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Avanti West Coast rebrand

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RealTrains07

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You surely were not expecting all stations to be fully repainted within a couple of months of the franchise starting?
Well they have been very quick with station name board re brand. Usually it takes new franchises a few months or even up to a year before that process starts happening. Avanti have been very swift so far.
 
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PYROOGOBBO

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sorry if off topic but,

Would it make sense cause avanti look to have a greenish blue, and the voyagers kind of have a goblin face on them, i could call the new avanti voyagers green goblins? :D

that'd be pretty cool
 

Signal Head

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It’s a sign. A sign that needs to be read easily. This is just the latest example of designers being given too much freedom to do as they want with sticky-back plastic.

Can we not just go back to black Rail Alphabet lettering on a white background?

Bring back totems!
 

TT-ONR-NRN

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Another item that has escaped - some of the information displays at Lancaster where displaying "not in service" with a link to the virgin trains website.
I saw that at Crewe only on Tuesday.
 
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tsr

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Another item that has escaped - some of the information displays at Lancaster where displaying "not in service" with a link to the virgin trains website.

Sometimes that’s pretty much hard-wired into the CIS. It’s a fairly notable issue with CIS screens at ex-WAGN stations as well.
 

Merle Haggard

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I noticed a niche element of the rebranding; in some of the 390 toilets there is a large picture printed on the wall panel of a red Virgin Balloon drifting over some savannah somewhere. This has been covered with a balloon shaped sticker, in exactly the same shape and colour, but without the Virgin brand. It even includes the balloon’s reg.!

Somebody had to get those ordered...


There's a lot of posts and several threads...

A photo appeared (post 755) on the closed 'First Trenitalia (Avanti) WCML branding, naming and livery' thread.
They do get peeled off, and further up that thread there's reference to the same thing happening on the East Coast balloons; LNER solution was to replace the whole vinyl.

On the subject of Avanti lavatories; I've noticed this device, which I don't recall seeing in Virgin days

390 Lav.jpg


Is it intended as a solution to the odour, I wonder; the smell does seem to be reduced. And, yes, I should get out more, I know.
 

Merle Haggard

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greaterwest

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Sometimes that’s pretty much hard-wired into the CIS. It’s a fairly notable issue with CIS screens at ex-WAGN stations as well.
I once saw a screen on the c2c network (same model) which lost connection and was showing the firmware build date, some time in 2004! This was in 2016. I wouldn't be surprised if the firmware is no longer available or supported by the original manufacturer.

I believe the WAGN ones just say "Please listen for announcements" with the National Rail telephone number and a link to "www.wagn.co.uk" underneath

For what it's worth, the Virgin Trains / AWC screens are manufactured by the same company as the ex WAGN ones, Data Display (now Daktronics)
 

Furrball

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Thank you- they do look slightly mysterious so I wasn't completely sure of their purpose. I'm also not sure if they have been fitted recently or I've just not noticed them before, but definitely some lavatories (in Pendos) do not have them, and they look new. Credit to Avanti for solving a long standing problem, perhaps.
They started appearing at the end of the Virgin franchise
 

Furrball

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Their first class is inconsistent, and their maintenance of the first carriages is not to the level of Virgin. The napkins on the back of the seats have been removed and only a few have been replaced with Avanti branding, which looks rather sloppy, though the staff and restaurant service/trolley still provides the best first class offering, second only to ex-
LNER and Pullman Dining on GWR.

To encourage upgrades they should be making more of an effort, unless an upgrade is good value on Seatfrog with proper catering and I’m on a crushloaded service I have no reason to want to upgrade to first.

The antimacassar really do seem random through 1st class. The other day I think there was 1 bay of 4 with some slapped on, a couple more random ones and that was it
20200217_082634.jpg
 

Grumpy Git

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Trivial things like headrest covers missing usually indicate bigger problems elsewhere. It's called "attention to detail".
 

47271

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I'm on an evening Euston-Manchester service in First Class right now and we've got maybe 40% antimacassar coverage. The ones that we have are wonky and slapped on.

Now, I don't care about antimacassars. But what sort of shoddy outfit would think that sticking them on here there and wonky is better than none at all?

You can't reach any conclusion other than that they couldn't give a ....

Edit - I stood up to get off shortly after I wrote that, and it's more like 20% of seats have got the covers. Does anyone know what the thinking is here, it's difficult to imagine the reasons for them being so idle on this? Such a bad impression for such a small money saving.
 
