A new livery for all GB trains - what colour d'ya want?

[whole diary]

[jamestheredengine]

Maybe a uniformity of seat comfort, levelling up by refitting GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) IET^▸ (Intercity Express Train) slab board seats to a comfort standard enjoyed elsewhere in the country.

Sorry I just saw a flying pig.

Look at section 41 of the report. You will be pleased.

[broadgage]

IIRC^▸ (if I recall/remember/read correctly) seating comfort and the need to replace "ironing board" seats has been specifically mentioned with particular reference to "long distance services"
So yes there is hope.

Edited to add, please see above.

[ellendune]

I would be sorry to loose the GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) green, but I do not want that to become the uniform colour across the whole country.  Diversity in liveries is good. 

[rower40]

I grew up _{[Citation needed]} in the era of "If it moves, paint it blue." - the only exceptions being the red stripe on the waistband of the Railway Technical Centre test vehicles.  No objection to that coming back as a principle.
The flying banana has to stay yellow, obv.

[johnneyw]

I would be sorry to loose the GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) green, but I do not want that to become the uniform colour across the whole country.  Diversity in liveries is good. 

On a personal note.  One of the joys of annual train travel in northern Europe as a child in the 60s and 70s was the sight of rolling stock in unfamiliar, exotic liveries....pink and cream stands out in my memories among various others.

[Electric train]

With the fact that Great British Railway (GBR^▸ (Great British Railways)) will be using private companies to run the services I suspect they will keep some of the existing branding such as Great Western Railway (GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway)) and LNER^» (London North Eastern Railway - about). 
The branding relating to the Train Operator will be important to remain with the Train Operator as they will be paid on performance and 'customer' experience.  I suspect the publicity will be more akin to the major stations such as Great British Railway (GBR) service operated by Great Western Railway (GWR).

I will be interesting to see how it unfolds ........................ question is do I retire to a safe haven before or carry out working and ride out the storm

Edit: VickiS - Clarifying Acronyms

[Hafren]

First thought would be something like current GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) or the old GNER^▸ (Great North Eastern Railways) - so a dark base colour with some stripes to give it detail, but fairly understated compared to some.

Perhaps have a bit of room for the private operators' own touches e.g. they can have a logo or lettering.

I'm inclined to go with some of the ways BR^▸ (British Rail(ways)) did things, mainly because I was a child of the sectors era. This is partly nostalgia of course, and one shouldn't be closed to different ways of doing it, but let's hark back to the way things were...

• Yellow stripe so first class can be identified easily.
• Variations based on service category - bringing back (with the old sector names or more modern brands) InterCity (less clumsy  than saying long-distance high-speed all the time), NSE^▸ (Network South East)/equivalent, Regional Railways. BR ended up with completely different liveries for each sector, but maybe variations on a common livery would be better.
• Maybe some specific branding for metro services, like with the PTE^▸ (Passenger Transport Executive) branding under BR. Now it might be things like Overground, South Wales Metro etc.

From top of head, a few specific reasons why sector branding might be good...

• Ticketing restrictions can be a bit clearer. E.g. where peak restrictions (should they stay with us as we know them) are TOC^▸ (Train Operating Company)-specific, saying 'not valid on IC^▸ (Inter City) services between xx.xx & xx.xx' is relatively simple. It can be generally known that all IC trains out of London have specific super-off-peak times, etc.
• People know to expect a certain level of service on IC trains. (e.g. Aim for better interior, catering on all journeys, first class with complimentary port on all trains,  reservations on all trains etc,) - these things apply some of the time on some other services, but can be consistent across IC trains, whereas now people just think one TOC happens to have nicer trains than others. (Or not so nice if they don't like the IET^▸ (Intercity Express Train) seats!)

I say all this having not read much about the intended concept apart from basic news reports, so I could be in tune with or significantly diverging from actual plans!

[plymothian]

The latest TOC^▸ (Train Operating Company) liveries have gone to a generic base coat - brunswick Green GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway), white & grey SWR^» (South Western Railway - about), white & red LNER^» (London North Eastern Railway - about), Scotrail blue etc.  I'm more inclined to think that those ex-franchise colours will remain with the GBR^▸ (Great British Railways) double arrows supplementing any TOC logo branding. 

And with regard to stripes, GWR have reintroduced them on their latest Castle Class livery - silver for bikes & blue for accessible facilities.

[eightonedee]

And with regard to stripes, GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) have reintroduced them on their latest Castle Class livery - silver for bikes & blue for accessible facilities.

