Maybe you't think you'd gone back in time if they brought back blue & yellow IC125s, but I think an ammended INTERCITY Swallow livery would work nicely, see here. The ammendments were partly so it could be done just by changing the stickers on East Coast's new livery and party so that it didn't flout the regulations that state the doors must stand out.
I'm much rather it didn't. Privatisation means alot of the government subisdy towards the railway disappears as profits for the multitude of companies involved, and as wages for the extra delay attribution staff which are necessary because of the number of different companies.
It is regularly announced on board trains approaching interchange stations that passengers should "change here for Intercity and regional rail services": I fail to see what would be wrong with branding the trains with these labels as well rather than with a myriad of ever-changing brand names. "Intercity and regional rail services" tells passengers more about the sort of services being offered than would saying "change here for Virgin and London Midland services" at Birmingham or "East Coast and Northern services" at York, especially when the temporary and impermanent nature of franchises and their holders makes a mockery of any notion of brand permanence or customer loyalty.
Don't be so shy, tell us how you really feel about InterCity livery.
Don't be so shy, tell us how you really feel about InterCity livery.
I think it's folly to suggest that chop-and-change fuzzy and colourful revolving-door of franchise rebranding is superior.
Does anyone really think the London Underground would be better served by having different liveries and brands for each line? Maybe that lovely shade of bright turquoise/green emblazoned on "Arriva Tube Circle" or glowing purple-and-white for "Abellio-Serco Northern Line" perhaps? New logos every five years.
Surely, even the staunchest advocates of the current semi-privatised system can see the advantage in adopting a London buses style uniform livery, with an "operated by ..." badge for corporate identification?
The InterCity brand was one of the very few truly unquestionable successes of British Rail; without getting into another "BR vs NR" debate, I'll simply add that it is disappointing that such a well-known brand was lost.
Agreed, provided the 158s have Wales & West's addition of Alphaline branding (like this). However that livery wouldn't work with contrasting doors, so if we must have contrasting doors put 158s in the silver livery with blue doors and large Alphaline logos instead. Also, if you want to distinguish the regions you could replace the dark grey on the Intercity livery with dark green for GWML (like the Intercity-inspired Great Western Trains livery), and perhaps dark blue for GEML and dark red for WCML.
There are traces of long-gone TOCs still around too. An example I rather like is the Wales & West logo as the screensaver for Aberystwyth's information displays.
Exactly. Intercity should be used as a brand for the WCML, ECML, GWML, MML and GEML express services and the regional railways livery should be brought back for regional services. This serves two purposes, one it allows people to identify what type of service they would board and two it means that come the end of the franchise a huge chunk of it is not wasted changing liveries.
Look at the Scotrail livery now, when first finally loose it and it goes to someone else the livery and corporate identity remain the same barring small "operated by First Group" stickers. No faffing about changing liveries and the identity stays the same and means there should be no confusion amongst the more easily baffelled traveller.
Phil
Exactly. Intercity should be used as a brand for the WCML, ECML, GWML, MML and GEML express services and the regional railways livery should be brought back for regional services. This serves two purposes, one it allows people to identify what type of service they would board and two it means that come the end of the franchise a huge chunk of it is not wasted changing liveries.
Look at the Scotrail livery now, when first finally loose it and it goes to someone else the livery and corporate identity remain the same barring small "operated by First Group" stickers. No faffing about changing liveries and the identity stays the same and means there should be no confusion amongst the more easily baffelled traveller.
Phil
, but a common identity would be a bloody good place to start putting things right.I think if you had the North-South-East-West-Scotrail divisions it would probably be more sensible to have each running INTERCITY services, rather than having IC as a six 'region'. Seeing as you mention a standardised livery though, with regional variations, you could use, say RegionalRailways livery with the blue replaced with:All that needs to be said really. It is, after all, one railway system, however many private fat cats we have playing trains on it. The current set up is utterly confusing and benefits nobody. It isn't just liveries (see current thread about the passenger prosecuted by FCC for boarding their train with a more expensive ticket only valid on a different train, going the same way but run by a different company....sigh :roll
- Four big regional frachises covering southern, northen, eastern and western/wales areas. One common identity, using a common national name such as 'UKRail' or similar (probably best to let 'BR' lie). One standard livery, perhaps with colour variations for each regional TOC, with a small "Operated by xxx" embellishment permitted, along with a 'Southern/Northern/Western & Wales/Eastern" suffix to the national brand name.
- One long distance operator called, horror of horrors, Intercity. This has bags of potential to again become the iconic brand that it once was, in the same way that the US has Amtrack for example. One operator to take care of all IC operations.
- Scotrail of course would remain, being as it is the only sensible example we have of how it should be done.
Common publicity material, a common fares strategy (allowing someone who has a ticket to board a train without having to first decipher which company is operating it this week); essentially, one railway network. Easy.
I suggested dark green for Western because I liked the GWT livery (except the scribble font on the coaches) and because I think it'd suit Wales and much of the current GW franchise area. I included the alternative of chocolate because it is the tradditional western region colour (along with cream of course) on coaching stock.
