Virgin Trains East Coast franchise to end 24 June 2018 and is temporarily re-nationalised

[SaveECRewards]

Must admit, having seen photos of physical branding it looks significantly smarter and more professional than Virgin Trains!

Do you mean in the stations or on the trains? I liked the VTEC livery, but the branding in stations (except for that LOSER poster) does look nicer.

 

[FQTV]

Must admit, having seen photos of physical branding it looks significantly smarter and more professional than Virgin Trains!

I agree, with th exception of the misjudged floor-level posters .

Since 1st March 2015, all I’ve wanted to do is catch a train; not to have to suffer the equivalent of a poverty budget, Channel 5 knock off, RuPaul’s Drag Race every time I go to London.

 

[91109]

One good thing about the changeover, I've now got a shorter works email address

 

[westv]

This has probably already been asked before in this thread but I'll ask again.
15 minute delay repay? Once LNER take over, when the new operator takes over or some distant point in the future?

 

[SaveECRewards]

Have you seen the price promise? It's been quietly removed!

 

[brick60000]

Not sure if I've missed a discussion on this further upthread, so apologies if I have. Why has the Twitter page etc been switched over before the franchise changes? Seems to have potential to cause confusion for the unsuspecting passenger?

 

[SteveP29]

Seems fully functional http://www.virgintrainseastcoast.uk/

Yesterday afternoon, about 2pm I had to check a future journey I'm making, so went to the above, as usual and I got a message saying VTEC website was no longer in use etc and click the button to go to the new LNER site. When I got there, there was a large banner telling me to click here to see past bookings, my account etc. Upon clicking that, I was taken to www.virgintrainseastcoast.com

 

[Highlandspring]

I’m at Kings Cross right now and the screens are already showing LNER, the announcements are “London North Eastern Railway service...” and the first class lounge has been rebranded (still using Virgin branded cups though).

 

[91109]

Not sure if I've missed a discussion on this further upthread, so apologies if I have. Why has the Twitter page etc been switched over before the franchise changes? Seems to have potential to cause confusion for the unsuspecting passenger?

Not just passengers. Departure boards now also say LNER, and staff are wondering about announcements on board and at stations.

 

[gavin]

All platform boards have changed over now as well this was Darlington yesterday

 

[johntea]

I’m at Kings Cross right now and the screens are already showing LNER, the announcements are “London North Eastern Railway service...” and the first class lounge has been rebranded (still using Virgin branded cups though).

Same at Leeds with the announcements, but I didn't get chance to see if they have done any rebranding with the fancy Virgin Trains ticket area/lounge on the concourse.

 

[Darandio]

What do you mean, the price promise was already there, now it has gone. They would have had a staging environment for the new LNER website that they'll have been working on before they put it live. It's not like they've got a cheap webhost and they have to edit it on the fly.

Indeed, it should have been worked on long before last night before final tests and publishing. I find the suggestion that they switched off then a bunch of coders had a race against time to make all changes before re-activating a bit staggering to be honest.

 

[Nick66]

What is going to happen with the VTEC app? I have a few m-tickets in there, seems to be working at the moment but I’d be somewhat miffed if I lost my tickets....

 

[SaveECRewards]

There has been some visible changes.
As mentioned earlier the price promise has gone.
Mentions of Airtime, the meet the manager sessions, has been removed (VTEC cancelled all Airtime events at the end of 2017 but the page remained promising they'd return in a new format)
The Red Report (half yearly status reports) have gone, will LNER do an equivalent update?

On the plus side if I try and book a non LNER journey on the website (on a route LNER operates) I'm no longer nagged to select one of their services.

One thing that hasn't changed is the WAHEY!

 

[mpthomson]

Has to have been the most half arsed rebrand ever! When East Coast changed to Virgin Trains East Coast the EC website went down for a few minutes after midnight and then the VTEC website was up and running. It was the same underlying site and booking engine but the fonts and colours used were all different.

The LNER site is identical to the VTEC site (except for the features like Flying Club that have been removed) but the site had to go down multiple hours for the switchover.

They've not even updated the menu pages. The new menu (still James Martin!) goes live on Sunday but the website is still listing the old options.

Why spend money rebranding if you don't need to?

 

[SaveECRewards]

What is going to happen with the VTEC app? I have a few m-tickets in there, seems to be working at the moment but I’d be somewhat miffed if I lost my tickets....

They promise that the app will remain, I'm sure an update will appear soon with the new branding. That said 'Travel Buddy' has always had stability issues and I tend to recommend against using it.

 

[Tom B]

An additional HST appears to have been borrowed very quickly from EMT. It is running the 1103 KGX-LDS, wrong way round, and with seat reservations indicating it did a Sheffield to St P journey for EMT this morning!

