corner of the railway
To break with the privatised railway's legacy but maintain strong local brands

I don't see how the VW group is particularly relevant as their customers aren't going to be mixing-and-matching in the same way as railway passengers.

 

[JLH4AC]

Labour would be mugs to allow such a ludicrous state of affairs.

Those are the only ways I can see local trains being locally controlled at the county level without causing political drama with the combined authorities or capacity being completely wreaked by local trains having to stop with county borders. Let me remind you that you who bought up local Yorkshire services, I was just entertaining your thoughts and explaining why I don't think it is as unworkable as you seem to think.

As stated above I don't think that Yorkshire should be operated at the county level, I think it should be operated at the regional level be that Greater Yorkshire, Greater North-East or the North. Merseyside, Greater Manchester and the Isle of Wight are the only counties that I think that level of local control over local trains would be ideal for.

One way to get some coherency would be to maintain the individual brand names, colours and iconography, but move to common fonts, brand collateral, uniform styles etc.

Yeah, common fonts, uniform styles, logos and brand collateral will go a lot further than a single unified livery at making the railway feel like a coherent network.

First of all……why does it need to be coherent?
Do VW group have a coherent branding across VW, Audi, Skoda, and Bentley?
I can only see pushing the “one nationalised railway” branding as a marketing negative.

Because having coherent branding helps make the railway network feel more coherent, a lack of coherency has been a notable problem facing the railways since 1997. Having a coherent feeling network will build pubic trust that they will get a similar level of service no matter what train they travelling on or what part of the country they are in.

There is not coherent branding across the Volkswagen Group because it helps create the illusion of choice and also killing a brand before its "natural death" attracts unwelcome attention from competition regulators. People have seen through that illusion on the railways and as GBR is going to be a state monopoly aside from limited competition from open access operators it does not really have to worry about competition regulators.

 

[LLivery]

Of course, London is the only place now which has a red, white and blue livery (the Underground). I agree, painting oversized Union Flags on things normally looks tacky, but LUL and NSE shows the colours themselves do look good.

GBRTT's corp scheme is as relevant to GBR as the Crossrail Project identity was to the 'Elizabeth Line', likewise HS2. Only difference, is that the Double Arrow, will of course be staying.

Services will never be run at a county level. Devolution at MCA level, yes, but even then, I don't think it'll be as far as London Overground. The FT already reported TfL isn't getting total control of suburban services, because as I've always thought, in an attempt to integrate in the city's transport network, they've caused more fragmentation with the rest of the rail network, even shunning the double arrow (I'd absolutely force them to redisplay them at all LO stations on GBR infra). So I can't see there being liveries at *governmental* region level.

I also can't see one livery for the whole of England either. Either sectors or (updated) rail regions.

 

[Meerkat]

To promote a coherent national network

I believe a state national railway is a negative in marketing terms, however much it makes socialists feel warm and fuzzy.

To encourage staff to think more 'one railway' and less siloed, whilst encouraging pride in their work and their corner of the railway

More likely to have pride in a local brand than a huge state blob.

I don't see how the VW group is particularly relevant as their customers aren't going to be mixing-and-matching in the same way as railway passengers.

It’s relevant because they are splitting brands for different markets - someone buying a Bentley wouldn’t buy the same car with a VW badge on it.
You want to sell long distance train travel as a great option, not the same product as the muppets who keep making you late to work.

 

[Tester]

I believe a state national railway is a negative in marketing terms, however much it makes socialists feel warm and fuzzy.

More likely to have pride in a local brand than a huge state blob.

It’s relevant because they are splitting brands for different markets - someone buying a Bentley wouldn’t buy the same car with a VW badge on it.
You want to sell long distance train travel as a great option, not the same product as the muppets who keep making you late to work.

SBB says hello

 

[Sad Sprinter]

The flag will never form a basis for the GBR livery. For many reasons, but not least the fact it is made up of 3 different colours. That in itself won't work as a train livery, it would instantly smack of a nursery school design. There is a reason most train liveries past and present generally focus on two main colours, as two colours works, whereas 3 very different colours just looks a mess. Scotrail works because the flag is made up of 2 colours. A Union flag livery simply wouldn't, and I like to think, as a country we are now turning the corner away from the brexity, nationalistic, jingoistic days of the teens and early 20s.

What's the point of being a country if our own flag is so loathsome?

I don't care if it reminds people of Brexit. I don't care if the Scots and Welsh don't like it, quite frankly. It's the flag of our country. If we can't even stomach seeing that, then we are not a country. Just an economic trading zone run by a giant local council.

 

[Bletchleyite]

SBB says hello

Quite. Is there a better railway anywhere in the world? I can't think of one.

It's not perfect but it's pretty close.

You could have as much boring RA2 signage and factory white trains as you liked if our railway could just be as operationally good or anywhere near it!

 

[Gareth]

What's the point of being a country if our own flag is so loathsome?

