Should the new livery for trains be a rainbow?

[Gareth]

Or we can make the livery rainbow to show support to sexual minorities.

 

[GrimsbyPacer]

Or we can make the livery rainbow to show support to sexual minorities.

The railways shouldn't be sexualised in any way, trains are for everyone, not just minorities or those that wave flags around. It's a direction that will just lead to more gimmicks, which in the real world mean nothing. My town hall often flies varying flags like that, such as the Commonwealth or Union Flag for example, it has absolutely zero effect on anyone except for those that already support it or hate it, I am not a unionist or royalist in any way so the town hall looks slightly more antagonistic due to the flag than before it became daily flying.
Rainbow livery would almost be equivalent to sticking fingers up at religious minorities in varying islamic and christian churches, both groups are often demonised every day on social media for their beliefs, it would not help them feel better in trains had crosses and crucifixes on would it? Same is true for rainbows for sexual minorities.

Highlighting differences does not help minorities, it makes them targets, and it spreads alienation.

 

[Gareth]

Post #1 was a tongue-in-cheek response to the proposal that trains should be coloured green to make a pro-environment statement. I thought this would be obvious but going by Post #2, evidently not.

Now it even has its own thread!

Shame there's no poll.

 

[Bletchleyite]

The purpose of the livery is marketing, i.e. to attract more journeys to rail (and keep them there). Otherwise it might as well just be plain white with PRM door highlights (as per say Thameslink which doesn't really do much in the way of marketing as most of its market is captive anyway).

Thus, the answer to the question is the same as "does it attract more passengers or retain the existing ones better"? Worth bearing in mind is that however unsavoury I might think their view is, we do want homophobes and "gammons" to travel by rail as well because their cars do harm to others. I'd also like to see them change their views, but that isn't really the railway's role.

By contrast the odd "Pride livery" is cool and unlikely to affect who travels.

 

[Gareth]

Isn't "gammon" merely a pejorative term for a middle-aged white man with socially conservative views? Seems a bit unfair to equate them with homophobes.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Isn't "gammon" merely a pejorative term for a white man with socially conservative views? Seems a bit unfair to equate them with homophobes.

It's not really unfair in the context of Pride liveries as both will likely object to them though possibly for slightly different motivations.

 

[61653 HTAFC]

The tiny minority of people who would refuse to board a train because it has a pride livery (presumably they're worried they might "catch the gay", or they think that their chosen deity would hold them responsible ) are probably passengers that the railway can do without.

That said, the pride liveries are notable precisely because they're non-standard. If every single train had a rainbow livery, it would cease to make the statement that it tries to make.

 

[Paul Jones 88]

Keep the Pride livery for one member of each Class of unit, all other units should be metallic black with metallic gold doors.

 

[GrimsbyPacer]

Don't think metallic black with gold doors would work well. Easy to imagine a night-time scene at a station with yellow glow lamps and black sky making the train a little hard to notice for some.
Liveries seem to work best with a dark band across the window level on carriages, with lighter colours elsewhere, such as the old Intercity Livery, but doors should indeed be a different colour like the old Central Trains colours.

Isn't the term "gammon" racist? There's certainly no way a none white person with the same views could be called that. People are too fast to label anyone with differing views under a tagline, in a sort of monster-fication. The terms "homophobe" are thrown at people who don't have any hatred, but think that marriage is traditionally a joining of a woman and a man, "transphobe" is thrown at anyone who is concerned that women's rights might be at risk, "woke" on the other side is used on anyone who is offended by something commonplace, and there are many more examples, we need to see others as ordinary people, not as opposing groups.

Labels make people seem unreasonable and alien, when the majority of people are the same, they all buy an overpriced ticket, avoid other passengers if they can, moan about the delays, and get off at their destination. It's only on the internet where people have free reign to shout that discussions and these arguments take place, in the real world we all act virtually the same, politics, sexuality, religion, are all rightly private, even if they do influence us.

Just imagine if ahead of the "Brexit" vote, the government painted a train in EU colours...
Would passengers travel on it like before? Yes.
Would some be smug and others annoyed? Yes.
Would it change anyone's opinion on the subject? No.