Great British Railways: Branding options?

[Sun Chariot]

I think the livery is most likely going to be quite minimalist and contain a lot of white or light grey, with only a splash of red and/or blue thrown in apart from the GBR logo itself.

Ironically, I think GBRf's 66780 has a livery which would look superb as GBR house colours and scheme.
Linked image is 66780 in GBRf "Cemex" garb

66780

GBRf 66780 'The Cemex Express' at Mortimer foot crossing working 4O69 Hams Hall to Southampton Western Docks.

www.flickr.com

 

[Bletchleyite]

It reads like it'll be a 701 that gets the colours if they're talking about launching it on a commuter route - I guess the utilisation of those is so poor they don't have much of an issue keeping a couple out of sight for a couple of days to vinyl them up!

 

[Mrwerdna1]

Ironically, I think GBRf's 66780 has a livery which would look superb as GBR house colours and scheme.
Linked image is 66780 in GBRf "Cemex" garb

66780

GBRf 66780 'The Cemex Express' at Mortimer foot crossing working 4O69 Hams Hall to Southampton Western Docks.

www.flickr.com

Very nice! To be honest, that's probably about as good as you can get with a red, white and blue livery. The problem is, the odds are stacked against this new GBR livery turning out well, especially if they do decide to feature all three colours prominently. In that case, I think it may either turn out pretty dismal or look too similar to the NSE or LU liveries. Now, I happen to like the NSE livery, but many don't. And a livery reminiscent of the tube just wouldn't work, not because it couldn't look good, but largely due to the innate hatred of London that so many in this country have.

A look over at the continent also reveals that liveries prominently featuring red, white and blue are not that common and where they do exist, they're not that aesthetically pleasing in my humble opinion:

 

[Zomboid]

SWT had a good scheme with the red white & blue going on, IMO.
We'll see, if there is a train with a whole new paint job it might not remotely resemble what eventually gets rolled out anyhow.

 

[Sun Chariot]

SWT had a good scheme with the red white & blue going on, IMO.

I think a design taking inspiration from WAGN (linked image brings back memories of my daily commute in the 1990s) and SWT (attached), will still look contemporary and appealing.

317665

WAGN liveried class 317 no 665 at Harlow Town

www.flickr.com

 

[Bletchleyite]

The original Chiltern livery did red, white and blue fairly tastefully. As the two colours clash, I think the best way is for one of them to predominate and the other to just be a small, subtle, highlighting stripe. I have suggested above using the LNER livery but making the grey stripe under the main window band blue instead of grey, and you could perhaps do a reversed version (blue band, red stripe) for regional services.

 

[Mrwerdna1]

The original Chiltern livery did red, white and blue fairly tastefully. As the two colours clash, I think the best way is for one of them to predominate and the other to just be a small, subtle, highlighting stripe. I have suggested above using the LNER livery but making the grey stripe under the main window band blue instead of grey, and you could perhaps do a reversed version (blue band, red stripe) for regional services.

Strongly agree and I think the LNER idea is a great one. I can only hope the designers were thinking along those lines, i.e. allowing only one colour to dominate to avoid a potential clash. Only Sunday will tell.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Strongly agree and I think the LNER idea is a great one. I can only hope the designers were thinking along those lines, i.e. allowing only one colour to dominate to avoid a potential clash. Only Sunday will tell.

I think it will be (a) garish, and (b) not actually the final livery anyway. For extra points, I expect to see stuff stuck to the windows.

 

[jon0844]

I hope the logo will be fairly discreet, which seems more likely now Labour is in charge than if, say, Boris was still PM for the Tories or Reform had won the election.

We'd have seen union flags all over the rolling stock, and in the case of Reform winning, all trains with rainbows or 'thank you NHS' liveries would be sent for scrap...

 

[vuzzeho]

I hope it'll be tasteful. I hope it's not a red, white, and blue livery with a red, white, and blue logo. As for that logo - I'm not expecting anything crazy. I made a mockup of what I expect it to be. As for the livery/liveries - apparently it's a 701 and 444 getting liveries, so maybe 2 different liveries (and that's what's in-person - I've heard something with Manchester and Northern preparing for new branding but idk, and of course LNER could get in on the fun from afar). However, this new branding, and the mention of Southeastern becoming more integrated with track and train really makes me wonder - why are they repainting the 376s? Surely it would've been easier to hold off for like... 6 months, and then do the repaint into the GBR branding? Even if they wait until the legislation for GBR is done to repaint them, that's 2027. That gives this livery 2 years at the most. Same with LNER and the Bradford train, though that's a one-off vinyl.