I hope though that they are more conspicuous than the "silver" (grey?) ones on green turbos, which are barely visible. A standard broad yellow would be better.

[broadgage]

For IETs^▸ (Intercity Express Train), of any operator, I suggest this product, but in bulk of course, the aerosol cans are only for touch ups not for painting a whole train.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/184026435525?epid=15010031235&hash=item2ad8d48fc5:g:BfoAAOSwrxBffkk3

[Rhydgaled]

I would be sorry to loose the GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) green, but I do not want that to become the uniform colour across the whole country.  Diversity in liveries is good. 

This is why I ticked the 'something else' option - I think there should be regional variation, but with a common theme. I also ticked the option which suggested differences between long-distance and local services. The 'common theme' I spoke of should be how the long-distance, and regional express services are differentiated, ie.:

• Regional Express rolling stock (eg. 158 and 444) in ALL regions to use a light colour for the main bodyside with a band around the windows in a dark colour (doors to be the same colour as the window band)
• Intercity rolling stock in ALL regions to carry the same base livery as regional express stock with the addition of the italic INTERCITY logo on the lower bodyside and possibly other embelishments (such as Swallow logos or the castles on the ScotRail Inter7City stock

Regional and suburban stock would be differentiated too; one of these would wear a single colour livery (like the current GWR green) and the other would be the inverse of the express livery (in other words, express looks like Swallow and regional (or suburban) would be like BR^▸ (British Rail(ways)) blue&grey).

I would also ban LNER^» (London North Eastern Railway - about) from using red as a main colour when their stock is due a repaint and move that colour back to it's rightful home on the WCML^▸ (West Coast Main Line).

I wouldn't mind too much if there were no regional variations though as that would make it easy to share stock between regions and allow more through services between regions.

And with regard to stripes, GWR have reintroduced them on their latest Castle Class livery - silver for bikes & blue for accessible facilities.

I hope though that they are more conspicuous than the "silver" (grey?) ones on green turbos, which are barely visible. A standard broad yellow would be better.

I agree that a standard broad yellow stripe for first class should be reintroduced. However, I would hope that the castle sets don't have such stripes because, unless I'm mistaken, there is no first class on the castle sets.

[broadgage]

Agree yellow stripe for first class, as used in the past.
Red stripe for catering, as used in the past.
Green stripe for cycle stowage, a logical choice as cycling IS green.
Blue stripe for disabled facilities, a logical choice as already used for disabled parking, and clearly different from the others.

[grahame]

An interesting commentary on choice of colour - Lisa brought this up in a totally different conversation this morning but I thought it could be relevant here.

http://divvyonline.com/tag/color/

Too many times decisions are made based on “What looks good” when the better question should be “What feels right?”

Results from studies like The Interactive Effects of Colors show that the relationship between brands and color hinged on the perceived appropriateness of the color being associated with the particular brand. Basically does the color “fit” what is being sold? Color increases brand recognition by 80% so pay close attention to these color psychology infographics we found.

If you paint your trains a colour that encourages you to salivate, would that help the business case for on-train catering?

[broadgage]

I thought that part of the idea behind the new GBR^▸ (Great British Railways) was to abolish "brand loyalty" or at least strongly discourage same.

Passengers should be thinking of "a train" and not any particular brand thereof.
I do not feel that the introduction of GBR is as revolutionary as some claim, but I welcome it partly for what I hope will be significant cost savings from abolishing "brands, liveries, and design and promotion thereof"

"brand awareness manager" should be one of the first jobs to be abolished, closely followed "product placement manager"

[grahame]

I thought that part of the idea behind the new GBR^▸ (Great British Railways) was to abolish "brand loyalty" or at least strongly discourage same.

Passengers should be thinking of "a train" and not any particular brand thereof.
I do not feel that the introduction of GBR is as revolutionary as some claim, but I welcome it partly for what I hope will be significant cost savings from abolishing "brands, liveries, and design and promotion thereof"

"brand awareness manager" should be one of the first jobs to be abolished, closely followed "product placement manager"

You need to be careful which roles you abolish. From Collateral Damage - an old blog

Douglas Adams right again: Lack of phone sanitizers will doom planet

Researchers have now confirmed Mr. A’s prophecy, finding that the phone is indeed a key spreader of germs. According to Charles Gerba, a microbiologist and clean water expert at the University of Arizona, it’s telephones and computer keyboards that are among the most germ laden spots in any home, not the usual suspects.

You have roles which you might query and wonder if you really need but, my goodness me, we have seen a platoon of people in these previously-ridiculed roles grow to a complete division, and with evidence that we should be very thankful to them.