First Great Western rebrands to Great Western Railway and related department changes

[whole diary]

[Tim]

.....the phrase "polishing a turd" springs to mind......

Not an easy thing to do. But you could roll it in glitter. 

[Timmer]

I cannot see why GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) felt the need to respond to SWT^▸ (South West Trains)'s recent advertising as all it's done is add fuel to the fire  Were SWT actually referring to GWR? They aren't changing the shade of their trains...they are completely changing the entire colour scheme.

It's not like they are in competition with each other like Virgin and Chiltern are for West Midlands customers.

I do agree with GWR that yes we do "want train companies focusing on delivering faster, more frequent train services and more seats, not bickering in public."

[TaplowGreen]

South West Trains have a little humorous dig at GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway), and GWR get all pissy po-faced about it.




GWR press release:

GWR responds to South West Trains

Thursday 10th December 2015

In response to questions following another train operator's recent advertising campaign, a Great Western Railway spokesman said: "This is exactly the kind of thing that so frustrates passengers - they want train companies focusing on delivering faster, more frequent train services and more seats, not bickering in public. Our own approach is to concentrate on our own business and to get on with delivering the substantial improvements we are delivering for customers as part of our journey to becoming GWR.

"That's why we're focused on delivering three brand new train fleets for passengers, creating an additional 156,700 additional seats a week, cutting journey times to key locations by as much as 20 minutes and creating 2,100 additional car park spaces at our stations.

"We're surprised South West Trains' bosses at Stagecoach - which rebranded their East Coast trains earlier this year - sanctioned such a self-critical move."

Totally missing the point of the deal between Stagecoach and Virgin.

GWR's reply should have been in kind, but I suspect the advertising budget has been blown on the rebrand.

Or if, "(your) own approach is to get on with the business" then no need for the press release. Responding shows the humorous digs have struck a nerve.

Well done SWT^▸ (South West Trains) for shining a light on GWR's pointless rebranding.

If GWR think that this is the kind of thing that frustrates customers, they really need to take a long hard look at themselves.....I'd say that wasting millions of ^ on a vanity project would be higher up the list and host of issues around their reliability, communications, customer service etc may just sneak ahead of it at the top of the list too?

[didcotdean]

Knocking negative advertisement campaigns in general don't work very well in Britain compared to say the USA which is why you don't see them very often. For some reason transport companies have some faith in them; maybe they do work better in this sector. FWIW^▸ (for what it's worth) in my opinion it does shame SWT^▸ (South West Trains) more than FGW^▸ (First Great Western) - but they might have been wiser to take the moral high ground and just promote themselves and ignore SWT.

[Red Squirrel]

Not an easy thing to do. But you could roll it in glitter. 

You obviously don't watch Mythbusters as much as I do:

http://www.discovery.com/tv-shows/mythbusters/videos/polishing-a-turd-minimyth/

[Charles T]

Class 150 232 is in GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) Green.

[grahame]

Class 150 232 is in GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) Green.

Happy Christmas Charlie M ...

.

[grahame]

Class 150 232 is in GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) Green.

[TeaStew]

I am not really sure what my personal views on the rebrand are. Most of the time it seems as far as the real world goes I travel with First Great Western as that is what all the signs say. I use the trains every weekday and some weekends too. I mainly travel to Bristol Temple Meads which I believe is quite a large station but the only rebranding I had seen were a few posters. Once somebody in a nice greenish suit asked to see my ticket but it was very early in the morning and there is no accounting for some people's behaviour.

But today I finally saw "the green one" 43187. It looked shiny 

[Thatcham Crossing]

I had my first ride in one of the green Turbo's today - the green seat coverings made me think of the countryside - perhaps that's the idea!

[Western Pathfinder]

I had my first ride on a green one on the 16.03 to Avonmouth yesterday afternoon and not a ticket check in sight again .

[TonyK]

I had my first ride on a green one on the 16.03 to Avonmouth yesterday afternoon and not a ticket check in sight again .

It is lovely to have a free rail service, and I applaud the city council and GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) for providing it in these days of austerity, when every penny counts in the public purse.

[Western Pathfinder]

Just to be clear I did have a valid ticket

[John R]

I usually see the Severn Beach branch arrival into Temple Meads around 8.00 and from attempts to count, I suspect its at least at 100% seating capacity (around 225 seats).  Which is great to see. But I'm wondering now, just how many of those have actually paid?

[JayMac]

The vast majority will have paid. Morning arrivals have two ATEs and a conductor. Those missed will have to buy to exit the station. There may be a handful missed who board subsequent services and aren't seen by someone selling tickets.

My last few day time journeys on the Severn Beach Line have seen an RPI^▸ (Revenue Protection Inspector (or Retail Price Index, depending on the context)) aboard as well as the ATEs and Conductor. I've even seen ticket sellers on the platform at Clifton Down.

It is however the late afternoon/evenings/weekends where revenue is going uncollected. Services at these times have only a Conductor and journeys not starting/transitting through Bristol TM^‡(resolve) are often free. Just a few days ago I boarded at Lawrence Hill for Avonmouth. No fare taken. Although in this instance the Conductor hadn't booked out an Avantix^▸ (Ticket Issuing System used on board trains).

I spoke with an RPI and asked about afternoon/evening revenue. They are aware of the issue and do try to cover the lineas often as possible. There aren't any plans however to diagram ATEs at these times though.