Scotrail Branding

[JumpinTrainz]

I couldn’t find a relevant current thread to put this in so thought I’d make a new one to avoid going off topic.

The Scotrail saltire livery was first implemented back in 2008. At first it was a far smarter branding than the initial Carmine and Cream livery which had been going around for quite some time by this point. Scotrail’s branding has continued this 10 years on.

It wasn’t until I was looking at pictures of the new redevelopment going on at Queen Street that I started to realise how dated I feel the saltire branding was. The new HSTs got it completely right in my opinion. I new sleek and modern livery which is personal to Scotland. The landmarks add a touching personality to the trains. The saltire livery for me still looks some what smart but just not as elegant as the new livery for the HSTs.

The fleet aside - the dark branding on stations looks on the dated side. The new modern station at Queen Street, for example, is almost spoiled by a tacky dark blue sign.

Scotrail I think could be clever and adopt the new livery to keep it fresh.

 

[xc170]

But the whole point of the Scotrail livery is it doesn't need to be changed every few years...

 

[mark-h]

... and should let them focus on running a quality train service, rather than on the next rebrand.

 

[Christmas]

The Saltire livery is exactly ten years old and is certainly in need of a refesh. Let us not forget there sre still plenty of sets running around in First Barbie livery too. Personally I would drop the white saltire spots and stick with the hard wearing dark blue on trains with some of the light blue relief , sort of a GWR style but in blue.
The chances of Transport Scotland moving on from saltire are probably zero.

 

[bramling]

I couldn’t find a relevant current thread to put this in so thought I’d make a new one to avoid going off topic.

The Scotrail saltire livery was first implemented back in 2008. At first it was a far smarter branding than the initial Carmine and Cream livery which had been going around for quite some time by this point. Scotrail’s branding has continued this 10 years on.

It wasn’t until I was looking at pictures of the new redevelopment going on at Queen Street that I started to realise how dated I feel the saltire branding was. The new HSTs got it completely right in my opinion. I new sleek and modern livery which is personal to Scotland. The landmarks add a touching personality to the trains. The saltire livery for me still looks some what smart but just not as elegant as the new livery for the HSTs.

The fleet aside - the dark branding on stations looks on the dated side. The new modern station at Queen Street, for example, is almost spoiled by a tacky dark blue sign.

Scotrail I think could be clever and adopt the new livery to keep it fresh.

I've always found it a little tacky. The blue sits nicely, but to me the dots appear both tacky and dated. I'd go to base blue with some other relief, perhaps with the Saltire being included in a slightly less brash manner.

 

[Macwomble]

IIRC the current Scotrail branding is/was set for a 25 year lifespan.

 

[Highlandspring]

The brand is owned by Transport Scotland/The Scottish Ministers so it’s up to them whether and when to change it.

 

[John R]

I'm in the camp of leave well alone. More important that there is a consistent recognisable brand than one that changes every few years. You might consider it outdated, but that is a personal opinion, and for as many as agree with you there will be as many that feel that it's perfectly fine as is.

Also, if a variant has been introduced for a particular prestige service, it immediately devalues the effect if it starts appearing on every other unit.

Here's hoping that the new TFW branding will be similarly long term.

 

[alangla]

I suspect the ScotRail livery & branding will probably change each time the political colour of the inhabitant of Bute House changes, regardless of expected lifespans

 

[takno]

I didn't like it much when they introduced it, and I don't like it much better now. However it is recognisable, doesn't look constantly dirty, and not changing it every 3 years saves a fair chunk of money. Happy for it to stay for another 10 years tbh.

 

[route101]

Actually find it surprising its already ten years old . Remember seeing it at Queens Park in 2008 . Dont really think its dated . Heck theres still first branded 156s .

 

[47271]

Saltire's okay, leave it alone and think about something significant, there's far too much fiddling with liveries when operators have more need to focus on the service.

The OP mentions carmine and cream. That was never a Scotrail scheme, it was a weird SPT late 1990s idea. Does anyone remember why they came up with this trip back to the fifties?

 

[mde]

The Scotrail saltire livery was first implemented back in 2008. At first it was a far smarter branding than the initial Carmine and Cream livery which had been going around for quite some time by this point. Scotrail’s branding has continued this 10 years on.

This was predominantly in the SPT area on their sponsored units (replacing the former orange and black 'Strathclyde Transport' livery). For the non SPT branded units there were several variants of the National Express livery, which was quite good, and, then, the First group 'barbie' livery which is still on some WHL units to this day.

