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Should the Wales and Borders franchise be branded differently e.g. 'Wales & Borders'?

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cjp4

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I’ve been following the developments of the new franchise for a while now on this forum. Never had anything to contribute so have happily been reading along. This and the “Bi-Lingual” thread is not the most enjoyable read, I do find some of the comments regarding the Welsh language distasteful and mean spirited. I have my opinions on its use but the fact of the matter is in Wales it’s part of daily life to see things in two languages and in for one enjoy it even if my knowledge of the language is limited. I’ve never missed a train, got lost in the station or anywhere else because of it regardless of which one is “first”. Across the border fair enough, shouldn’t be on everything, branding aside, but when GWR don’t have the courtesy to programme bilingual announcements (don’t know if it’s techinaly possible but not for me to know) past the Severn Tunnel on the IETs that service the majority of intercity travel in South Wales then it’s swings and roundabouts.

Moving onto the branding of this franchise, this is pure speculation on my part but I think the peices fit together.

On the launch documents, statements etc we saw rolling stock mock ups branded as Wales & Borders on the CAF & 230s and Metro on the Stadlers. We saw mentions of WCB and CVL, Wales and Cross Border, South Wales Metro. All very separate identities. We have that stipulation from the DfT (who from reading this forum seem less than botherd with the Borders element anyway) on branding. We also have the Cymru a’r Gororau / Wales & Boarders trade mark at the IPO mentioned above.

Could it be that like TFL Rail, this is a temporary branding solution, covering all the services until the “brand new” trains and improvements come online. Just like TFL they didn’t want to brand the individual segments as Crossrail/Elizabeth line until the promised full service is launched. From a PR perspective it helps keep the old basic service separate from the new desirable one. So we see TfW on everything until the Metro launches and we have a differentiation. Metro on one hand with its own destinctive brand and Wales & Borders coverings the traditional network.

It makes sense from a practical perspective too, one set of stickers to plaster all over stations in a short space of time instead of two, get the TfW name out there so people can see change is coming and yes alows the Welsh Government a bit of bragging rights about what they’ve achieved.

That’s just my thinking on this one, could be completely wrong ... back to reading and hopeing the conversation gets back to things other than a name.
 
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43096

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There is nothing 'pathetic' about it. You obviously believe that 'English' is the only language that matters. Stick to that belief and 'win friends and influence people'. There is nothing more 'pathetic' than that. On the other hand, you could always send a Gunboat up the Taff to keep the natives quiet but just like the rest of the Empire you might get a rather unwelcome reception.
n
For the record the “pathetic” was in response to your use of “apartheid” and “empire”.

You are assuming an awful lot about me and what I think. I actually think that both languages should be used, just that for announcements in predominantly English speaking areas then English should be announced first. I would use the Swiss model as the way of doing things, in German speaking areas, they announce in German first, French areas French first etc etc. All very logical and practical, whilst still respecting the different languages and cultures.
 

craigybagel

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"Transport for Wales apologises for the delay and any inconvenience caused".
This was repeatedly announced at Crewe today regarding a late running Manchester service.
There's no hiding place for WG now, without a punch-ball private firm to blame.
When the train finally showed up, it was the newly rebranded 175 107, looking very smart.
The staff uniforms are very - grey.
It's hard picking them out from everybody wearing a grey suit.
This morning's TfW service from Flint had a conductor who greeted everybody with a cheery Bore Da.
He also used both Welsh and English forms of TfW to thank people for travelling, and for the first time ever called off all the connections at Chester with times and platforms.
I've also seen 3 people today still in ATW uniforms.
There was no flag on top of Chester station (used to say Arriva).

Staff haven't got new uniforms yet - it's just the old Arriva uniform with a new tie and name badge.

The excellent on board announcements won't be anything to do with the new regime - plenty of us have been doing that kind of thing at Chester and other stations, and there are several Welsh speaking guards along the coast who enjoy doing bilingual announcements, even on the Crewe Chester shuttle
 
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pemma

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Can you please produce your evidence for that statement?

