New Great Western Livery

[wombatofludham]

I agree that in the commercial world where there is real competition between broadly comparable products and services image is important, and is often a triumph of style over substance. 

 

However, on the rail network, there is very little competition.  First Great Western has virtually no competition on long haul traffic to London (only Exeter has some via SWT) and the presence of Cross Country on the Bristol-Plymouth axis is largely as part of a co-ordinated timetable rather than competition.  So, if you want to go from Penzance to Exeter or London, Bristol to Reading, or Cardiff to Paddington, you have no choice but to travel FGW - or go by car, plane or coach, which are completely different products which have their individual disadvantages.  If you want to go by train, you have no choice but to go FGW.  Therefore no matter how much effort goes into the image FGW projects, it's pointless as it is the concept of train travel that sells, not the swirly graphics on the side of the coaches or a flash website.  It's that concept of "train" that is the brand in competition with the alternatives, not First.  So apart from open access operators, where they have to stand out (although the ORR actually won't allow competition if it abstracts too much revenue from the franchised operators, so even open access operators have to be careful about how much "competitive branding" they apply to their services) and the limited franchised point to point competition between for example London and Birmingham, or Birmingham to Scotland via the West or East Coast routes, for the majority of travellers they have no alternative but to catch a monopoly provider.  Most commuters into London have no choice but to use one particular company.  Therefore whether it is Serco, Stagecoach or GoVia doesn't influence their choice of provider, therefore a brand image has very limited commercial point.  With an airline, if there is more than one on a route and they fly at broadly the times you want, you can choose based on a combination of fare, service, reputation, reliability and image.  If you are commuting by train from the Thames Valley into London, you have FGW, so even if they were the rail equivalent of Aeroflot of the 1970s, you'd still have to use them, or drive.  That's why I don't really see the point in trying to re-brand train services which are not a fully open market, and for large parts of the network are monopoly area providers where the only alternatives are often inferior or completely alternative options - or moving house to another route.

[AndyD]

Morning Mark

 

Most people I think can't see anything beyond green/applied green vinyl/which may seem dull sometime soon...

 

Lots of good points made in your posts, sadly lost on the majority of people on RMweb

 

Most people I think can't see anything beyond green/applied green vinyl/which may seem dull sometime soon...

 

The railway enthusiast world runs around in ever decreasing circles!

 

AmdyD

[Gwiwer]

First up - I haven't seen this colour scheme in the flesh yet.  My comments relate to photos posted around the internet.

 

It appears dull and uninspiring.  It can look good in really good light but we seldom get that.   I agree with an earlier comment that the required door contrast colour would be better in copper rather than silver-grey and would help to offset the drabness of the green.

 

It looks almost black in some photos and not a nice shiny black but a dirty matt version.

 

I don't care who created the scheme nor why it was changed.  It is lacklustre and dowdy and says "We are an average outfit who don't really care" more than "Travel with us - we lead the way".  

 

Perhaps they couldn't afford Ray Stenning.  He of "Best Impresions" fame who has created some outstanding livery schemes for bus and train operators though it must be said he is also responsible for a few overly garish ones as well.  

 

For my money GWT "Merlin" was the best of the recent liveries and if this is an attempt to distance the rail operator from the teetering monolith of First Group then perhaps something like that might have been better.  It's not too late to specify a vinyl overlay amidships in a relief colour is it?

[Glorious NSE]

  If you want to go by train, you have no choice but to go FGW.  Therefore no matter how much effort goes into the image FGW projects, it's pointless as it is the concept of train travel that sells, not the swirly graphics on the side of the coaches or a flash website.  It's that concept of "train" that is the brand in competition with the alternatives, not First.  So apart from open access operators, where they have to stand out (although the ORR actually won't allow competition if it abstracts too much revenue from the franchised operators, so even open access operators have to be careful about how much "competitive branding" they apply to their services) and the limited franchised point to point competition between for example London and Birmingham, or Birmingham to Scotland via the West or East Coast routes, for the majority of travellers they have no alternative but to catch a monopoly provider.  Most commuters into London have no choice but to use one particular company.  Therefore whether it is Serco, Stagecoach or GoVia doesn't influence their choice of provider, therefore a brand image has very limited commercial point.  With an airline, if there is more than one on a route and they fly at broadly the times you want, you can choose based on a combination of fare, service, reputation, reliability and image.  If you are commuting by train from the Thames Valley into London, you have FGW, so even if they were the rail equivalent of Aeroflot of the 1970s, you'd still have to use them, or drive.  That's why I don't really see the point in trying to re-brand train services which are not a fully open market, and for large parts of the network are monopoly area providers where the only alternatives are often inferior or completely alternative options - or moving house to another route.