It's not loathsome, it just would be difficult to make a tasteful train livery out of it. Not impossible perhaps but they'd be far more likely to mess it up imo. As much as I'd enjoy the whinging from all the right, sanctimonious people, I'd rather we play it safer with a simple but tasteful livery.

 

[Transilien]

Services will never be run at a county level. Devolution at MCA level, yes, but even then, I don't think it'll be as far as London Overground. The FT already reported TfL isn't getting total control of suburban services, because as I've always thought, in an attempt to integrate in the city's transport network, they've caused more fragmentation with the rest of the rail network, even shunning the double arrow (I'd absolutely force them to redisplay them at all LO stations on GBR infra). So I can't see there being liveries at *governmental* region level.

Why don’t they have GBR the permanent concession operator for London Overground and let all suburban railways in London be both GBR and LO at the same time. There must be a way for compromise rather than the situation that we have now which is the worst for integration into London’s transportation system and the wider Railway network because of years of bad blood between TFL and Westminster.

 

[LLivery]

Why don’t they have GBR the permanent concession operator for London Overground and let all suburban railways in London be both GBR and LO at the same time. There must be a way for compromise rather than the situation that we have now which is the worst for integration into London’s transportation system and the wider Railway network because of years of bad blood between TFL and Westminster.

There's definitely a solution - the government isn't going to allow the current mess to continue, but not 'Overgroundisation'.

 

[CBlue]

I think it can be safely said that any livery choice that is made will produce much wailing and gnashing of teeth.....!

 

[JLH4AC]

The flag will never form a basis for the GBR livery. For many reasons, but not least the fact it is made up of 3 different colours. That in itself won't work as a train livery, it would instantly smack of a nursery school design. There is a reason most train liveries past and present generally focus on two main colours, as two colours works, whereas 3 very different colours just looks a mess. Scotrail works because the flag is made up of 2 colours. A Union flag livery simply wouldn't, and I like to think, as a country we are now turning the corner away from the brexity, nationalistic, jingoistic days of the teens and early 20s.

London Underground, Midland Mainline, current LNER, Central trains, Intercity, and Virgin Trains in-till their last livery are three+ colour liveries that are widely seen as great liveries yet Virgin Trains last livery/LNER first livery, Arriva Trains, and Connex Southcentral at best have very mixed opinions about them. It is almost like factors other than the number of colours have more bearing on whether the livery looks good. The Union Jack is no more nationalistic/ jingoistic than the Scottish Saltire and just like how the Scottish Saltire is not the flag of Scottish independence the Union Jack is not the flag of Brexit.

Why don’t they have GBR the permanent concession operator for London Overground and let all suburban railways in London be both GBR and LO at the same time. There must be a way for compromise rather than the situation that we have now which is the worst for integration into London’s transportation system and the wider Railway network because of years of bad blood between TFL and Westminster.

Yeah, the integration of London metro services into London’s transportation system and the wider Railway network really needs fixing. Handing the control of more London metro services to TfL while making GBR the concession operator may be part of the solution.

 

[Meerkat]

SBB says hello

A quarter to a third the size of British railways?
And a historical reputation a bit better than BR or any other British nationalised service.

 

[Tester]

A quarter to a third the size of British railways?
And a historical reputation a bit better than BR or any other British nationalised service.

JR says hello too

 

[Djgr]

A quarter to a third the size of British railways?
And a historical reputation a bit better than BR or any other British nationalised service.

We aren't arguing about whether nationalisation is a good thing.

We are discussing what livery is most appropriate, given that renationalisation is happening.

 

[eldomtom2]

JR says hello too

Well, the thing about both the nationalised JNR and its privatised JR Group successors is that, unlike the other Japanese railways, they don't have a unified livery scheme - every line and express has its own livery.

 

[Sad Sprinter]

It's not loathsome, it just would be difficult to make a tasteful train livery out of it. Not impossible perhaps but they'd be far more likely to mess it up imo. As much as I'd enjoy the whinging from all the right, sanctimonious people, I'd rather we play it safer with a simple but tasteful livery.

That’s true, I don’t disagree with that. I’d rather leave the Union Jack colour scheme for a relaunched Network SouthEast. I think just slap the double-arrow on the side to create a unified livery. If we have to do Union Jack, then maybe Amtrak is a good example

Someone made a great mockup of a GBR livery in 2021, I’ll see if I can dig it out.

 

[Whistler40145]

How about bringing back BR Blue and Grey?

 

[signed]

Quite. Is there a better railway anywhere in the world? I can't think of one.

It's not perfect but it's pretty close.

It's a lot more expensive for the travellers than most railways in Europe though (I would be enclined to say even the UK's), which may be one thing to bear in mind.

 

[Djgr]

It's a lot more expensive for the travellers than most railways in Europe though (I would be enclined to say even the UK's), which may be one thing to bear in mind.

Less so for regular travellers

 

[Russel]

How about bringing back BR Blue and Grey?

What is this fixation with resurrecting 30-50 year old liveries on this forum?

It would make anything it's applied to look incredibly drab and dated.