'SpotRail' unified things, and, cut the cost of rebranding - as - in the case of going from First to Abellio, externally, all that needed changing was some vinyl. You couldn't really roll out the HST livery onto the other units - it wouldn't look very attractive, and, it would cheapen the Inter7City brand which is intrinsically linked to that particular livery.

And, in any case - this isn't a franchise that's making money. Folks on social media complain when they put themed vinyl on the side of a few 170s for Christmas, halloween, Pride, Poppy Scotland etc… can you imagine the complaints if they embarked on a full scale re-branding programme?

The fleet aside - the dark branding on stations looks on the dated side. The new modern station at Queen Street, for example, is almost spoiled by a tacky dark blue sign.

Umm… how can you know that? The 'new modern station' doesn't open until 2020!

 

[NotATrainspott]

The good thing about the ScotRail livery is that it's just a generic dark blue painted bodyshell and silver painted doors plus some vinyl stickers. If the spots go out of fashion, it's almost certain that a fresher-looking livery can be produced by replacing the vinyls alone. The same largely goes for the interior since the ScotRail moquette, which is just a fairly basic pattern of white crosses stitched into dark blue. Unless we change our national symbols any time soon, or we desperately want to remove them from our trains, then the colour scheme and seat patterns should look fine even with a different exterior. The new moquette on the HSTs looks compatible enough in terms of design that even a partial interior refurb (as has happened to some stock fitted with SPT seat covers) wouldn't look too awful either.

 

[jagardner1984]

Personally I think the people of Scotland (of which I am one) have a generally quite poor opinion of Scotrail. People seem generally quite unbothered about new trains, old trains, they just want approximately the number of carriages they promise to run approximately to time. For various (some excellent) reasons, that seems to be a real struggle.

Scotrail have far bigger brand issues than positioning of their dots.

A bit of A4 paper in the window with “Scotrail” in Times new roman font will do.

 

[Allwinter_Kit]

Having had some ex-ScotRail 170s in Saltire Livery floating around Leeds since they moved on to the Harrogate line, I actually disagree. Compared to the knackered mish-mash of Northern branding floating around and the coca-cola can VTECs (as were) ScotRail's livery looked clean, smart and far less dated.

I can see it happily sticking about for ages. It's understated (ish) and professional-looking, not showing dirt either. If it ain't broke...

Now if ScotRail could just sort ensure reliable delivery of services perhaps there might be scope to consider a refresh, but it's one of the better liveries in the UK I would say so my vote is leave it well alone for a while!

 

[Clip]

... and should let them focus on running a quality train service, rather than on the next rebrand.

there's far too much fiddling with liveries when operators have more need to focus on the service.

Scotrail have far bigger brand issues than positioning of their dots.

Now if ScotRail could just sort ensure reliable delivery of services perhaps there might be scope to consider a refresh

Ive never understood comments like this - do people really think that companies just stop all their day to day business to focus on rebranding or something?

It is possible to do more than 2 things at once at a railway company - it may not seem like it but its true

 

[whhistle]

I wonder if creating a block of colour in place of the dots would be a slight, but welcome change.
Myabe it can fade off towards the middle of the coach.

 

[LLivery]

I can't believe it has been 10 years. I don't think its dated and I've always liked the branding. This country has changed liveries and brands and liveries far too often, which I think has lead to this post. Other countries outside GB wouldn't dream of changing yet; NI Railways is older, Germany has kept the ICE branding since 1989 and when did NS last have a change? A slight update in the font or something may be fine but other than that, leave it alone. ScotRail has more important things to worry about.

 

[cf111]

Of all the issues the "ScotRail Alliance" have at the moment, I'd think that repainting the trains is about as far down the list as electrifying the Far North Line.

 

[aylesbury]

Agree the livery looks fine and the amount of investment in the network is amazing and is a good thing shame about the finances.

 

[Photohunter71]

I think there's nothing wrong with the saltire livery of ScotRail, just like there was nothing wrong with the old BR ScotRail blue stripe livery of the 1980's, although there was one rogue element 47 if I remember running around with Intercity red stripe livery and ScotRail branding. To be honest I have liked a few liveries such as the ScotRail blue stripe livery, intercity swallow livery, BR blue, 2 tone grey and subsector livery for railfreight, and pre subsector railfreight grey. And currently I like the ScotRail livery. Pity the freight sector isn't as imaginitive! But that's an aside.