Whilst the London commuter may not have much choice (about whether to use rail), most of the rest of the country does! Quite a lot of choice! Yes they can drive, or take a bus or coach (often cheaper), or domestic flights on some corridors.

Where it matters isn't the individual brand, but presenting an image of something they might want to use, rather than have to.

 

If they image you choose to present is that you can't give two hoots about the environment your customers travel in then the chance of impressing that first time (or recapturing that long time gone) customer disappears. Presenting a good image to the travelling public is important if you want them to *want* to use your services. 

 

I'd suggest that presenting your company like anything from the Soviets in the 70s is the exact opposite of what has doubled the business! 

[Talltim]

The people you need to attract are the casual travellers, filling the off peak trains. Those pesky commuters, who have no choice only make things awkward anyway, by all wanting to travel at the same time, forcing you to have more trains than you need half the time

[Reorte]

 

I fit the category that can just remember the LNER and the years after and the awful rolling stock and dirty locos and now thank goodness ride around in reasonable rolling stock that is kept clean (yes on Chiltern they do)so it is progress.Agree that average passengers don't care about the colour of their train all they want is on tme,clean and one day decent fares!

 

Clean is good but "awful" is a word I'd be far happier applying to most current rolling stock (although admittedly I can't remember anywhere near as far back as you). Most of it is very unpleasantly cramped and claustrophobic with legroom approaching Ryanair standards all too often. I'd use the train rather more often if most of them hadn't been replaced with a cross between a sardine tin and a bus. Dirty can at least be cleaned...

[Ron Ron Ron]

I completely agree with Martyn, above.

 

When SWT swept away the old ex-BR slam door stock and introduced the squeaky clean, brightly coloured Desiros on routes up to London, or on local south coast services, passenger numbers rocketed.

The attraction of modern, clean trains and frequent services made that day out, or extra trip, worth doing.

[alaneggleston]

I completely agree with Martyn, above.

 

When SWT swept away the old ex-BR slam door stock and introduced the squeaky clean, brightly coloured Desiros on routes up to London, or on local south coast services, passenger numbers rocketed.

The attraction of modern, clean trains and frequent services made that day out, or extra trip, worth doing.

 

And let's not forget the by now well proven 'sparks effect' for bringing the punters passengers customers in.

[The Stationmaster]

That's very scary! (I fit somewhere between the third and two thirds). Another scary one is that it'll be, erm, 2021 (only 6 years) before we've had privatisation for as long as the Big Four existed.

I should do the maths again if I were you  the 1921 Act took effect from 1 January 1923 and nationalisation took effect from 1 January 1948 thus the Big Four actually had legal life of 25 whole calendar years.

 

The 1993 Act took effect from 1 April 1994 with the first passenger franchises let during that year - i.e. 21 years ago - and I believe the final sell-offs were completed in 1997.  Thus 25 years from 1994 takes us to 2019 while 25 years from 1997 takes us to 2022.  As it happens the operating company which I worked for ceased to be part of BR in May 1994.  

 

I would venture to say that there is a diminishing majority who remember the GWR.  I was thirteen when it disappeared but being an avid locospotter before Ian Allan and his books came on the scene, I saw and rode on GW trains.  Being so young at the time didn't preclude shed bashes even during the war and the ability to see long withdrawn engine.  Western Region was a bit easier with the ability to get around better and further afield.  I am not the only one whose interest is still in trains and probably not the oldest so there are others to whom the GW is fondly remembered

 

In this day and age, if you're lucky, age is only a number and a lifetime hobby is worth every minute.  Did I mention my first layout was a Dublo SNG set in 1939!

 

Brian.

In many ways that is absolutely correct Brian but things work in more mysterious ways than the identity one can see passing through your local station.  'The western' was still very much 'the Western' when I started in 1966 and the 'the Southern was still very much 'the Southern' and these are probably the two most significant examples of the old ideals, and structures and thought processes etc, living on but continually modernising as they went.  I don't know so much about the Eastern but the creation of 'the lines' organisation went back to even older routes while the North Eastern region still had very much of the old NER about its approach to all sorts of things.  The LMR was something of an oddity as I don't think it had ever got over the Derby vs Crewe syndrome and some aspects of its organisation gradually came to resemble more the Pre-Group organisational structure rather than anything else.

