Terrible 'advert' from a terrible franchise!

[whole diary]

[JayMac]

Thanks to Railway Eye blog for this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Szh-LrYkmpM

Mr McCririck will be hard pressed to get to Cheltenham on a Reading to Newcastle service!

Oh, and '94 special trains'. Really?

[eightf48544]

Pressumably they expect him to change at New Street going the long way round. I thought that was GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) claim to be the Great Way Round.

Wonder if the Reading Cheltenham fare is cheaper via XC^▸ (Cross Country Trains (franchise)) and New Street?

[Brucey]

Looks like the sort of video that I could have knocked together about 5 years ago in about 20 minutes.  They really could have done much better, especially with a famous face involved.  Perhaps something like this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUemTNZDRXo

At the end, he said something like "book via your search engine at crosscountrytrains.co.uk".  Huh?  Book via your search engine?  Why on earth would Google want to take my booking for a train ticket!

[devon_metro]

Looks like the sort of video that I could have knocked together about 5 years ago in about 20 minutes.  They really could have done much better, especially with a famous face involved.  Perhaps something like this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUemTNZDRXo

At the end, he said something like "book via your search engine at crosscountrytrains.co.uk".  Huh?  Book via your search engine?  Why on earth would Google want to take my booking for a train ticket!

Filmed at Bodmin Road!

As for the search engine thing, that is Cross Country's rather poor marketing strategy "Your search engine"

[Brucey]

As for the search engine thing, that is Cross Country's rather poor marketing strategy "Your search engine"

Ah, yes that makes sense now.  I've never spent much time on XC^▸ (Cross Country Trains (franchise))'s website (thank goodness) so never noticed this before.  Shows how bad the marketing is when potential customers (i.e. me) don't understand what they're saying!

[smokey]

Indeed Jimmy Savile was at Bodmin Road to film the Awayday Ad.
Anyone notice the lack of trees at Bodmin.

On a visit to the B & W steam railway a year or two back I mentioned this Ad to the Member of Station Staff working at Parkway (When did the name change?), who replied "Oh yes I remember that day well"

It came as a surprise to the Staff at Bodmin who had no prior warning of filming. They were issued instuctions to allow the film crew free access, during a break in filming, Jimmy was in the Booking office when a lady asked for Return Tickets  to Leeds for Herself and Husband, Jimmy said "Now how do we Issue this then", and was guided on how to issue the tickets, "We'll make them First Class" said Jimmy "
"I can't afford that"  said the lady,

"You don't worry about that, BR^▸ (British Rail(ways)) is paying for these" Jimmy said and First class returns were issued.

Now this gave the booking clerk Babies how the Hell was he going to explain this Massive Loss on his shift?

It was decided by the station staff that a covering note would just have to do.

Yet at the end of the Day the Booking Clerk's shift Balanced 100%, so who paid for the First Class Tickets?

Jimmy or did he get the Film crew to pay, nobody knows.

Well that's what I was told.

[Brucey]

BR^▸ (British Rail(ways)) did come out with some pretty good adverts.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=igcesxk3Is0
Shown Christmas Day 1988 - an adaptation of Night Mail by W.H. Auden (they kept the first verse and changed the next two):

This is the night mail crossing the border
Bringing the cheque and the postal order
Letters for the rich, letters for the poor
The shop at the corner and the girl next door
Pulling up Beattock, a steady climb
The gradient^s against her but she is on time

Passing the shunter intent on its toil
Moving the coke and the coal and the oil
Girders for bridges, plastic for fridges
Bricks for the site, are required by tonight
Grimy and grey is the engine^s reflection
Down to the docks for the metal collection

The passenger train is full of commuters
Bound for the office to work in computers
The teacher, the doctor, the actor in farce
The typist, the banker, the judge in first class
Reading The Times with a crossword to do
Returning at night on the 6:42

This one was pretty good too, just a shame that a "Train Jam" does actually exist - I was stuck in one last week!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iN7naLLeB0A
I noticed that the first HST^▸ (High Speed Train) you see in this advert is 43078, which I believe is currently in service with FGW^▸ (First Great Western): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ct_VdIc9kN0

What with their Public Information Films (e.g. Robbie, which was mentioned in another thread), the new franchises haven't come anywhere near to BR's quality adverts.

[old original]

At the risk of slightly nicking this thread, but it is about a dodgy advert, tell me, in the ad for Homebase were they make over Carlisle station there is there a slight glimse of what looks like an ex-Wessex unit in one shot. It looks like a 150 in Wessex crimson but you can see the begin of a web address "www.nort.." Did Northern. or somone else up there inherit any ex Wessex units?

[welshman]

BR^▸ (British Rail(ways)) did come out with some pretty good adverts.
Shown Christmas Day 1988 - an adaptation of Night Mail by W.H. Auden (they kept the first verse and changed the next two)

The Auden poem was written for the famous 25 minute 1936 GPO^‡(resolve) Film Unit documentary, also called "Night Mail", which had specially composed music by Benjamin Britten.  I haven't been able to find a web version of the original.

Apparently they sat Auden down and made him "cut and paste" the poem until it fitted the film sequence.

You can hear the steam engine rhythm if you read it aloud. 

Try this bit of the original at the gallop.

Letters of thanks, letters from banks,
Letters of joy from the girl and the boy,
Receipted bills and invitations
To inspect new stock or visit relations,
And applications for situations
And timid lovers' declarations
And gossip, gossip from all the nations,
News circumstantial, news financial,
Letters with holiday snaps to enlarge in,
Letters with faces scrawled in the margin,
Letters from uncles, cousins, and aunts,
Letters to Scotland from the South of France,
Letters of condolence to Highlands and Lowlands
Notes from overseas to Hebrides
Written on paper of every hue,
The pink, the violet, the white and the blue,
The chatty, the catty, the boring, adoring,
The cold and official and the heart's outpouring,
Clever, stupid, short and long,
The typed and the printed and the spelt all wrong.

[Tim]

Yet at the end of the Day the Booking Clerk's shift Balanced 100%, so who paid for the First Class Tickets?

He's a nice man is Sir Jimmy so I'd guess he snuck some money into the till.  Sir Jimmy does at Lots of charity work fro teh hospital in Leeds and talks to all the first year medical students at Leeds University every year to explain what an important job being a doctor is.  Apparently the mature students think that is great, but the 18 year olds and the foreign students who missed out of Jim'll fix it are all thinking "who is the crazy old guy in the tracksuit?"

[thetrout]

There is also this one from BR^▸ (British Rail(ways))...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gclawRWIqK8

Taking the mick out of a certain car manufacturer ad i believe

[Tim]

Thanks Trout,  i remember that first time round.

[JayMac]

Taking the mick out of a couple of car ads it would appear. The fields aflame is from a Peugeot 405 ad from the late 80s, and Papa and Nicole are from a long running series of Renault Clio ads of the 90s.

[Tim]

Papa and Nicole are from a long running series of Renault Clio ads of the 90s.

I'm I imagining it of did some of those adverts feature Reeves and Mortimer?

[JayMac]

You're right Tim, the wedding final^ of the Clio adverts series featured Reeves and Mortimer in a spoof of The Graduate.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DwqEpwO-5PE