National Express East Anglia

[Coxster]

‘one’ TO BECOME NATIONAL EXPRESS EAST ANGLIA
AS PARENT COMPANY AIMS TO MAKE TRAVEL SIMPLER

Regional train operator ‘one’ is to be renamed “National Express East Anglia” next year as part of the wider master branding strategy being implemented by parent company, National Express Group.

National Express is bringing all its UK operations (including rail, coach, bus and airport transfer services) together under the “National Express” brand it aims to make travel simpler for its customers. The strategy is focused on delivering improvements for customers by offering a more integrated service, allied with greater awareness of the range of products that the Group offers across the transport sector. Extensive research has been carried out in the development of the new identity with over 2000 customers and 250 stakeholders (including some employees) involved in the consultation process.

The new National Express brand, which is an evolution of the iconic red, white and blue coach identity, will be rolled-out on a phased basis. New airport transfer service dot2dot, launched this week, will be the first visible example of the new identity, followed by National Express East Coast with the launch of the new rail franchise on 10 December. The launch of National Express East Anglia is expected to follow towards the end of the first quarter of 2008 on a date to be agreed.

The roll out of National Express East Anglia will take place through a phased programme to achieve a visible, but cost effective transition, utilising planned refurbishment and maintenance schedules to apply the new livery to trains over the next 1-2 years. The name has been deliberately chosen to associate the National Express brand directly with the region served by the current ‘one’ services.

More details of the next stage of the development of National Express East Anglia will be announced next year. The launch is likely to coincide with the announcement of further improvements in service standards which are currently being developed.

Andrew Chivers, Managing Director for ‘one’ said :

“Our transition from ‘one’ to National Express East Anglia is a logical step as part of our parent company’s brand development and their drive to make travel simpler for customers across the UK. The introduction of the new identity will coincide with additional investment in customer-focused enhancements designed to further improve our service standards and build on this year’s improvements in punctuality.”

http://www.nxeastanglia.com ?

 

[Jordy]

It was inevitable, National Express East Anglia sounds considerably more sensible!

 

[Daniel]

Still no mention of what they're doing with the West Anglian line

 

[devon_metro]

Bit of a mouthful!

 

[ChrisCooper]

West Anglia isn't a real place though, it's just made up AFAIK by the railways (I don't know of any other referances to West Anglia). Anglia actually refers to "land of the Angles" as does England, so East Anglia really means East England.
At least the new name is more meaningful than one, even if it is a bit of a mouthful. Big shame though is the inevitable loss of the livery, along with GNER, for a true corporate identity, especially if it's like NX coaches (alright on coaches, but terrible for trains, all that white to get dirty). GNER livery is great, and one has really grown on me (still not sure about the rainbows), so it will be a shame to loose them, particularly since we've also recently lost Central (nice livery, shame about the TOC), and MML (fine on Meridiens, bad on Mk3s, not as good as the old one) to Stagecoach corporate, and Silverlink (one of the better ones), to something with a serious similarity to Southern, although at least with some imagination so that people seeing them together south of Watford Junction will realise they are different TOCs, if owned by the same company.

 

[W14Fishbourne]

A daft decision if you ask me, They seem to go from one degree of daftness to another. First of all, names that no-one knew what they meant, then great long mouthfuls that no-one's going to use.

West Anglia Great Northern was a similar mouthful but at least WAGN was vaguely pronounceable. NEEC or NXEC, and NEEA or NXEA hardly roll off the tongue. So, what will people call them - I'll bet on East Coast and East Anglia, dropping the National Express, Hardly what Bowker wants to achieve.

At one time, not long after privatisation, Stagecoach did the same, trying to convince people to call their operations Stagecoach South West Trains and Stagecoach Island Line. What did people go on calling them? Plain and simple South West Trains and Island Line!

Even First, which has also tried it, has only really got it to stick in the case of First Great Western (a fat load of good that's done it) and First Capital Connect.

And why are they doing it? Probably because potential investors have no real idea about the extent of the company's operations so they want to make it easy by plastering the National Express name over everything they run.

 

[me123]

Well, if it keeps them happy...

 

[ChrisCooper]

And why are they doing it? Probably because potential investors have no real idea about the extent of the company's operations so they want to make it easy by plastering the National Express name over everything they run.

Well, that was the reason for the initial surge of corporate branding on buses back in the late 90s when Arriva and First wiped loads of local identities and liveries away. Made it easier for an investor in First Bus or Cowie (Arriva's former name) to realise that Midland Fox, Kentish Bus, etc or Leicester Citybus, Capital Citybus, Eastern Counties etc were part of the same company. First in particular also seem to go on the idea that good news in some areas (up North) will cover up bad news from other areas (not up north, Trans Pennine seems to mark the southern boundry of their real priorities on both trains and buses).

 

[thefab444]

West Anglia isn't a real place though, it's just made up AFAIK by the railways (I don't know of any other referances to West Anglia). Anglia actually refers to "land of the Angles" as does England, so East Anglia really means East England.

How about ITV Local News? If I recall correctly, there is an ITV Anglia (West) and ITV Anglia (East) region.

 

[Tom]

No - it's the same region, just the western news is a sub-opt of the eastern news.

</TV pres fan mode>

 

[Jonno2055]

Now whilst I think that renaming the company from 'ONE' to National Express East Anglia does give the company more identy in terms of where it is in the UK, I am just wondering where the money will come from to change the company name and then refurbish the rolling stock again into another new livery.

Some of the rolling stock has only just reciently been reliveried into ONE colours and whilst these plans probably won't be fully implemented for a few years, the life gotten from the newly refurbished rolling stock will be minimal before it becomes NX East Anglia, then again most of the 321s and 360s haven't seen the current livery scheme and dont even have the ONE brand name, except for of course inside them on the various network maps and safety notices.

Other than the rant about costs, and being slightly hypocritical, the name change should be a good idea. I remember when it was on the local news about commuters getting confused about train times because the '10:40 ONE service' was being confused with a '10:41 ONE service'.