 

Now of course things changed, things were modernised, things were reorganised but these only took place gradually over the years and many of the folk driving the changes still had some of the aura (some might call it baggage) they had picked up from the past.  We all worked together inter-Regionally but in many resects the Regions all went their own way on all sorts of things although gradually central control and ideas were imposed, but it took a long time.  When I became part of Trainload freight under the 1992 sectorisation reorganisation the LM were still doing some things in what we on the WR regarded as a very old fashioned manner, the SR did some things in a very different way from us although in many respects we and the ER were very similar.  We gradually brought in changes to make things more alike within our new organisation but it wasn't easy and we never got all of it done in the two years we had before the next big organisational change.

[The Stationmaster]

Whilst the London commuter may not have much choice (about whether to use rail), most of the rest of the country does! Quite a lot of choice! Yes they can drive, or take a bus or coach (often cheaper), or domestic flights on some corridors.

Where it matters isn't the individual brand, but presenting an image of something they might want to use, rather than have to.

 

If they image you choose to present is that you can't give two hoots about the environment your customers travel in then the chance of impressing that first time (or recapturing that long time gone) customer disappears. Presenting a good image to the travelling public is important if you want them to *want* to use your services. 

 

I'd suggest that presenting your company like anything from the Soviets in the 70s is the exact opposite of what has doubled the business! 

Interestingly there is also another, often overlooked, form of competition on the rail network - who you buy your ticket from and how you buy it.  Many people, with some justification, regard this as a jungle but having recently seen it in action at close quarters there is a considerable range of choice.  When our ship was diverted from Swansea to Greenock everybody had to make alternative arrangements to either get home (in the case of most of us) or (in one case) back to where they had left their car - different means of ticket purchase with different providers under a wide range of conditions meant some could readily get refunds on their cancelled journeys while others couldn't and going via different providers produced different fares for what was basically the same journey.

 

None of us had any choice of operator to get to and then out of Glasgow but further south a wide range of options - albeit influenced by route but also price - opened up for several.  In fact the biggest problem seemed to be too much choice.

[Reorte]

I should do the maths again if I were you  the 1921 Act took effect from 1 January 1923 and nationalisation took effect from 1 January 1948 thus the Big Four actually had legal life of 25 whole calendar years.

 

The 1993 Act took effect from 1 April 1994 with the first passenger franchises let during that year - i.e. 21 years ago - and I believe the final sell-offs were completed in 1997.  Thus 25 years from 1994 takes us to 2019 while 25 years from 1997 takes us to 2022.  As it happens the operating company which I worked for ceased to be part of BR in May 1994.  

I was going from 1997 but just the years, so yes, ropey maths. Oops!

[exet1095]

Frequent services yes, clean just because they're new and hadn't had time to get dirty is temporary, and a lot of the rest sounds like "Ooh, new and shiny" being treated as "good" no matter what they're actually like. What was my regular-ish journey though turned from MkII or IIIs (not sure which) to shorter Voyagers to shorter 185s with a very commuter feel in the last 15 years, each one more cramped and uncomfortable than the last, which hasn't left me with a very good impression of the direction the railways have been moving and make me groan every time something new is promised.

 

On the other hand another line I occasionally used means Pacers are by far the most likely thing, so it's hard to imagine that anything they get replaced with could be worse.

I don't agree. SWT makes a real effort to keep its trains clean, and the 455s (which are ex-BR) are kept as shiny as the Desiros. They seem to have done a pretty good job of attracting extra passengers, and with the exception of those at Clapham Junction, there staff are mainly very helpful and motivated.

Edited August 21, 2015 by exet1095

[Glorious NSE]

Not sure where the original to that post went...?

But personally, I think interiors is something that the industry as a whole has generally been pretty poor on (though ironically given the post that led us here SWT has been much better than average for what it's worth, the 158/159 upgraded seats are excellent!) - there is just no chance of everybody getting new trains every decade or so, but there is no reason why it can't feel like you have a new train.

For instance - whilst the ride quality is never going to be superb in a Pacer, it's entirely possibly to make one feel like a bright and modern train with proper seating and lighting. Keep it off jointed track as much as possible and you've a usable train that folk won't shy away from.

Same goes for the BR Mk3 MU fleet, one of them can feel just as spartan as a pacer if the company behind a "Total Refurbishment" decides that means you keep a 30+ year old BR interior but with new seat covers and a deep clean. 

