Train Liveries

[RichmondCommu]

G’day everyone!

I’ve often thought that TOC’s would save themselves a lot of money if trains across the entire network were painted in the same colour with vinyl’s added to display the TOC’s name and logo. This would surely lead to savings when trains are transferred between TOC’s and the money saved could be better spent elsewhere. I don’t see why this policy couldn’t be adopted by FOC’s too.

I really don’t see how TOC’s having different liveries benefits the passenger and surely if there is no added value there is no point!

I would appreciate your thoughts on this.

Regards,

Richmond Commuter!

 

[Nym]

Yes, it would save money. Corprate systems don't want that though...

 

[jopsuk]

The different liveries helps keep up some sort of pretence that people actually choose to travel with one company over another. With a small number of exceptions, this is very rarely the case.

 

[AlterEgo]

Branding is actually very important to intercity operators. Remember what the GNER livery used to mean? They had classic colours, a crest and simple lines harking back to railways of the past. The GNER brand wouldn't have been nearly so powerful on a plain white train with small vinyls here and there.

The airlines do use "eurowhite" - a predominantly white scheme with vinyls and decals. I don't think you could convince TOCs to do the same. A good livery communicates at a stroke what a TOC is about. GNER, Virgin, WSMR and Grand Central come to mind...

 

[starrymarkb]

Branding is actually very important to intercity operators. Remember what the GNER livery used to mean? They had classic colours, a crest and simple lines harking back to railways of the past. The GNER brand wouldn't have been nearly so powerful on a plain white train with small vinyls here and there.

The airlines do use "eurowhite" - a predominantly white scheme with vinyls and decals. I don't think you could convince TOCs to do the same. A good livery communicates at a stroke what a TOC is about. GNER, Virgin, WSMR and Grand Central come to mind...

Though it does mean that those that don't (eg KLM, Korean Air, American,Air Asia) stand out form the crowd.

I doubt it would make big savings on stock transfer. In most cases transferred stock stays in the old TOCs colours (with or without vinyl over the old name) until it comes up for normal sheduled repaint (or the TOC is doing some smartening up of tatty arrivals like FGW are doing with the 150s from LO)

Similarly someone would have to be paid to design the national livery and marketing, if small independant bus companies can afford Best Impressions for individual route branding, I suspect the design costs are minimal in the grand scheme of things.

 

[mallard]

I think route/service type specific liveries would be a good thing as they would actually mean something to the passenger, rather than just a corporate logo.

SWT and EMT have different colours for different service types and ScotRail are moving to a standard non-TOC livery, East Coast have indicated that the same may apply to whoever gets that franchise.

It would be good at, say, Sheffield to be able to say "London? White train, platform 1. York? Fastest way is the blue one on platform 6, Barnsley? Red train, platform 4", etc.

 

[Cherry_Picker]

It would be good at, say, Sheffield to be able to say "London? White train, platform 1. York? Fastest way is the blue one on platform 6

Of course, that would mean repainting the train every time it terminated.

Given the current fashion for everybody going with silver bodies and vinyls on the cabs, it might not be too long before every train in the UK looks the same again anyway. Personally I dont think its too big a deal if different TOCs do have different liveries. The big problem is if they keep getting changed from top to bottom every five years because the franchise changes. Far better to do what Arriva did when they took the XC franchise from Virgin and just tweak the existing livery slightly.

 

[Kingfisher200262]

Branding is actually very important to intercity operators. Remember what the GNER livery used to mean? They had classic colours, a crest and simple lines harking back to railways of the past. The GNER brand wouldn't have been nearly so powerful on a plain white train with small vinyls here and there.

The airlines do use "eurowhite" - a predominantly white scheme with vinyls and decals. I don't think you could convince TOCs to do the same. A good livery communicates at a stroke what a TOC is about. GNER, Virgin, WSMR and Grand Central come to mind...

All this may be true, but this is to the company's benefit. The bottom line is that the taxpayer funds changes in livery one way or another, through the franchising system.

It is not beyond the wit of man for any company to design a simple livery that has a strong brand and could be applied as vinyls, even if they are advised in a specification from DfT what the base colour should be for that livery.

In that way, "Inter City" trains could all be painted FOR EXAMPLE (let's not have a long debate about what the base colour should be, this is a principle we're discussing here!) pale grey, "regional" trains could be pale blue, "local/rural" trains could be pale green and "commuter" trains could be white, with all having dark grey roofs and underframes.

 

[mallard]

Of course, that would mean repainting the train every time it terminated.

No... The trains would be painted according to what route/group of routes they are allocated to. In my example that would mean all EMT London trains would be predominantly white (as they are), XC SW-NE trains blue and Northern Whatever-Division-Best-Fits-Sheffield-Barnsley trains Red.

