New Arriva Northern Franchise - branding

[Class172]

Really? I think it looks appalling - I'm really not a fan of predominantly white or light grey liveries: Bland, uninspiring and a nightmare to keep clean.

My views on liveries appear to be the same as yours. I do not like the plain white/light grey based themes that appear on the likes of Greater Anglia. They don't look very professional to me and the slightest bit of dirt makes the train far less inviting. Liveries with a grey base can look very good when designed well; I'm very fond of London Midland and CrossCountry.

From what you say, you will not like the Southern livery also.

Southern's okay: There's less of an unrelieved expanse of white and the livery also acknowledges the heritage of the Southern region in a fairly tasteful way. It's the likes of the Greater Anglia and new GTR schemes that I'm really not keen on, the latter of which that mock-up appears to be an approximation of.

Agreed, I wouldn't say that Southern was a particularly dull livery, I consider it rather colourful.

 

[sprinterguy]

Liveries with a grey base can look very good when designed well; I'm very fond of London Midland and CrossCountry.

I'm also inclined to agree: A block of colour at cab ends and shaded window bands can make a big positive difference to what could otherwise be a very bland wash of grey. I've always felt that the BR "Pullman" reverse blue and grey livery rather fell down in this respect: The window bands were too tightly confined around the windows, leaving an awful lot of unrelieved grey that looked tatty unless absolutely pristine.

 

[pemma]

Really? I think it looks appalling - I'm really not a fan of predominantly white or light grey liveries: Bland, uninspiring and a nightmare to keep clean.

With the current Northern livery the train may not appear that dirty from the outside but get on and try to look out of the windows and it's a different story.

 

[alexl92]

Keep the blue/ purple/ white, or a version of it - it's a nice enough colour scheme - given that it has to work on several classes of unit (compared to colour scheme that can be designed to look good on just one or two types of train).

I have to be honest and say that I hope the purple is banished forever. Lovely shade on its own but to my eyes looks horrible with the blue and white - it's bad enough when fresh, and worse when it's been on a few weeks.

Worst of all is the sponsored Northern Units. They look a mess.

 

[BurtonM]

Agree. I'd like to see the back of purple - to me, it's all that's wrong with rail in the north since TPE and Northern both use it.

 

[317 forever]

The livery of the class 331 above is typical of base white/grey with an alternative colour for the doors.