If the DfT wanted to do something really useful, rather than specifying what shade of grey the train should be painted it would be to set a *minimum* standard for train refurbs across the country. We already have a driver for change with the need to upgrade disabled loos. Why not have a service obligation on all operators with a minimum standard for a full internal upgrade/refurb every decade or so and a "good practice" refresh every 5 years, and then have a list of what "full internal upgrade/refurb" should actually mean. Minimum leg space, seat comfort, a/c, wifi, luggage space....

We'd have a fundamentally different feeling railway, especially on the "non-Intercity" bits, within a decade.

[Reorte]

Not sure where the original to that post went...?

I deleted it because I decided it was too much of an off-topic whinge, it must've been quoted just as I did that though.

Edited August 21, 2015 by Reorte

[wombatofludham]

Whilst the London commuter may not have much choice (about whether to use rail), most of the rest of the country does! Quite a lot of choice! Yes they can drive, or take a bus or coach (often cheaper), or domestic flights on some corridors.

Where it matters isn't the individual brand, but presenting an image of something they might want to use, rather than have to.

 

If they image you choose to present is that you can't give two hoots about the environment your customers travel in then the chance of impressing that first time (or recapturing that long time gone) customer disappears. Presenting a good image to the travelling public is important if you want them to *want* to use your services. 

 

I'd suggest that presenting your company like anything from the Soviets in the 70s is the exact opposite of what has doubled the business! 

 

I did actually say the alternatives outside London are car, bus or plane.  But.  They are not real competition for many,  In the major regional centres car travel, unless you have free workplace parking, is expensive and slow for most workers.  On long haul, car travel is tiring for many and with the cost of fuel, can work out quite pricey.  Air travel is fraught with problems, not least having to get to the airport at least an hour before departure, pay for very expensive parking, and then finding a way to get from the airport at the other end.  A lot of people won't want all that hassle.  Buses are a cost effective alternative but on local journeys they are slow and outside the main conurbations not frequent and expensive (my local train is actually cheaper than the bus in the same corridor!), and on inter-city services they are heavily focussed on London and airports for their market, the days of the rambling weekly cross country coaches have long gone.  My local market town, Dolgellau, hasn't seen a National Express coach since the 1980s, in fact the only NatEx coach in North Wales is the Bangor-London service via Birmingham.  They are all very different products and, for the majority of people, the train is often the better product and as such really sells itself on that basis. 

 

People have come back to the railways in their droves since Privatisation but that trend began with sectorisation.  Initiatives like replacing infrequent slow loco-hauled trains on regional cross country services with high frequency smaller Sprinters meant people could actually almost forget having to look at a timetable.  The PTEs invested heavily in rail around the big conurbations, West Yorkshire opening new stations, Centro reopening the Snow Hill routes, and added park and ride to most stations.  As an example the Walsall to Birmingham train service when I was studying at Birmingham Poly at Perry Barr was hourly with a few extras in the peak.  It's now half hourly all-shacks and half hourly semi-fast giving four trains an hour (yet in 1975 it was seriously being considered for replacement by a bus down the M6).  As late as the mid 1980s there were a handful of Midlands to Scotland services, now it's hourly.  Even Fairbourne (popn. about 700) has a two hourly daytime service to Birmingham which is it's best ever level of frequency and reliability.  Those sort of frequency enhancements, which began with sectorisation, will attract new business, and it is virtually impossible to say if the growth in passenger numbers is down to private initiative and branding or if the same level of demand, or more could have happened under sectorisation with the same level of stock investment.

 

So, a good product, with reliability and punctuality amongst the best in Europe, will always sell better when the alternatives are so poor, and I'm not convinced that the "First" or "Stagecoach" brand makes any difference to that.  After all, some of the most memorable branding and marketing was that for Intercity, a brand that has been pinched by many other railways and bizarrely dropped by the UK - and it applied uniform standards of presentation right across the country and had competitive fares and promotions covering the whole nation as good or better than any private operator who can only offer unique fare products within their own franchise.

[brianusa]

Being far away, I have followed this topic with interest.  Obviously I have no knowledge of all the details but what it boils down to is that if you want to go somewhere by train, you have to take what passes through your local station whether you care for the paintwork or no but it doesn't mean you have to like it, so really its a personal thing.  So I like the new GW over the FGW!

 

Brian

[96701]

Getting back to FGW livery for a moment, one of the 3 car units was standing in Hereford station. I looked at it as it standing in the platform under the awning and I was in the booking hall with a glass door between it and me. It looked black at first. It wasn't until the door opened that it looked dark green.