NSE units used to have a small logo indicating the group of routes they were allocated to, so it's just an extension of that idea really.

Of course, occasionally, a unit would show up on the "wrong" route, but at least this would give enthusiasts something to talk about!

 

[Capybara]

A good livery communicates at a stroke what a TOC is about. GNER, Virgin, WSMR and Grand Central come to mind...

They are just sets of different colours. They don't tell me a thing what the company is 'about'. All I know is that it looks a mess when trains move between companies or when a company changes its branding and you get trains with different or mixed liveries or a new company's logo on a train with the old company's colour scheme. That tells me it's a right muddle.

Interestingly, I was on the Zillertalbahn in Austria last week which is a private narrow gauge railway. Their livery is almost identical to that of OBB. They even use the same moquette in the carriages.

 

[starrymarkb]

Conversly go to Switzerland where the Private railways paint the trains whichever colour!

Eg in Interlaken Ost you have SBB Red White and Black on intercities, BLS Silver and puke green on locals (BLS used to run the intercities but traded the routes for the Bern S-Bahn), ZB Red/White/GoldenPass, and BOB Blue and Yellow (I much prefered their Chocolate and Cream scheme before the new low floor driving trailers arrived) don't forget lots of advertising liveries.

Just up the line you have MIB who seem to operate in whichever colour their stock's previous operator used.

 

[90019]

Far better to do what Arriva did when they took the XC franchise from Virgin and just tweak the existing livery slightly.

To be fair, the livery XC's Voyagers is all vinyl, with only the roofs and fronts not vinyled.

 

[Sir_Clagalot]

How about Intercity Swallow for the Long distance stuff and Regional Railways for the local stuff.... With the operators logos on the doors, in a not too dissimilar way to ScotRail.

 

[swt_passenger]

How about Intercity Swallow for the Long distance stuff and Regional Railways for the local stuff.... With the operators logos on the doors, in a not too dissimilar way to ScotRail.

That could work, but you'd still need a third livery for Network Southeast to show off the better, longer and more frequent trains we have down here...

 

[BestWestern]

What is needed, as part of a big shakeup of the whole franchising system, are standard liveries and brandings across the network, to which each franchisee simply adds their company name in a set place on the bodyside.

The laughable kerfuffle of different firms rebranding every few years is just plain stupid, and the rolling stock situation is such a shambles that even if a strong 'indentity' did benefit passengers - which it doesn't - the effect would be undermined anyway. Take FGW as a good example, there are curretly trains being operated in daily service carrying the 'identities' of Arriva Trains Wales, South West Trains, and three different versions of London Midland/Centro. It is currently nothing unusual for a Great Western service to pull up formed of more than unit, with none in house colours. Also bear in mind that on many of these misfitting units there is no appropriate destination display either. Not great really, and that's just one operator our of a good few with livery issues; ATW, FCC, East Coast, NXEA/'One', Scotrail etc etc all come to mind.

 

[Goldfish62]

To be fair, the livery XC's Voyagers is all vinyl, with only the roofs and fronts not vinyled.

There's actually only a bit of vinyl on the XC Voyagers. Around the cabs, on the doors and along the cantrail. The silver sides and black window line are retained from VT livery.

 

[anthony263]

How about Intercity Swallow for the Long distance stuff and Regional Railways for the local stuff.... With the operators logos on the doors, in a not too dissimilar way to ScotRail.

I agree with this but as others have said you would also need the network southeast livery as well.

I did see a mockup of a crossrail unit in Network southeast colours (Hint hint) in one of the rail magazines last month, it would be nice to see that livery again.

That said i also reconmend keeping the chiltren railways livery.

 

[Cherry_Picker]

To be fair, the livery XC's Voyagers is all vinyl, with only the roofs and fronts not vinyled.

Aye, and that is a good thing as it was relatively easy to change the branding when Arriva took over. New Vinyls are much cheaper and quicker to change than a complete paint respray. Chiltern seem to be following this example with their rebranding of the ex WSMR stock.

 

[Goldfish62]

I agree with this but as others have said you would also need the network southeast livery as well.

I did see a mockup of a crossrail unit in Network southeast colours (Hint hint) in one of the rail magazines last month, it would be nice to see that livery again.

That said i also reconmend keeping the chiltren railways livery.

How about Overground livery for the southeast stuff?

 

[kentuckytony]

Just thought I would post this under this Liveries area.
[I know it is not UK, but, hey...]

