New Great Western Livery

[Peter Kazmierczak]

With all this talk of retro-GWR, I thought the names would be obvious.

 

Abbotsbury Castle

Abergavenny Castle

Aberystwyth Castle

Athelney Castle

Avondale Castle

Banbury Castle

Barbury Castle

Barry Castle

Berkeley Castle

Berry Pomeroy Castle

 

I could go on...........................................

[newbryford]

With all this talk of retro-GWR, I thought the names would be obvious.

 

Abbotsbury Castle

Abergavenny Castle

Aberystwyth Castle

Athelney Castle

Avondale Castle

Banbury Castle

Barbury Castle

Barry Castle

Berkeley Castle

Berry Pomeroy Castle

 

I could go on...........................................

 

Kerosene Castle.........

 

Cheers,

Mick

[newbryford]

I've long thought 'Speed to the West' would be a good name for an FGW power car, after the old GWR posters. Maybe now the GWR is back, it'd be even more fitting

 

jo

 

"Speed to the West (but only as far as Devon..................)" would be more apt.

 

Cheers,

Mick

[lmsforever]

Then its slow train to Penzance!

[Gwiwer]

Kerosene Castle.........

 

Cheers,

Mick

 

 

"Sand Castle"

 

 

 

security screws

 

Of course!  We don't want any old Tom, Dick or Gordon William Rudkins coming along and helping themselves to a souvenir do we? 

 

 

 

slow train to Penzance

 

Quite so.  Barely a minute faster than the best steam timings.  The Cornish main line twists and turns, climbs and falls like a roller coaster and will never be a high-speed heaven.  It would help (and it would help distribute passenger loadings also) if HSTs didn't have to stop at Saltash, St. Germans, Menheniot and Lostwithiel all the time.  One well-timed London train daily should be enough for those locations and the rest left to the local stoppers. That was the situation before some of the stoppers were withdrawn some years back despite the "promise" of a half-hourly service at some time in the future.

 

By way of comparison it's around 2 hours 15 minutes from Penzance to Exeter, centre to centre, by road on a clear day but the same from Penzance to Plymouth!  Which ever approach to Plymouth is used from the west there are long slow sections permanently restricted to 40mph.  The train is at least not slower than the car for once.

[surfsup]

A picture of the 'new' Turbo interior has emerged online. It certainly has a retro feel to it - It now looks like a product of the 1980s!

 

https://instagram.com/p/75RoV1mWrH/

 

Sorry, but I still prefer the as current FGW interior, it actually has Colour!

 

https://www.flickr.com/photos/55223176@N03/6973589861/in/photolist-bCetiX-bpjzfS-5m9bhf-pMQHYF-dnzPFf-dnQHZ1-dRTW9P-6Xvqyd-owxY7e-dRUbg2-dRZTC5-dRU3m8-qwKj4b-apoFYh-wJkCb7-dRZJBq-dYX262-oushbA-dRUmyc-eiybkz-otUvUP-otGWBo-dRU9Re-xcJRPC-kf1amK-qB7hTV-qENexf-9yPXzW-3y6k8T-dRTZJt-dRZCew-dZ3z71-x2mbQK-9WzDgx-dZ3CMQ-hMHQQF-hEX2MB-s9hm27-kpYJqx-wLKjkw-owdMew-dZ3xJd-dYWVGp-dZ3B1W-oerUta-oeVUoB-dZ3A63-wKniFa-dRZz6Q-dRZQ6A

[The Stationmaster]

"Sand Castle"

 

 

 

 

Of course!  We don't want any old Tom, Dick or Gordon William Rudkins coming along and helping themselves to a souvenir do we? 

 

 

 

 

Quite so.  Barely a minute faster than the best steam timings.  The Cornish main line twists and turns, climbs and falls like a roller coaster and will never be a high-speed heaven.  It would help (and it would help distribute passenger loadings also) if HSTs didn't have to stop at Saltash, St. Germans, Menheniot and Lostwithiel all the time.  One well-timed London train daily should be enough for those locations and the rest left to the local stoppers. That was the situation before some of the stoppers were withdrawn some years back despite the "promise" of a half-hourly service at some time in the future.

 

By way of comparison it's around 2 hours 15 minutes from Penzance to Exeter, centre to centre, by road on a clear day but the same from Penzance to Plymouth!  Which ever approach to Plymouth is used from the west there are long slow sections permanently restricted to 40mph.  The train is at least not slower than the car for once.

Only one HST a day from London calls at those stations in the Down direction Rick (which is a darned nuisance at times when we travel to Saltash or when I travel from Saltash to Camborne)

[WCML100]

A picture of the 'new' Turbo interior has emerged online. It certainly has a retro feel to it - It now looks like a product of the 1980s!https://instagram.com/p/75RoV1mWrH/Sorry, but I still prefer the as current FGW interior, it actually has Colour!https://www.flickr.com/photos/55223176@N03/6973589861/in/photolist-bCetiX-bpjzfS-5m9bhf-pMQHYF-dnzPFf-dnQHZ1-dRTW9P-6Xvqyd-owxY7e-dRUbg2-dRZTC5-dRU3m8-qwKj4b-apoFYh-wJkCb7-dRZJBq-dYX262-oushbA-dRUmyc-eiybkz-otUvUP-otGWBo-dRU9Re-xcJRPC-kf1amK-qB7hTV-qENexf-9yPXzW-3y6k8T-dRTZJt-dRZCew-dZ3z71-x2mbQK-9WzDgx-dZ3CMQ-hMHQQF-hEX2MB-s9hm27-kpYJqx-wLKjkw-owdMew-dZ3xJd-dYWVGp-dZ3B1W-oerUta-oeVUoB-dZ3A63-wKniFa-dRZz6Q-dRZQ6A

As much as some people hate all the bright colours first use, the new interior looks so tacky and cheap. The fgw pink/blue interior worked ever so well. The new one looks like some one has drawn some lines on paint program on a pc and asked a kid to randomly fill in the lines with different colours using the fill tool.

