Stations rebranded to Great British Railways design / Rail Alphabet 2

[Cardiff123]

ScotRail almost certainly won’t be adopting the new GWR style.

They went through a massive rebranding, re-signing and repainting exercise back in 2010, when they launched the ScotRail brand and stopped letting the franchise holder make these decisions.

ScotRail sign branding

TfW also won't be adopting the GBR branding, as TfW having been going through the same re-branding exercise in Wales since 2018.
TfW chief executive James Price confirmed recently to a Welsh Parliament committee that GBR will have no impact on Welsh Govt's plans to have a unified brand under TfW rolled out across all public transport in Wales.
So the GBR re-brand of stations (and eventually trains) only applies to England.

Williams-Shapps Plan is ‘no threat’ to TfW integration

The creation of Great British Railways (GBR), as outlined in the Williams-Shapps Plan for Rail, will not deflect the Welsh Government’s ambition to integr

www.transportxtra.com

TfW chief warns of tensions with GBR over ticketing and inte

The chief executive of Transport for Wales has revealed potential tensions with the future Great British Railways over ticketing and modal integration.The Wil

www.transportxtra.com

 

[birchesgreen]

TfW also won't be adopting the GBR branding, as TfW having been going through the same re-branding exercise in Wales since 2018.
TfW chief executive James Price confirmed recently to a Welsh Parliament committee that GBR will have no impact on Welsh Govt's plans to have a unified brand under TfW rolled out across all public transport in Wales.
So the GBR stations (and eventually trains) re-brand only applies to England.

What about English stations managed by TfW?

 

[takno]

So the GBR re-brand of stations (and eventually trains) only applies to England.

Which is a pity. I hate the GBR name itself and the transparent attempts to wind the devolved nations up, but the RA2 font and the specifics of the signage are all much clearer and nicer than Scotrail's rather messy font choice and needlessly-heavy bottom branding bar.

 

[dorsetdesiro]

When will Shapps and co will come to their senses and rebrand GBR into two parts - the infrastructure bits and anything linking Scotland & Wales as GBR or retain the Network Rail name then have the English specific parts as "English Railways" or "Rail England"?

I find this galling & conceiting as if England itself does not matter or deemed irrelevant especially with the rebrand of Highways England to National Highways where there already are devolved counterparts operating in other UK nations. This arrogance is pretty evident with their unwillingness to budge on smart motorways.

May have to wait and see whether if a new government, post-Boris/Shapps, will see common sense and accept ScotRail & TfW won't be going anywhere then focus more on English rail matters especially NPR what with the disappointing treatment of Northerners etc.

 

[TT-ONR-NRN]

It should be English Railways if Scotland and Wales are refusing to take it on.

Also, why are so many people keen to put “Rail” first? Rail England sounds rather strange, although I’ve heard worse. I’m sure “BritRail” was a suggestion before.

 

[BeijingDave]

It should be English Railways if Scotland and Wales are refusing to take it on.

Also, why are so many people keen to put “Rail” first? Rail England sounds rather strange, although I’ve heard worse. I’m sure “BritRail” was a suggestion before.

Twenty years from now, it will probably end up some ethereal nonsense like 'Aviva' or 'Diageo'.

 

[thomalex]

It should be English Railways if Scotland and Wales are refusing to take it on.

Also, why are so many people keen to put “Rail” first? Rail England sounds rather strange, although I’ve heard worse. I’m sure “BritRail” was a suggestion before.

It will be GBR that operates the GB wide services however so it makes sense.

 

[Cardiff123]

It should be English Railways if Scotland and Wales are refusing to take it on.

Scotland & Wales are not "refusing" to do anything. Rail services in both nations are devolved, so it's up to the Scottish & Welsh Govts how Rail services that they are responsible for are run. That's the meaning of devolution.
It's Boris Johnson who is at fault for setting out to deliberately wind up the devolved home nation governments by calling the organisation "Great British Railways" as he cannot accept devolution. GBR was only ever going to apply to the DfT specified TOCs.

 

[dorsetdesiro]

For GB wide services such as cross border, ie. currently GWR/AWC/XC to Wales and LNER/AWC/XC to Scotland, could be under a single brand in partnership with SR, TfW and English Rail in a similiar way to "Enterprise" in Ireland by Irish Rail & NI Railways.

The English intercity services - EMR, GA, TPE plus non trans-national parts of GWR, AWC, XC and LNER - branded as "Intercity" or equivalent like ScotRail's "Inter7city".