I've not sure the report is still on line but someone once posted a link to a report on here which shows Manchester-Shrewsbury and Manchester-Chester are profitable, despite the franchise as a whole being loss making.
 

pemma

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It makes sense from a practical perspective too, one set of stickers to plaster all over stations in a short space of time instead of two, get the TfW name out there so people can see change is coming and yes alows the Welsh Government a bit of bragging rights about what they’ve achieved.

You could ask why should we brand stations for specific franchises at all, especially if they don't operate all services from a particular station. By all means have TOC branding on the screens of TVMs and at ticket offices so people know who they are buying tickets off but why brand the station signage only for it to change when the franchise ends or when a franchise map gets redrawn?
 

43096

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You could ask why should we brand stations for specific franchises at all, especially if they don't operate all services from a particular station. By all means have TOC branding on the screens of TVMs and at ticket offices so people know who they are buying tickets off but why brand the station signage only for it to change when the franchise ends or when a franchise map gets redrawn?
Spot on! Black rail alphabet lettering on white board worked.
 

neontrix

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Spot on! Black rail alphabet lettering on white board worked.

I believe the 'Better Rail Stations' report by Chris Green and Sir Peter Hall recommended uniform, non-branded signage across the network, albeit using network rail signage standards and their Brunel font rather than Rail Alphabet. Seems like a decent suggestion to me.
 

cjp4

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You could ask why should we brand stations for specific franchises at all, especially if they don't operate all services from a particular station. By all means have TOC branding on the screens of TVMs and at ticket offices so people know who they are buying tickets off but why brand the station signage only for it to change when the franchise ends or when a franchise map gets redrawn?
I feel it’s part and parcel of the franchise system, you operate the station so your sinage will fit your corporate identity and brand guidelines, even the Network Rail operated stations have uniformity and brand colours to adhere too along with the Newtork Rail logo on many a sign. I do enjoy a journey on XC, as you travel through different TOCs areas, seeing each of the stations change in colour until I hit the (soon to be red) torquoise of stations in Wales.
 

Llanigraham

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I've not sure the report is still on line but someone once posted a link to a report on here which shows Manchester-Shrewsbury and Manchester-Chester are profitable, despite the franchise as a whole being loss making.

So in other words you can't prove it.
Perhaps you should ensure that your facts are correct before making wild statements.
 

pemma

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So in other words you can't prove it.
Perhaps you should ensure that your facts are correct before making wild statements.

The fact is/was* correct, it's just I have no idea where the link to the report is now as it was a couple of years ago and the Wales & Borders franchise has been mentioned in so many different threads, it might have even been in a thread that got deleted because I'm pretty what followed was a load of posts about the English subsiding loss making Welsh lines. You can't accuse someone of making wild statements because they post a fact and don't have a link to a source.

* Depending if the figures have changed since the report was written.
 

142Pilot

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I recall that report, and the point of Chester - Manchester and Chester - Crewe being the only profit making lines.

If the Welsh government wants it's trainset to be solely for Wales then surely it would want to jettison the English bits to deliver a World class franchise. The basket case that is the valleys and ridiculous WAG express.

Or in reality it was to suckle on the English profit making teat whilst proclaiming to serve the people of wales.

Signed, an Englishman in England with a Transport for Wales ran station.
 

LNW-GW Joint

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I don't think there are any figures on individual services within the W&B (or any other) franchise.
There is so much intertwining of cross-border journeys that it is impossible to disentangle individual bits of through routes.
What is clear is that it makes no sense to split services at Chester and Shrewsbury, and it would just put costs up.
I've never thought of Manchester-Shrewsbury (as opposed to Manchester-Cardiff) as a particularly busy section.
Manchester-Chester is already split between W&B and Northern via Northwich, with the Connect service from Leeds to come.
Cardiff-Abergavenny is at least as busy as Manchester-Chester.
If anything, Shrewsbury-Hereford is the quietist bit of Cardiff-Manchester/Holyhead.
And I should think Shrewsbury-Birmingham is consistently the busiest W&B route in England, which is why 4-car trains are never enough.
 

