What happened to the new TFWM red bus livery?

[adstratt]

I can remember a few years ago the branding for Transport for West Midlands was unveiled, where the Metro would receive the blue livery, trains and stations would be mostly orange and buses would be red. They painted this bus along with a few others to show a unified brand and livery across WM bus companies and I understood they would roll it out to all buses.

Whatever happened to this? Are buses still getting reliveried and if so, why do new National Express buses introduced since this was announced still carry their private branding and the same livery?

 

[CBlue]

Looks to me this was more of a publicity stunt for franchising, which evidently never happened for bus services under TfWM.

 

[cnjb8]

It looks like they are converting one route at a time to TfWM livery, and I guess Covid put a stop to it.
Unfortunately Rotala had some B7RLEs in the livery but then went off lease, so then the number of the TfWM liveried buses decreased a fair bit.

 

[carlberry]

I can remember a few years ago the branding for Transport for West Midlands was unveiled, where the Metro would receive the blue livery, trains and stations would be mostly orange and buses would be red. They painted this bus along with a few others to show a unified brand and livery across WM bus companies and I understood they would roll it out to all buses.

Whatever happened to this? Are buses still getting reliveried and if so, why do new National Express buses introduced since this was announced still carry their private branding and the same livery?

It applied on services where the authority had negotiated an agreement between competing operators. I think they only applied it to a couple of routes (one in Walsall with National Express and Diamond for example).

 

[bussnapperwm]

Its used on the 31/32 Walsall - Bloxwich, 40 West Brom - Wednesbury and 42/43 West Brom - Great Bridge - Princes End - Dudley/Bilston

 

[Ken Bromage]

Walsall Community Transport have now started painting some of their fleet in this livery

 

[py_megapixel]

Why can't they come up with their own livery? All-over-red looks good in London because it's the classic colour of a London bus. Anywhere else it just looks like a thoughtless, cheap copycat.

If TfWM want to franchise their buses, more power to them - but come up with some good-quality, easily identifiable branding that's properly unique!

 

[Bletchleyite]

Why can't they come up with their own livery? All-over-red looks good in London because it's the classic colour of a London bus. Anywhere else it just looks like a thoughtless, cheap copycat.

Red is not an exclusively London colour. For example Ribble buses were red (Lancashire), as were, er, Midland Red.

 

[borage]

Why can't they come up with their own livery? All-over-red looks good in London because it's the classic colour of a London bus. Anywhere else it just looks like a thoughtless, cheap copycat.

If TfWM want to franchise their buses, more power to them - but come up with some good-quality, easily identifiable branding that's properly unique!

To be fair, it's not just plain red – there's some tasteful shading, and even route branding – http://www.samjessupdesign.co.uk/west-midlands-bus

Giving the buses of Brum a new look
As part of the new 'Transport for West Midlands' look, and partly inspired by London, the powers-that-be in Birmingham made a call for one coherent, consistent livery on all buses across the city. That call, was to Sam Jessup Design.

One size (mostly) fits all
Continuing on from my work on the West Midlands Metro tram scheme, I developed a bold, adaptable look using the same 'faded diamond' motif, that could be adopted by bus companies across the region, regardless of the type of buses they operate.

I guess the "partly inspired by London" refers to having a consistent livery, and not the colour red.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Also, NXWM were using a red-and-darker-red livery for a while.

 

[carlberry]

Why can't they come up with their own livery? All-over-red looks good in London because it's the classic colour of a London bus. Anywhere else it just looks like a thoughtless, cheap copycat.

If TfWM want to franchise their buses, more power to them - but come up with some good-quality, easily identifiable branding that's properly unique!

I wouldnt say it actually looked good in London, it's very dull, however because of a constant diet of seeing Red buses it's what people expect a bus to be coloured so, therefore, it's an easy base colour to use elsewhere. Being unique isn't a particular requirement; if you're going to impose a colour scheme it makes more sense for it to be a national one.

 

[WM Bus]

Also, NXWM were using a red-and-darker-red livery for a while.

You mean this one in the picture below?
NXWM 4634 Dennis Trident/Alexander ALX400 BX54XSB | dylanjones4041 | Flickr

They still are. Its carried by all standard buses, that aren't platinum. Some still in older red and white yet to be painted into it.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Yes, that one.

 

[busesrusuk]

Yes, that one.

The two tone red was a considerable improvement over the insipid (IMO) orangey red and white. However, some of the route branding applied to the two tone red wasn't as good as the effect created with the "Platinum" branded buses. here is the two tone red with branding:

Nat Ex West Midlands 5503 Aug19 | Moor Street, Birmingham. A… | Flickr

The red/white combo:

Nat Ex West Midlands 4946 Aug19 | Moor Street, Birmingham. A… | Flickr

The Platinum branded buses do look a step up and give the impression of a good quality operation:

Nat Ex W Midlands 6797 Aug19 | Central Birmingham, Aug 2019 | Flickr

 

[cnjb8]

The way that NXWM paint their E400MMCs doesn't suit them, they don't paint the bottom deck pillars at the front, which makes it look strange in my opinion

 

[Pat1105]

The WM Bus livery concept I think is rather ill thought out. Unless TfWM are going to pay for the respraying of vehicles themselves, no operator will want to to this. Also, this is a problem, especially for smaller operators who can’t afford to have vehicles off the road.