 

[the sniper]

GBR will have trains serving Inverness, Holyhead, Aberdeen, Camarthen at least and many points between them, so you might as well consider it a Britain wide operator, even leaving aside the infrastructure ownership. Though I'd have called it National Rail, but that wouldn't have worked either with the devolved nations each wanting their own train sets to be considered the true 'National' operator. We don't need yet another brand for Engeeerrland.

Not much point in getting worked up about the GBR 'brand' at the moment, given all we know at the moment is that it'll inherit these bland, utilitarian signs straight out of a late 1960s school of design...

Twenty years from now, it will probably end up some ethereal nonsense like 'Aviva' or 'Diageo'.

Or something proper, like 'Deutsche Bahn'.

 

[StephenHunter]

For GB wide services such as cross border, ie. currently GWR/AWC to Wales and LNER/AWC to Scotland, could be under a single brand in partnership with SR, TfW and English Rail in a similiar way to "Enterprise" in Ireland by Irish Rail & NI Railways

We could call it "Discovery"?

Or just stick with InterCity.

 

[43096]

GBR will have trains serving Inverness, Holyhead, Aberdeen, Camarthen at least and many points between them, so you might as well consider it a Britain wide operator, even leaving aside the infrastructure ownership. Though I'd have called it National Rail, but that wouldn't have worked either with the devolved nations each wanting their own train sets to be consider the true 'National' operator. We don't need yet another brand for Engeeerrland.

Whatever geographic name you give it, there will be complaints: call it GBR and the Welsh and Scottish governments complain it's imposed from Westminster and won't cover their fiefdoms, name it "England Rail" and the Welsh and Scottish governments complain about "England" being used on cross-border services, even though TfW Rail, ScotRail and Caledonian Sleeper do the same.

 

[HarryL]

Whatever geographic name you give it, there will be complaints: call it GBR and the Welsh and Scottish governments complain it's imposed from Westminster and won't cover their fiefdoms, name it "England Rail" and the Welsh and Scottish governments complain about "England" being used on cross-border services, even though TfW Rail, ScotRail and Caledonian Sleeper do the same.

Or just continue the National Rail name people are familiar with and have none of those issues.

 

[py_megapixel]

Or just continue the National Rail name people are familiar with and have none of those issues.

"But which nation?" people will say.

 

[43096]

Or just continue the National Rail name people are familiar with and have none of those issues.

Agreed. But we have a Brexit Government that wants to wrap itself in the flag at every opportunity.

 

[TT-ONR-NRN]

Whatever geographic name you give it, there will be complaints: call it GBR and the Welsh and Scottish governments complain it's imposed from Westminster and won't cover their fiefdoms, name it "England Rail" and the Welsh and Scottish governments complain about "England" being used on cross-border services, even though TfW Rail, ScotRail and Caledonian Sleeper do the same.

That's just it, in that people say Great British Railways cannot be named after England as current XC/VT/GR/LD/TP services cross into Scotland and XC/GW/VT cross into Wales, but Transport for Wales operate a vast amount of their trains within England, such as Shrewsbury/Chester - Birmingham/Manchester/Liverpool, and even their North - South Wales services which traverse through Hereford, Shrewsbury and Chester. Crewe - Chester and Crewe - Shrewsbury don't even cross into Wales! I think it's hypocritical.

 

[PlatformEdgeVT]

I'm pretty sure I've seen those new signs at Alderley Edge, though I do find them a bit bland. At least they do their jobs.

 

[dorsetdesiro]

"AngloRail - Hyns Horn Sowsnek - England's Railway" anyone??

 

[takno]

Whatever geographic name you give it, there will be complaints: call it GBR and the Welsh and Scottish governments complain it's imposed from Westminster and won't cover their fiefdoms, name it "England Rail" and the Welsh and Scottish governments complain about "England" being used on cross-border services, even though TfW Rail, ScotRail and Caledonian Sleeper do the same.

Realistically it's the cheesy use of "Great" in there that presents the problem. "British Rail" wouldn't have annoyed anybody.

 

[43096]

Realistically it's the cheesy use of "Great" in there that presents the problem. "British Rail" wouldn't have annoyed anybody.

The problem with "British Rail" is the baggage it has having been used in the past and we can't have that in the shiny new world, can we?

 

[takno]

The problem with "British Rail" is the baggage it has having been used in the past and we can't have that in the shiny new world, can we?