uxm

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I’ve been following the developments of the new franchise for a while now on this forum. Never had anything to contribute so have happily been reading along. This and the “Bi-Lingual” thread is not the most enjoyable read, I do find some of the comments regarding the Welsh language distasteful and mean spirited. I have my opinions on its use but the fact of the matter is in Wales it’s part of daily life to see things in two languages and in for one enjoy it even if my knowledge of the language is limited. I’ve never missed a train, got lost in the station or anywhere else because of it regardless of which one is “first”. Across the border fair enough, shouldn’t be on everything, branding aside, but when GWR don’t have the courtesy to programme bilingual announcements (don’t know if it’s techinaly possible but not for me to know) past the Severn Tunnel on the IETs that service the majority of intercity travel in South Wales then it’s swings and roundabouts.

Moving onto the branding of this franchise, this is pure speculation on my part but I think the peices fit together.

On the launch documents, statements etc we saw rolling stock mock ups branded as Wales & Borders on the CAF & 230s and Metro on the Stadlers. We saw mentions of WCB and CVL, Wales and Cross Border, South Wales Metro. All very separate identities. We have that stipulation from the DfT (who from reading this forum seem less than botherd with the Borders element anyway) on branding. We also have the Cymru a’r Gororau / Wales & Boarders trade mark at the IPO mentioned above.

Could it be that like TFL Rail, this is a temporary branding solution, covering all the services until the “brand new” trains and improvements come online. Just like TFL they didn’t want to brand the individual segments as Crossrail/Elizabeth line until the promised full service is launched. From a PR perspective it helps keep the old basic service separate from the new desirable one. So we see TfW on everything until the Metro launches and we have a differentiation. Metro on one hand with its own destinctive brand and Wales & Borders coverings the traditional network.

It makes sense from a practical perspective too, one set of stickers to plaster all over stations in a short space of time instead of two, get the TfW name out there so people can see change is coming and yes alows the Welsh Government a bit of bragging rights about what they’ve achieved.

That’s just my thinking on this one, could be completely wrong ... back to reading and hopeing the conversation gets back to things other than a name.
The TFL model is the same as this model, MTR operates TFL Rail on behalf on TFL whilst KeolisAmey operates TFWrail on behalf of TFW, KeolisAmey is just the operator.

{https://twitter.com/tfwrail/status/1051488036977078273]
Hi Liam, Keolis Amey will be operating the service on behalf of Transport for Wales. There is a profit cap with money made being reinvested back in to transport. More details here https://tfw.gov.wales/news-events/new-era-rail-services-transport-wales-almost-here-what-does-it-mean-passengers?platform=hootsuite … ^Liv
 
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uxm

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I’ve been following the developments of the new franchise for a while now on this forum. Never had anything to contribute so have happily been reading along. This and the “Bi-Lingual” thread is not the most enjoyable read, I do find some of the comments regarding the Welsh language distasteful and mean spirited. I have my opinions on its use but the fact of the matter is in Wales it’s part of daily life to see things in two languages and in for one enjoy it even if my knowledge of the language is limited. I’ve never missed a train, got lost in the station or anywhere else because of it regardless of which one is “first”. Across the border fair enough, shouldn’t be on everything, branding aside, but when GWR don’t have the courtesy to programme bilingual announcements (don’t know if it’s techinaly possible but not for me to know) past the Severn Tunnel on the IETs that service the majority of intercity travel in South Wales then it’s swings and roundabouts.

Moving onto the branding of this franchise, this is pure speculation on my part but I think the peices fit together.

On the launch documents, statements etc we saw rolling stock mock ups branded as Wales & Borders on the CAF & 230s and Metro on the Stadlers. We saw mentions of WCB and CVL, Wales and Cross Border, South Wales Metro. All very separate identities. We have that stipulation from the DfT (who from reading this forum seem less than botherd with the Borders element anyway) on branding. We also have the Cymru a’r Gororau / Wales & Boarders trade mark at the IPO mentioned above.