 

[Far north 37]

I think there's nothing wrong with the saltire livery of ScotRail, just like there was nothing wrong with the old BR ScotRail blue stripe livery of the 1980's, although there was one rogue element 47 if I remember running around with Intercity red stripe livery and ScotRail branding. To be honest I have liked a few liveries such as the ScotRail blue stripe livery, intercity swallow livery, BR blue, 2 tone grey and subsector livery for railfreight, and pre subsector railfreight grey. And currently I like the ScotRail livery. Pity the freight sector isn't as imaginitive! But that's an aside.

47492 and 643 carried the intercity mainline livery with scotrail branding not sure if any more did.
47643 also carries this livery in preservation.

 

[mde]

Ive never understood comments like this - do people really think that companies just stop all their day to day business to focus on rebranding or something?

Of course not. But, if you are seen to be spending a lot of money rebranding while firefighting elsewhere it can be misconstrued by some as putting lipstick on a pig - e.g. dressing up what is perceived to be a rubbish service with new branding in an attempt to have people see things in a different light.

An example could be First Great Western's rebrand to GWR - we all know it's the same company - but, did the so-called 'average commuter' know that First were still involved? The careful application of the First branding can give people a misleading image and a perception that 'things are going to get better'.

In any case, given one of the aims of the current livery, originally designed by Redpath against a brief from Transport Scotland (for some £111,773), was to save money by minimising whole life costs, I doubt they will be prepared to stump up for an extensive rebranding programme, unless it's absolutely necessary, or, in some way special, e.g. the HSTs (Inter7City), or, the 385s (the slightly modified 'Express' branding/livery).

 

[Photohunter71]

47492 and 643 carried the intercity mainline livery with scotrail branding not sure if any more did.
47643 also carries this livery in preservation.

Thanks for the info! It did ring a bell after reading your reply that there were 2 renegade 47's! Thanks for confirming! Were one of the 2 named "The Duke of Edinburgh's Award"?

 

[sprinterguy]

Thanks for the info! It did ring a bell after reading your reply that there were 2 renegade 47's! Thanks for confirming! Were one of the 2 named "The Duke of Edinburgh's Award"?

No that was 47716, one of the dedicated push-pull class 47/7s which all carried Scotrail blue stripe livery.

In fact only one unconverted class 47/4 carried the blue stripe livery; 47461 "Charles Rennie Mackintosh". All the other Scottish based 47/4s that had Scotrail branding carried it on the Intercity Executive livery, there were certainly more than one or two: Including 47430/469/492/541/637/642/643.

 

[Far north 37]

Thanks for the info! It did ring a bell after reading your reply that there were 2 renegade 47's! Thanks for confirming! Were one of the 2 named "The Duke of Edinburgh's Award"?

47492 was named the enterprising scot i think 47643 wasn’t named im pretty sure.

 

[sannox]

I don't think it looks bad or dated at all. It is also capable of being evolved subtly where needed. The fact the 156s are still not in the livery yet is amazing!

 

[GusB]

Thanks for the info! It did ring a bell after reading your reply that there were 2 renegade 47's! Thanks for confirming! Were one of the 2 named "The Duke of Edinburgh's Award"?

There were more than 2.

http://class47.co.uk/c47_liveries.php?s_type=2&s_liv=57 gives a list of those 47s which carried red stripe with Scotrail branding.

With regard to the current Scotrail branding, I hadn't realised it had been so long since it was introduced. Maybe it's because there were still units running around in First livery for so long after its introduction that it still looked new in comparison. I don't think it looks dated and see no need to change it at this time, but with the plain blue base colour, it shouldn't be too big a job to add new vinyls if a re-brand is planned in the near future. Scotrail have more pressing issues to deal with at the moment anyhow!

 

[sprinterguy]

Maybe it's because there were still units running around in First livery for so long after its introduction that it still looked new in comparison.

There still are, in the case of the class 156s and Haymarket 158s (Unless the latter have all been refurbished and repainted at this juncture), as noted by sannox above. There's also still some SPT carmine and cream survivors in the form of 314s, which surprised me somewhat when I saw one at Glasgow Central a couple of weeks ago. I thought the SPT livery had been completely eradicated at this point. The First 'Barbie' scheme has certainly proved tenacious.

I don't think it looks dated and see no need to change it at this time, but with the plain blue base colour, it shouldn't be too big a job to add new vinyls if a re-brand is planned in the near future. Scotrail have more pressing issues to deal with at the moment anyhow!

I fully agree with this view: The Saltire livery still looks modern and relevant, it's a strong and recognisable brand that, IMO, suits any rolling stock that it is applied to. If it ain't broke, don't fix it!