Meanwhile "Great British" carries the baggage of pound shops and tentfuls of clueless amateurs having a go at baking. I reckon most people have actually developed a rather rose-tinted view of British Rail over time, to the extent where they'd probably have popped out and banged a pan in support of it.

Still, we are where we are. The "GBR" signage contains nothing other than the arrow symbol to indicate GBR, so really the only reason not to use it in Scotland is because ScotGov wrongly believe their own signage to be better.

 

[domcoop7]

Once again, Railway Transport is not a devolved competence in either Scotland or Wales (it is of course in Northern Ireland). I can show you the specific schedules of the Scotland Act / Government in Wales Act if you wish.

The arrangements for the selection of the operation of the Scottish, Scottish Sleeper, and Welsh passenger services is what is devolved. But the railways system itself is run by the UK government. The UK government is made up of members of Parliament and the House of Lords who are elected by / appointed from people who live everywhere in the UK including in Wales and Scotland.

So if the UK government who runs and owns the railways system in the UK (which includes Wales and Scotland) wishes to brand its system as "Great British Railways" it is perfectly entitled to do so. It is not an "insult" to Nicola Sturgeon or the Welsh Government or anybody else.

Likewise, as has been pointed out, the Scottish railway passenger service (controlled by the Scottish government) is perfectly entitled to brand itself as whatever it wants. Even if it runs services to Carlisle in England. Putting "Scotland's Railway" on services to Carlisle is not an "insult" to Cumberland County Council (as Carlisle's local government is going to be known in April next year) any more than the only railway running between certain stations in England being called "Transport for Wales" is an insult to Shropshire Council.

We haven't seen any concrete plans yet, but what has been released suggests that passenger ticketing (which includes Wales and Scotland and isn't AFAIK devolved other than that the local operators obviously set and sell their own fares under the current system) and branding of Network Rail assets (which includes Glasgow Central, Edinburgh Waverley and Cardiff Central as well as numerous bridges and level crossings in Scotland and Wales) will all be under the GB Railways umbrella.

Are people seriously suggesting that the main website for buying rail tickets in Aberdeen*, the entrance Glasgow Central and Network Rail's signalling training centre in Newport should all have signs saying "Welcome to Rail England!" blazoned across them??????

[* although it wouldn't surprise me if the devolved admins try to stop interoperability of GB rail ticketing so that only a Scotrail bought ticket is valid in Scotland and a ticket sold by TfW is valid on TfW services]

 

[BeijingDave]

"But which nation?" people will say.

We did invent the railways, so there is a reasonable case for it, in much the same way as 'The Football Association' (where other countries have their name in theirs).

 

[JaJaWa]

This thread is for listing stations rebranded to the Great British Railways design / Rail Alphabet 2

For other related threads see the compendium

 

[urbophile]

So if the UK government who runs and owns the railways system in the UK (which includes Wales and Scotland) wishes to brand its system as "Great British Railways" it is perfectly entitled to do so. It is not an "insult" to Nicola Sturgeon or the Welsh Government or anybody else.

Non sequitur.

 

[Goldfish62]

The Settle and Carlisle line stations certainly looked good with the new plain branding when I used the route a few weeks ago! The Northern branding would’ve got lost in the surroundings.

Personally I think they look awful. They give a run-down impression reminiscent of when it looked like the line was going to close in the 1980s. The stations could do with some specially branded signage that compliments them.

 

[PlatformEdgeVT]

Personally I think they look awful. They give a run-down impression reminiscent of when it looked like the line was going to close in the 1980s. The stations could do with some specially branded signage that compliments them.

Maybe if they advertised local landmarks?

 

[Neptune]

Personally I think they look awful. They give a run-down impression reminiscent of when it looked like the line was going to close in the 1980s. The stations could do with some specially branded signage that compliments them.

The Regional Railways signs had either the Yorkshire Dales National Park signage on the left hand side (as far as Ribblehead or Dent, can’t remember which) with the Cumbria council logo thereafter. They looked pretty good.

Maybe if they advertised local landmarks?

Information overload. Put those outside the station but not on the nameboards.

 

[PlatformEdgeVT]

In my opinion, local landmark signs look quite good. Port Sunlight (Merseyrail) is a good example.

 

[Neptune]

In my opinion, local landmark signs look quite good. Port Sunlight (Merseyrail) is a good example.

Are they separate to the station nameboards? It’s just that I took it from your previous post to put these local landmark signs on the nameboards as it was criticism of the plain ones on the S&C that was being discussed at the time.

I have no problem with separate signs, just not clogging up information signs.