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Bletchleyite

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It's just bone idle and an attitude problem, something this awful TOC has had from day one.

How the WCML has declined, going from having two of the best TOCs (Virgin and LM) to two of the worst. (I leave TPE out, as it's gone from being a rubbish TOC with too-short trains to a rubbish TOC with longer ones).

Actually, Avanti is very similar in attitude to TPE - I wonder if that's deliberate?
 

Scotrail314209

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The staff seem to have lost a lot of morale too, particularly on the southern end of the WCML.

Or maybe it’s a scale of grumpiness.

North: Cherry
South: Grumpy

This was on a London - Birmingham return and both crews weren’t the most pleasant except one staff member who gave me two sandwiches
 

tpjm

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The staff seem to have lost a lot of morale too, particularly on the southern end of the WCML.

Or maybe it’s a scale of grumpiness.

North: Cherry
South: Grumpy

This was on a London - Birmingham return and both crews weren’t the most pleasant except one staff member who gave me two sandwiches
I have always found station staff north of Wigan NW to be perfectly pleasant!
 
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It's just bone idle and an attitude problem, something this awful TOC has had from day one.

How the WCML has declined, going from having two of the best TOCs (Virgin and LM) to two of the worst. (I leave TPE out, as it's gone from being a rubbish TOC with too-short trains to a rubbish TOC with longer ones).

Actually, Avanti is very similar in attitude to TPE - I wonder if that's deliberate?
It must be difficult going from a company like Virgin to the greyness of one like First Group, who I imagine are very corporate and rigid.
 

Scotrail314209

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Even then I’ve noticed the social media staff are now very corporate and uptight. Like all the sense of humour has been drained from them
 

6Gman

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It’s a sign. A sign that needs to be read easily. This is just the latest example of designers being given too much freedom to do as they want with sticky-back plastic.

Can we not just go back to black Rail Alphabet lettering on a white background?

And can we just have the station name please? Not "home of Grumbleshire University" and the like.

(Is it Stafford where they show "Stafford. University of Wolverhampton" ? Who thought that was sensible ?)
 

Bletchleyite

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And can we just have the station name please? Not "home of Grumbleshire University" and the like.

(Is it Stafford where they show "Stafford. University of Wolverhampton" ? Who thought that was sensible ?)

LNR have a variant which advertises direct trains to Birmingham International on platforms (and I think stations) which do not have direct trains to Birmingham International.
 

nlogax

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And can we just have the station name please? Not "home of Grumbleshire University" and the like.

We've had to deal with this for at least a decade in SWT / SWR land. Half the stations in suburban SW London are or were sponsored by estate agents..the nearer to Clapham Junction you get the more annoying they become.
 

RealTrains07

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We've had to deal with this for at least a decade in SWT / SWR land. Half the stations in suburban SW London are or were sponsored by estate agents..the nearer to Clapham Junction you get the more annoying they become.
Wouldn’t surprise me if Avanti add new underneath signs
 

vlad

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(Is it Stafford where they show "Stafford. University of Wolverhampton" ? Who thought that was sensible ?)

It is. They had to cover up the "Stafford, home of Staffordshire University" signs with something when it closed.
 

Energy

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Avanti's twitter is a mix of 'call our WiFi Support at', 'we are in someway making you service better' and responding to customers.

In my opinion if the WiFi has its own phone number for support, something is wrong as it is being a pain for many people.

It's been ages since the franchise launch, you don't need to say that the service is being improved in some way in late January when it was announced a little under 2 months ago

The tone of voice when responding to customers sounds like they are bored to me, same generic responses with the sometimes unique one.

It is a big change from Virgin.
 

The Prisoner

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Having been out and about today on Avanti services - albeit just from Chester to Crewe and vv - I was amazed just how little Avanti-isaton there has been after nearly three months.

I know the Voyagers are going, but absolutely zero effort there - the Virgin crest marks still on the front and you could see where the Virgin logo had been removed very clearly on both services I travelled on. Avanti sign stickers at Crewe have been stuck on existing signs with rust....but there was an annoying announcement about downloading their app (seat selector?!)

Sure someone will jump down my throat about what a waste of time, money and effort rebranding trains (especially ones that are going in a few years) is, but it just feels like they have made the absolute minimum effort possible so far.

Rightly or wrongly Virgin felt like a prestigious brand. It had its faults, but it was actually liked by the vast majority of WCML passengers. Avanti feels like a pound shop operator in comparison. Hugely underwhelming.
 
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