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  1. H

    Built environment discussion

    I think it's desperately depressing that five of the six buildings are in London. It's a similar pattern every year, although not usually this extreme. Reading the AJ and other industry sources gives a similar impression of a design community that overwhelmingly focuses on the capital and puts...
  2. H

    Station announcer phraseology no longer used

    Not of great vintage, but I think these phrasings died out about ten years ago - "Please note that this train is today in reverse formation. First class is situated at the rear of the train." I don't think announcers talk about 'train formation' these days. (Edit: apparently they still do!)...
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    Greater Manchester has "ambitions" for devolution of some local rail services from 2025

    I really like the yellow trams! To my eyes, the current livery looks bright, upbeat, and modern. I vaguely recall reading that the designers chose yellow because they believed it would add a splash of colour that would bright up a city stereotypically associated with gloomy clouds and red...
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    If the last of the BR steam engines had been allowed to live out their natural lifespan, when would they have been withdrawn?

    What a fascinating photo! I find something a bit eerily/unsettling about the BR double-arrow on steam locomotives - there's something very uncanny/anachronistic about it. I love both steam and the double-arrow symbol, but the combination of two feels weird.
  5. H

    Stations rebranded to Great British Railways design / Rail Alphabet 2

    While I still feel that GBR signage could use a splash/strip of colour - I still feel it looks a little too austere and 1970s at times - I do think it looks very smart and very clear in this example you've mocked up. This is a big improvement over most TOC signage/wayfinding, at least in terms...
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    Stations rebranded to Great British Railways design / Rail Alphabet 2

    Hmm. I really like Rail Alphabet 2 itself - it's a very crisp and clear typeface which successfully modernises the original. It looks excellent in the white-on-black trial signs at New Street. I do quite like the smaller directional/wayfinding signs at London Euston and Coventry as well...
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    Branding and marketing blunders or failures on the railway.

    I genuinely really like "we're getting there", for precisely the reason that it combines honesty, self-deprecating humour, and a pun on transport. The alternative often seems to be meaningless, feel-good, desperately inoffensive, corporate nonsense like "believe in better" (Sky), "I'm loving...
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    Stations rebranded to Great British Railways design / Rail Alphabet 2

    My gut instinct is that this is just a quick thing done to give the Transition Team a brand mark. GBRTT seems to be an extremely small team grappling with absolutely foundational industry issues - ie the size, shape and structure of the future railway. I get the impression that the work to...
  9. H

    New rail logo for temporary advertising campaign

    I think it looks pretty cool, as long as it's only used as a marketing logo. I agree the blue should be extended to the edge of the arrows. I wouldn't want to see it used for wayfinding/signage/operational purposes, and I'm almost certain it won't be, because it's too cluttered/busy for those...
  10. H

    Which lines are currently breaking even?

    Is it true that the railway as a whole doesn't even really know this for sure? I'm sure I remember hearing somewhere that Northern were 'experimenting' (!!!) with proper profit-and-loss accounting on one of their north-east coastal lines to try and figure out actually what the route/service...
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    Stations rebranded to Great British Railways design / Rail Alphabet 2

    You could say the same about the trains. Why not have them all in plain white? After all, making trains look nice is unnecessary and costs money too... Sometimes I think there's a lingering view (among a small minority) in the industry that the railway should really be engineering-led again...
  12. H

    Stations rebranded to Great British Railways design / Rail Alphabet 2

    I think the problems with RA2 aren't the typeface itself, or even the use of black on white, it's the combination of: not using a bold enough font/weight on signs, particularly station names the absence of any colour on signage I don't think you need full colour signage - ala London Midland...
  13. H

    Face coverings compulsory on public transport in England from 15 June

    The evidence that masks reduce infection rates is quite a bit stronger than some people on here seem to be suggesting. So there is plausible evidence that even cheap surgical masks do have some statistically significant effect on reducing the spread of coronaviruses and influenzas. It is...
  14. H

    VTEC to reduce number of travel centre staff

    Wow, those references to "InterCity" are kind of surreal. For a moment there I could imagine I had stepped into the alternate timeline where BR was never privatised. I know it's technically the franchise name, but "InterCity appear willing to cut..." really takes me back to the 90s!
  15. H

    "The North Of England Is Getting A Rough Deal" discussion

    Absolutely - investing in strategic economic infrastructure in order to encourage private sector growth in post-industrial communities is definitely comparable to communist command economics and China's Cultural Revolution, which resulted in mass starvation, widespread illiteracy, ethnic...
  16. H

    Trouble on the train - would you give a statement?

    Forgive me, because thankfully I've never been witness to any kind of incident like this, but I genuinely don't understand why the majority of witnesses would refuse to aid an investigation into an assault on a member of railway staff. I'm stunned that the majority of witnesses would wash...
  17. H

    Court rules in favour of passenger using a permitted route

    Excuse me for my legal ignorance, and I certainly don't mean to accuse anyone of anything in what I am about to say, but if I have understood the story correctly, it appears to me that FCC have attempted to prosecute a man for fare evasion (fraud?) despite possibly knowing (via an exchange with...
  18. H

    Funding disparity

    These two claims are not true, and as far as I can tell they never have been. London does not make up the majority of passenger bus journeys as you say - in fact, it accounts for about 40%; an impressive figure nonetheless but not quite the clincher you implied. Nor does the London...
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    Could driverless cars replace railways?

    Not that long ago, I remember reading a thread on this forum asking where we all think Britain's railways will be in 50 years; the replies were almost uniformly positive, mostly predicting that patronage will have risen and that several closed lines will have re-opened, both of which sound like...

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