Could it be that like TFL Rail, this is a temporary branding solution, covering all the services until the “brand new” trains and improvements come online. Just like TFL they didn’t want to brand the individual segments as Crossrail/Elizabeth line until the promised full service is launched. From a PR perspective it helps keep the old basic service separate from the new desirable one. So we see TfW on everything until the Metro launches and we have a differentiation. Metro on one hand with its own destinctive brand and Wales & Borders coverings the traditional network.

It makes sense from a practical perspective too, one set of stickers to plaster all over stations in a short space of time instead of two, get the TfW name out there so people can see change is coming and yes alows the Welsh Government a bit of bragging rights about what they’ve achieved.

That’s just my thinking on this one, could be completely wrong ... back to reading and opening the conversation gets back to things other than a name.
Further to your point it does make sense for the south wales metro as TFWrail branding is being used which will eventually be replaced by Metro branding, wrexham- bidston will become the north-east wales metro, those are the only 2 rebrands I am aware of.
 

U-Bahnfreund

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Austrian Federal Railways operate services from Germany to Switzerland. Deutsche Bahn manages quite a number of stations in North-Western Switzerland. All of Liechtenstein's stations and trains are operated by ÖBB as well. Hessische Landesbahn operates services within North Rhine-Westphalia, etc. Watching interestingly from the continent, I don't really see what the argument is about.

But I have to say TfW vs. TfW Rail might not be clear to everybody and their PR team doesn't really help. On Twitter both @transport_wales and @tfwrail tweet about the new rail franchise and, it seems, regularily, @transport_wales has to redirect messages to @tfwrail . Seems a bit like the Virgin Trains vs. Virgin Trains East Coast Twitter chaos coming back
 

pemma

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I can't think of one that fits that description. Can you please enlighten us?

The hourly Chester-Crewe, the Crewe-Shrewsbury shuttle (although not quite a service every 2 hours like it used to be), the peak time extras between Chester and Manchester and numerous early/late services.
 

Stevec101

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It's clear there are strong arguments on both sides.

On the one hand, the franchise has been set up and awarded by the Welsh Government, so transport for Wales seems like an appropriate title. It's true that people rarely complained about the previous franchise holder running exclusively English services whilst still incorporating the word "Wales" in its title. It's also true that some services will be serving areas where Welsh is the first language for many of the population - maybe not as many as certain folk in Cardiff Bay would like, but enough that some arrangement for their needs should be catered for (although I am a little worried about how long the automatic announcements will be if they're going to be bi-lingual).

But the fact is, as pointed out by Dai Corner and Envoy,


And clearly "Transport for Wales" does not comply with that. Personally, being aware of the requirements of that act I was very surprised when it became obvious that TfW was the everyday brand name we were all going to be expected to use.

Regardless of the rights and wrongs of the name (and personally I find it odd, but no more odd then countless other things on the British railway network) - I do fear that there are strong grounds for objection, and potentially an enforced change of branding, which isn't going to please passengers or indeed achieve anything much other then confusion.



You can suspect all you want - neither of those things are going to happen.

Says who?? Do you want to put a wager on it?
 

Stevec101

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Says who?? Do you want to put a water on it?

Wager
Which means the meaning of the term London has changed within the lifetime of some rail users, you can't say the same about Wales or England.



Yet the most lucrative flows in the franchise relate to the routes the franchise operates in England.

Lol operating services to massive cities like Manchester Bristol or tourist destination like Chester in England are clearly the lucrative bits of the franchise. But you'll upset the Welsh by stating the obvious lol. Nobody wanted to operate this franchise most of it is very scenic but not very lucrative
 

Dai Corner

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Lol operating services to massive cities like Manchester Bristol or tourist destination like Chester in England are clearly the lucrative bits of the franchise. But you'll upset the Welsh by stating the obvious lol. Nobody wanted to operate this franchise most of it is very scenic but not very lucrative

TfW don't serve Bristol (though they'd like to). Maybe once the Filton four-tracking is complete.
 