So there's a train which is variously described as VTEC or LNER on the tannoy, with EMT on the side. I suppose it keeps folk on their toes

 

[SaveECRewards]

So today presumably we have East Coast Main Line Company Limited operating services as LNER, until London North Eastern Railway Limited takes over operating services as LNER.

I booked a ticket just now and on my Amex it showed up as East Coast Mainline - when VTEC took over the running of East Coast they never updated their name on Amex (but did on Visa/Mastercard) as LNER is a separate company then the name that appears on the card account should change as they'll have a different merchant account to ECMLC

 

[Silver Cobra]

Stevenage is still lagging behind in terms of rebranding the VTEC signage to LNER. It'll be interesting to see if it is completed before Sunday, or if Stevenage will be the only station to still display VTEC signs/adverts when LNER begins.

Adverts, notices and signs are already being updated on the rolling stock. Travelling back from Doncaster to Peterborough yesterday, I saw that the 225-set I was on had LNER branded route maps in the vestibules, LNER ads in the coaches and the contact details for the CCTV updated to the new address for LNER.

 

[CLH]

Shame the new site looks very similar to the Virgin one.
Same sort of font family that's been used as Virgin... a bit boring :/

Changing a font is never really simple though. All typefaces have different widths, so if they changed font, they could end up with some bits of text which they expected to take up one line in a browser, suddenly taking up two. This would be a problem if there are any bits of the website where absolute sizes and/or positioning are used.

Best to deal with it later, when you've got the time (and money like VTEC would have at the start)

 

[43096]

An additional HST appears to have been borrowed very quickly from EMT. It is running the 1103 KGX-LDS, wrong way round, and with seat reservations indicating it did a Sheffield to St P journey for EMT this morning!

So there's a train which is variously described as VTEC or LNER on the tannoy, with EMT on the side. I suppose it keeps folk on their toes

Correct - it came over from Cricklewood as 3D11, and should go back for an evening departure from St. Pancras.

No doubt “cactustwirly” will be getting his/her knickers in a twist about it again....

 

[Mojo]

Do you mean in the stations or on the trains? I liked the VTEC livery, but the branding in stations (except for that LOSER poster) does look nicer.

I've only seen the generic branding rather than a specific livery but think it looks a lot smarter and more contemporary than the Virgin Trains branding.

 

[SaveECRewards]

I've only seen the generic branding rather than a specific livery but think it looks a lot smarter and more contemporary than the Virgin Trains branding.

I saw an image of a mk 4 DVT on the LNER website with the logo photoshopped on. As it's on their website I assume it's going to match reality.

The white Coca-Cola ribbon will remain and the LNER logo (with the London North.... text under it) will replace the Virgin logo.

Pretty much what we'd expect although I was wondering if the white ribbon would remain

 

[43096]

Pretty much what we'd expect although I was wondering if the white ribbon would remain

It may be that the ribbon is printed onto the vinyl - the VTEC livery (on 91s at least) is all-over vinyl. The LNER logo may just be a sticker over the Virgin logo. In time it will all be a mess, much like the changeover from GNER to NatEx to DOR branding on the trains was.

 

[385001]

I saw an image of a mk 4 DVT on the LNER website with the logo photoshopped on. As it's on their website I assume it's going to match reality.

I just had a peek at the updated website and it if you hover over the 'Planning your journey' tab you get a photo of people walking beside a Pendolino.

 

[laseandre]

One thing I have noticed is that, on the website at least, they've just kept the Virgin font for most things? I'd have thought that would change...

 

[westv]

Anybody else having problems logging in?
The sites deleted my saved password so I need to re-enter.
Clicked the link for "reset password" and all I get when clicking the link in the email is:-

"It looks like there was a problem with the link you clicked. You can try resetting your password again.
Sorry about that. Here's an error message:
Token was already used."

 

[SaveECRewards]

Anybody else having problems logging in?
The sites deleted my saved password so I need to re-enter.
Clicked the link for "reset password" and all I get when clicking the link in the email is:-

"It looks like there was a problem with the link you clicked. You can try resetting your password again.
Sorry about that. Here's an error message:
Token was already used."

Depending on the browser used you might be able to get into your passwords for virgintrainseastcoast.com I know Chrome and Firefox have a way to view saved passwords and Safari can view them via Keychain.

 

[westv]

I've now remembered it. Still looks like the password reset might have a problem.

I also notice the seat selector is still not working. As expected, all the errors on the VTEC website have been transferred over.

 

[Wallsendmag]

Indeed, it should have been worked on long before last night before final tests and publishing. I find the suggestion that they switched off then a bunch of coders had a race against time to make all changes before re-activating a bit staggering to be honest.

Where on earth did you get that impression from?