So, the Virgin Azuma livery could be the first new livery never to see passenger service.
Back when VTEC used to invite me to things I was at the Azuma launch event and was talking to the designer, Sam Jessop, he said that the livery on the train for that launch event was just a marketing livery and wouldn't be the livery for when the trains went into service.
I was told by a member of staff at the beginning of the year that the DfT asked them not to apply their livery to any of their trains until the department had made their decision on the franchise.
You can change your Twitter handle but it wouldn't be wise to do that if the franchise is changing hands. It would be fine for First Group to have done it when they rebranded from First Great Western to Great Western Railway though.
The @Virgin_TrainsEC account is just the old East Coast account renamed. (if you notice the current @eastcoastuk it's not the original account it's a placeholder to tell people of the new account). That means you can find Tweets that look like they're from Virgin talking about all the benefits of East Coast Rewards. You won't find any tweets talking about the benefits of Nectar, they tried it once and they got such a negative reply they deleted the Tweet (it was posted and deleted so quickly I never even seen their Tweet so they can't blame me, someone else told me about it).
Anyway, I'm delighted. But most importantly all the staff I've talked to so far have also been delighted. I've tried to sound neutral when asking so hopefully not to influence the outcome... "Do you think the announcement was a good or bad thing?" Also I remember how the morale was boosted when East Coast took over NXEC, it's the same here. I'd have expected to have seen at least some staff support for Virgin, but out in the field I couldn't find any. There has been some support for Virgin on Twitter, understandably those who work in the design team are the most worried and one driver said he thought I was being a bit unfair on VTEC. Then I got another DM from a driver who I've never talked to before saying keep up the good work!
To show the fact most staff are disillusioned with VTEC they're happy to share their info with me every morning so I can tweet out shortforms and defects which VTEC try not to make easy to find. Someone even emailed me a copy of the VTEC 2016 business plan. I get sent copies of the staff newsletters and they really are as patronising to their staff as they are to passengers.
Although I don't think I've had any impact on what has happened (VTEC messed it up all themselves) but a number of staff have thanked me by DM for standing by them when things had started to get bad and expose the mess that was VTEC.
A common view is that VTEC are worse than NXEC because although NXEC were cost cutting they were upfront to their staff about it. VTEC are patronising and still internally promote every cutback as an improvement.
LNER need to hit the ground running. If they start with the right attitude and keep the staff on side they'll do their best to make it work.
Some trains are already losing bits of their branding. On one of the trains I was travelling on Sunday already had the Azuma ads removed as well as the annoying 'Go on give us a smile' on the toilet mirror. The balloon was still there though. Wonder if that'll also get removed or will me have LNER branded hot air balloons
Just received this DM: Chair of LNER will be Robin Gisby (no idea who that is though)