Gareth Marston

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Lol operating services to massive cities like Manchester Bristol or tourist destination like Chester in England are clearly the lucrative bits of the franchise. But you'll upset the Welsh by stating the obvious lol. Nobody wanted to operate this franchise most of it is very scenic but not very lucrative

Keolis, MTR and Abeilio wanted to run it. 3's not bad given the trouble DfT are having to find bidders for those lucrative English franchises.....

And is that the massive city of Bristol whose central station generates 11.3 million footfall compared to Cardiff Centrals 12.5 million footfall?
 
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transmanche

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Are you saying they branded buses in London as Merseyside Transport Limited in big large letters?
They branded them as MTL London. No-one would ever brand anything as Merseyside Transport Limited - very few companies indicate their legal status as part of their branding.

If not what point are you trying to make?
The point I am making is that your 'objections' are nonsensical... :rolleyes:

The Scotrail website is advertised as scotrail.co.uk and appears in Google as such, you can have multiple domains all pointing to the same website.
And? The Scottish Government website used to be advertised with a gov.uk address, now they advertise it with a .scot URL. Who knows what Scotrail might use as their 'primary' website address in future.

Using tfwrail.wales as the URL for their English website also allows them to advertise trctrenau.cymru for their Welsh-language website, making it clear which language you're going to see from the off.
 
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Dai Corner

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Keolis, MTR and Abeilio wanted to run it. 3's not bad given the trouble DfT are having to find bidders for those lucrative English franchises.....

From the franchisee's point of view the profitability is at least as much to do with the subsidy available as the revenue from fares.
 

uxm

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https://www.pressreader.com/uk/rail-uk/20170830/282462824062593
Transport for Wales' aim is to become a counterpart to Transport for London, awarding contracts for rail and (where appropriate) other transport modes with a single overarching....
tfw unveiled that they will use their brand in August 2017 It's also been on the wiki page since August 2017, this was known for a while it is irrelevant who won the franchise to the brand.
 
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craigybagel

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Says who?? Do you want to put a wager on it?

As you pointed out straight after asking me that question....

Lol operating services to massive cities like Manchester Bristol or tourist destination like Chester in England are clearly the lucrative bits of the franchise. But you'll upset the Welsh by stating the obvious lol. Nobody wanted to operate this franchise most of it is very scenic but not very lucrative

The Manchester run is one of the few lucrative routes in the franchise. Why would they give it up? And if they were planning on giving it up, why have they ordered 1st class units specifically for that service? And other then enthusiast wibble, where has there been a suggestion that LNWR want the Crewe - Manchester path? As for Crewe - Shrewsbury, feel free to check out the various threads where I've explained in great detail why all you'll do by transferring it to another franchise is increase costs, potentially make the service worse during disruption, and in return achieve absolutely nothing.
 

mmh

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I don't know the exact TfL arrangements but I'd suggest it's very different. The Greater London boundary has moved as London has expanded, plus London is the biggest place TfL serve - Birmingham is the biggest place TfW serve and that's neither in Wales nor close to the boundary, plus the Wales/England boundary doesn't move as one country expands.

London Underground has served places outside London for an awful lot longer than the Wales word was ever used for a train that happened to be in, err, Wales.

TFL services go beyond the GLA area, and nobody cares. Except I did, it was really convenient for many when Caterham was brought into the TFL zones. Nobody thought it should be called Transport for Surrey instead.
 

transmanche

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But the fact is, as pointed out by Dai Corner and Envoy,
The Government of Wales Act 2006/Railways Act 2005 (Page 36) states:

Welsh Ministers shall ensure that the Brand Guidelines developed with and issued to the Franchisee on trains, stations and for marketing material and publicity (excluding that for Wales-only services), shall recognise and demonstrate the cross-border nature of the Franchise and continue to comply with any licensing requirements regarding the use of trademarks licensed by the Secretary of State to Welsh Ministers.

And clearly "Transport for Wales" does not comply with that.
There's one thing that everyone seems to have missed. Sub-brands.