My high school had a reunion in Albuquerque New Mexico last week.
One of them went up to Santa Fe and took this picture of the New Mexico Rail Runner train that they rode up on.
Nice paint job!
http://i688.photobucket.com/albums/vv241/TonyKentucky/Trains/NMRX.jpg

 

[318259]

I do like the idea of the new ScotRail livery, with a standard design and just the operator's name on the doors.

When National Express ran ScotRail, it was just branded ScotRail, there wasn't really any sign of National Express's name, logo or corporate identity anywhere. Then First came along and painted everything purple and pink. It was very in-your-face.

 

[Eagle]

Oh, speaking of liveries, what's up with XC putting a giant vinyl search bar along the side of some of their 170s? It's clearly based on their TV ad campaign—although the train in the advert is a Voyager, and I've yet to see one of those with this new defacement embellishment. It was bad enough that the internal screens were running self-advertisements for their website (again, this only seems to be a 170 thing, not a 22x).

If we're going to have trains matching up with adverts, how long before we see Charlie Baker's grinning mush plastered all over Southern's Electrostars?

 

[mallard]

When National Express ran ScotRail, it was just branded ScotRail, there wasn't really any sign of National Express's name, logo or corporate identity anywhere. Then First came along and painted everything purple and pink. It was very in-your-face.

National Express didn't put their name on any of the rail franchises until they rebranded "one".

Midland Mainline, Wales and Borders, Wessex Trains, Central Trains, Silverlink, Gatwick Express and WAGN never had any National Express branding.

 

[sprinterguy]

When National Express ran ScotRail, it was just branded ScotRail, there wasn't really any sign of National Express's name, logo or corporate identity anywhere. Then First came along and painted everything purple and pink. It was very in-your-face.

I loved the way the NatEx Scotrail livery developed and adopted as it's principal feature the BR designed "swoosh" symbol, rather than the recent theme for the "we are a bus company and we are letting you know" approach that has been prevalent recently amongst TOCs.

Franchise liveries should last longer than the amount of time a single operator is in charge of that franchise, and should reflect the heritage of the areas they serve: The Scotrail Saltire, and Great Westerns' old GWR derived scheme (though they only retained the dark green) are examples of this approach.

 

[318259]

They just changed the colour of the swoosh, didn't they?

There was an old red, yellow and blue swoosh on the canopy of Air train station until a few years ago, when it was replaced by an (f)

 

[EM2]

How about Intercity Swallow for the Long distance stuff and Regional Railways for the local stuff.... With the operators logos on the doors, in a not too dissimilar way to ScotRail.

So say you're at Leeds, and you run onto the platform, and you see a train that looks like the one you normally get and it says 'East' on the door but you can't see the rest of it because there's something in the way, but you're late and you jump on it anyway, and it turns out to be one of the rare East Midlands departures and not an East Coast one. Could be expensive...

 

[mallard]

So say you're at Leeds, and you run onto the platform, and you see a train that looks like the one you normally get and it says 'East' on the door but you can't see the rest of it because there's something in the way, but you're late and you jump on it anyway, and it turns out to be one of the rare East Midlands departures and not an East Coast one. Could be expensive...

People seemed to cope ok with BR when all Intercity services had the exact same livery (and before that when everything was blue)...

 

[Furrball]

Branding is actually very important to intercity operators. Remember what the GNER livery used to mean? They had classic colours, a crest and simple lines harking back to railways of the past. The GNER brand wouldn't have been nearly so powerful on a plain white train with small vinyls here and there.

The airlines do use "eurowhite" - a predominantly white scheme with vinyls and decals. I don't think you could convince TOCs to do the same. A good livery communicates at a stroke what a TOC is about. GNER, Virgin, WSMR and Grand Central come to mind...

So that is why NX quickly repainted the stock out of GNER livery, and EC the same yes? With the old GNER logos still showing in several cases.

And why NXEA is such a hot-potch of liveries, and let's not get onto the various vinyls that have applied to the units that have been transferred between operators . . .

Also, NXEA MK3 stock is currently filthy, with windows you can barely see out of and always have areas where the carriage cleaners do not reach when the are cleaned that remain dirty.

 

[lookingforit35]

Rolling stock is one thing (and clearly seems to divide opinion), but I do strongly believe this suggestion should be carried forward to stations. Basic, regular maintenance aside, who on earth wants TOCs wasting time, money and effort repainting lamp standards in "their" colours, or replacing station name boards. All a bit silly really.

 

[Furrball]

Rolling stock is one thing (and clearly seems to divide opinion), but I do strongly believe this suggestion should be carried forward to stations. Basic, regular maintenance aside, who on earth wants TOCs wasting time, money and effort repainting lamp standards in "their" colours, or replacing station name boards. All a bit silly really.

Agreed - also some of the choice of fonts for the signs is questionable - there was nothing wrong with the 'BR' font.