Naming your HS2

[Prestige15]

Its unlikely it'll simply be called HS2 once in operation, If you had your way, What would you name it?

High Speed Railways, Executive Mainline, IC-E (Inter-City Evolution), BRexpress, British Mainline etc etc

 

[Bletchleyite]

We invented InterCity, so let's call in a favour from DB and call it InterCityExpress.

 

[zwk500]

<Operator> West Coast High Speed would be my bet, looking at the only previous example. If GBR comes in it might be West Coast High Speed by <franchisee>.

IIRC the plan is for the same operator to run the 'classic' WCML Intercity service as well as HS2, so it'll run much like SE does today.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Avanti High Speed is the likely brand if things stay as they were planned. But I think this was a "what do you think it should be" thread?

 

[matt_world2004]

Likely name it after a royal again just to appeal to faux patriotism . Princess Diana line anyone

 

[zwk500]

Avanti High Speed is the likely brand if things stay as they were planned. But I think this was a "what do you think it should be" thread?

Ah, fair enough, had missed that as it's more for the speculative board.

It's an interesting one. You could revive the 'executive' brand but that might create a price expectation and put people off. I think HS1 has put the 'High Speed' branding into the public awareness, alongside the HSTs, so I'd be more inclined to call it Intercity High Speed than ICE (with an updated version of the BR Swallow livery, damn that looked good when new). You'd then have a nice contraces of Intercity East Coast, Intercity West Coast, Intercity Great Western, Intercity East Midlands, etc.

 

[All Line Rover]

Bullet trains.

Skip all the jargon that 99.99% of us don't care about.

 

[GWVillager]

Bullet trains.

Skip all the jargon that 99.99% of us don't care about.

Doesn't exactly work as a brand name though.

 

[HSTEd]

Doesn't exactly work as a brand name though.

Just brand it "High Speed" or something.

Make it as generic as possible

 

[Basil Jet]

Mercia Mainline

 

[Bletchleyite]

Bullet trains.

Skip all the jargon that 99.99% of us don't care about.

"The Bullet" actually works quite well in my mind, it's along similar lines to "Javelin".

 

[MattRat]

Super Highspeed Intercity Train

 

[Prestige15]

Royal Bullet Train

Silver Arrow

Brexit Express

HSBR (High Speed British Railways)

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

"New North Main Line".
The Stephenson Line (with apologies to Messrs Locke, Bidder and Gooch).
Really, it's a new LNWR trunk line.
"Euston only for the North" (BR plan 1970-ish).
"Levelling-Up Express"

The trains themselves will need a name, even though most will run on classic lines.
Europe has gone with TGV/ICE/AVE/LAV/Freccia.../RailJet.
We already have Eurostar, but I can't think of an equivalent domestic moniker.
We need something which is as iconic as the "Electric Scots" were in 1974.

London-Manchester had a number of named services:
The Comet
The Mancunian*
The Palatine
The Lancastrian

London-Birmingham had:
The Inter City
The Midlander

London-Liverpool had:
The Merseyside Express
The Red Rose
The Shamrock (which connected with ferries to Belfast/Dublin)


* Not to be confused with the Mancunium, a ship which loaded raw sewage in Manchester Docks and travelled daily down the Ship Canal to dump its cargo in Liverpool Bay.
There was also a Salford equivalent called Salford City.

 

[Bald Rick]

HS2 - the line - will be called HS2. (Remember why CTRL became HS1?)

The services - well that’s probably a better question.

 

[HSTEd]

Whilst I think naming of individual trains is a bad idea, I could see Shinkansen style naming of stopping patterns - sort of like the GNER era Northern Lights etc

Other than that just keep a simple branding, and certainly no "Azuma" Style trendiness that will cringey in a couple of years.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I quite like train naming. It adds a sense of prestige even if it is just one train in a clockface timetable.

 

[Backroom_boy]

I quite like train naming. It adds a sense of prestige even if it is just one train in a clockface timetable.

Named service rather than train?
Edit; Ah I see named services was the main point.