In volume 5 of the ITT, the Welsh Government noted under section 6: Branding:
6.4 Brands and sub-brands are currently being developed for Transport for Wales that the ODP will be required to use.
and
6.5 A high-level "Branding and Placemaking Vision" document has been provided to you. As indicated, this is a high level vision document that includes the 'look and feel' of the Authority's brand including its high-level application. It shows basic examples of the brand's application, as well as sub-brands and the brand hierarchy. It is not intended to be full guidelines and work will continue to develop the brand before and after contract award.
It's fairly obvious that South Wales Metro will be one of these sub-brands, as will North East Wales Metro. Mock-ups we have seen suggest that Wales and Borders will be another sub-brand. And doubtless the TrawsCymru bus network will eventually be merged in as another sub-brand.

It's exactly how TfL have Underground, Overground, Buses, DLR, TfL Rail, Victoria Coach Station, etc as sub-brands.

Having far too much time on my hands I have written to TfW (copy to my AM) asking them to confirm the (UK) Secretary of State is happy with the brand and there is no danger of having to change it in the future, incurring more expense.
I suspect that you might get a better result if you made an FoI request to get a copy of the Brand Guidelines mentioned in the quote above - assuming they are complete. That way, there'll actually be some factual information to speculate about - not just wibble.

Who knows, we may learn that we've all over-reacted to a misunderstanding somewhere along the line.
We will indeed.

Some of the comments on this thread have bordered on the hysterical. It's going to take up to two years for stations such as Chester and Shrewsbury to receive a full re-brand. Yet less than a week into the franchise, we have people foaming at the mouth without even knowing what they are angry about!
 

Dai Corner

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I suspect that you might get a better result if you made an FoI request to get a copy of the Brand Guidelines mentioned in the quote above - assuming they are complete. That way, there'll actually be some factual information to speculate about - not just wibble.

I asked for a copy of the Guidelines too. I may make an FoI if they're not forthcoming.

I hadn't thought about sub-brands, but there's no sign of one for stations outside Wales or for trains that call at them so far.
 

pemma

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They branded them as MTL London. No-one would ever brand anything as Merseyside Transport Limited - very few companies indicate their legal status as part of their branding.

The point I am making is that your 'objections' are nonsensical... :rolleyes:

And? The Scottish Government website used to be advertised with a gov.uk address, now they advertise it with a .scot URL. Who knows what Scotrail might use as their 'primary' website address in future.

Using tfwrail.wales as the URL for their English website also allows them to advertise trctrenau.cymru for their Welsh-language website, making it clear which language you're going to see from the off.

MTL used Mersey in some of their brand names but only the ones operating in Merseyside, which is a point you seem to be struggling to understand.

If the Wales & Border franchise has used tfwrail.co.uk and trctrenau.co.uk I can just see all the passengers going to the wrong sites and being unable to see the button to change the language :roll:

If you email them on the .Wales address you get an auto response including Welsh language.
 
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pemma

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https://www.pressreader.com/uk/rail-uk/20170830/282462824062593 tfw unveiled that they will use their brand in August 2017 It's also been on the wiki page since August 2017, this was known for a while it is irrelevant who won the franchise to the brand.

The original train mockup they produced had their T logo but said Wales and Borders not Transport for Wales, which led to a lot of people asking what is the large T for.
 

pemma

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Austrian Federal Railways operate services from Germany to Switzerland. Deutsche Bahn manages quite a number of stations in North-Western Switzerland. All of Liechtenstein's stations and trains are operated by ÖBB as well. Hessische Landesbahn operates services within North Rhine-Westphalia, etc. Watching interestingly from the continent, I don't really see what the argument is about.

But I have to say TfW vs. TfW Rail might not be clear to everybody and their PR team doesn't really help. On Twitter both @transport_wales and @tfwrail tweet about the new rail franchise and, it seems, regularily, @transport_wales has to redirect messages to @tfwrail . Seems a bit like the Virgin Trains vs. Virgin Trains East Coast Twitter chaos coming back

If you search for TfW Rail Twitter on Google the first result is currently @transport_wales with @tfwrail not appearing on the first page.
 
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