[Glorious NSE]

I did actually say the alternatives outside London are car, bus or plane.  But.  They are not real competition for many,  In the major regional centres car travel, unless you have free workplace parking, is expensive and slow for most workers.  On long haul, car travel is tiring for many and with the cost of fuel, can work out quite pricey.  Air travel is fraught with problems, not least having to get to the airport at least an hour before departure, pay for very expensive parking, and then finding a way to get from the airport at the other end.  A lot of people won't want all that hassle.  Buses are a cost effective alternative but on local journeys they are slow and outside the main conurbations not frequent and expensive (my local train is actually cheaper than the bus in the same corridor!), and on inter-city services they are heavily focussed on London and airports for their market, the days of the rambling weekly cross country coaches have long gone.  My local market town, Dolgellau, hasn't seen a National Express coach since the 1980s, in fact the only NatEx coach in North Wales is the Bangor-London service via Birmingham.  They are all very different products and, for the majority of people, the train is often the better product and as such really sells itself on that basis. 

I'm sorry, but that doesn't reflect the realities in this part of the world. I suspect there is no direction in this regional centre where the rail commuter flows are larger than the private car ones, and this is a city that for it's size is pretty well provided for in terms of rail facilities. For long haul yes the car is tiring, but it's still by far the dominant mode in this part of the world for any direction other than London - local buses? Not bad, and don't forget the price is "free" for a lot of the midweek leisure market now...

 

The last set of stats I can find (circa 2011) suggests more folk enter the city by bus than by train, about 10,000 a day by rail at the two main stations, about double that using buses in the city - walking and cycling are coming on fast, but the private car is still the dominant mode of transport for people here.

 

Sorry - to increase your market, you need to be attractive to folk that have plenty of other options, all of which have their own advantages.

 

 and I'm not convinced that the "First" or "Stagecoach" brand makes any difference to that.  

 

If you have a look at what I've said - I haven't suggested it does...

[Chy Mengrowyn Paul]

Getting back on topic...... , big shunts today to get most of one Night Riviera set at Long Rock green in readyness for the September launch but I doubt if a B coach TSOD will be ready.

[corneliuslundie]

Attractive trains are not the same thing as branding. For a train to be attractive, yes perhaps it needs to give a good first impression so be clean and in a pleasant livery, but the other issues seem to me to be far more important: ease of buying tickets and and easily understood fare structure; comfortable seats with enough leg room, and enough of them; clean loos on trains and on stations (the latter are getting much better, in my experience); reliability; high enough frequency to make train travel a realistic option; polite and helpful staff (again in my experience pretty good these days); good information provision on stations. If the journey fails seriously on any of these counts the chances are that a traveller with a choice will make a different choice next time. People won't buy a more expensive ticket for the same journey in the same time because your trains are bright red rather than dirty grey!

 

Re National Express: the only service in mid Wales parallels the train between Aberystwyth and Shrewsbury (it doesn't have much choice if it is to use the road!) but is only once or twice a day, though it does go to London without a change.

 

Jonathan

[43009]

Is there a almost full set at Long Rock right now?

[Andy Kirkham]

However you have overlooked one area which many senior people in the industry, even back in BR days in the late 1960s, thought might be important and which some BR managers clearly believed to be important - and that is the matter of staff feeling they belong to something which is different and/or special.  in other words they having something with which to identify.  The original use of the Inter-City 'raspberry ripple' livery had very much that effect while the BR pinnacle was probably Chris Green' s Network Southeast 'mobile fairground' accompanied by striking changes to station colours but which really spelt out 'we mean business'.

 

I sometime wonder whether the much-derided replacement of the term "Passenger" with "Customer" was aimed not at the fare-payers but at the railway staff, to impress upon them that these are the people who ultimately pay their wages.

[BG John]

I sometime wonder whether the much-derided replacement of the term "Passenger" with "Customer" was aimed not at the fare-payers but at the railway staff, to impress upon them that these are the people who ultimately pay their wages.

Surely it should be client rather than customer. The railway is providing a service, not selling them the train!

[The Stationmaster]

I sometime wonder whether the much-derided replacement of the term "Passenger" with "Customer" was aimed not at the fare-payers but at the railway staff, to impress upon them that these are the people who ultimately pay their wages.

I have long wondered if it was driven by an acronym - the railway makes widespread use of Customer Information Systems which are known as CIS.  i leave the rest to your deduction ...

[Chy Mengrowyn Paul]

What should have been tonight's up has 4 out of 7 not including the Sunday extra. With 602.