 

So far off the standard set by the new first class interiors on the mk3's.

Edited September 25, 2015 by WCML100

[Gwiwer]

Only one HST a day from London calls at those stations in the Down direction Rick (which is a darned nuisance at times when we travel to Saltash or when I travel from Saltash to Camborne)

 

It's more of a darned nuisance when it's supposed to but doesn't  I was aboard when it dutifully stopped at Saltash and sailed through St. Germans at the (fairly modest) permitted line speed before coming to a smart halt a quarter of a mile later.  Not being permitted to reverse on the main line it was taxis for Liskeard for those wishing to alight, but for those waiting hopefully to board it was too late and the only option was wait for the next stopper.  Everyone's capable of making mistakes.

[Chy Mengrowyn Paul]

Nobody I know has mentioned any new naming policy. Have thought to myself though is it the end of traditional locomotive names as there will eventually only be " units "..... ?

[brianusa]

The naming of engines seems to be quite healthy although some of the names leave a lot to be desired.  Indeed in this day and age of engines that all virtually look alike it would be an asset. One would hope we are more sophisticated than those in the days when the GW had to remove some to avoid confusion!

 

Brian.

[newbryford]

The naming of engines seems to be quite healthy although some of the names leave a lot to be desired.  Indeed in this day and age of engines that all virtually look alike it would be an asset. One would hope we are more sophisticated than those in the days when the GW had to remove some to avoid confusion!

 

Brian.

 

My bold.

 

To me, one GWR 4-6-0 looks like another................. although I can easily recognise a King by the outside framed leading bogie axle and a Castle by the curved steam pipe - as long as it doesn't have an outside framed leading bogie axle.

 

But after that, they all look the same................... Hall - modified or otherwise, Grange, Manor, Saint, County - oh, oops. Another one I can spot by the continuous splasher above the coupled wheels)

To further compound it, they're all the same colour.

 

Cheers,

Mick

[Peter Kazmierczak]

Come on Mick, you know you can spot a Grange by the raised footplate over the cylinders and a Star by the more basic Churchward cab.

[newbryford]

Come on Mick, you know you can spot a Grange by the raised footplate over the cylinders and a Star by the more basic Churchward cab.

 

Star - I knew I'd missed one....... but then again, they all look the same.

 

cheers,

Mick

[Zomboid]

The GWR had more than one type of 4-6-0?

Well I've leant something today.

[rob D2]

It's a nice green , but it needs more contrast - maybe like the 1997 original great western !

 

The GWR logo just looks old fashioned rather than retro.

 

And to think this probably cost them a couple of million to get some chap in red braces and silly glasses to think this up.

I could have done it in two minutes with juniors lidl pen set.

[Fenman]

... And to think this probably cost them a couple of million to get some chap in red braces and silly glasses to think this up.

I could have done it in two minutes with juniors lidl pen set.

 

If it did cost them that, they are fools. However, most people just add together implementation costs (eg, buying and applying new vinyls) with design costs - but the latter are usually only a tiny element of any redesign project. Getting the core of this right is unlikely to have cost more than a five figure sum. Which is not peanuts, but nor is it "a couple of million".

 

And you could argue that most of us could probably have designed almost all of the simplest and best logos that we see around us, from Audi's 4 circles to BMW's propellor quadrant to Citroen's two chevrons to Apple's apple. So what? The fact is that we didn't do it, and it takes a lot of professional experience to produce something apparently simple and memorable. That's why logos and symbols produced by public competition or amateurs are usually pretty rubbish - eg, EWS' animal heads or Network Rail's triangle-with-rails thingy (the latter drawn by the CEO on the back of an envelope).

 

I've yet to see it in the flesh, but I am rather liking this new livery. Even the internal shots look, to me, like a massive improvement on the garish "funfair" design of the old pink/purple scheme. Views differ...

 

Paul

Edited September 26, 2015 by Fenman

[rob D2]

Ah but the three beasties must have taken longer than gWr !

I think there was an element of snobbery with EWS that the design houses didn't like an amateur thinking up a logo as was the case with this competition

[Fenman]

... I think there was an element of snobbery with EWS that the design houses didn't like an amateur thinking up a logo as was the case with this competition

 

I am not a design house and don't feel snobbish at all. It simply was a pretty poor symbol; looked at from any distance it became a mush, and it wasn't immediately apparent to me what a heraldic-style stag's head, for example, had to do with a railway freight company. I guess EWS came to feel the same, given what little prominence they gave to it in their liveries.

 

Compare that with British Rail's double arrow symbol: it is effectively just five lines. Any kid could have done it. But it is utterly distinctive and very memorable, still being used more than half a century later to indicate railway stations - often on signs where it is not even felt necessary to add the word "station", such is the recognisability of the symbol. And then other railway organisations seemed to feel "inspired" by it *cough* Netherlands *cough*.

 

Good schemes take a bit of time to bed-in: and I haven't yet even seen a newly-liveried GWR train in the flesh, so I'll reserve passing too strong a judgement for the moment. If only to avoid me looking too foolish later on. 

 

Paul

[bgman]

Hopping between trains a charter from Paddington to Penzance pulled into Exeter St.Davids briefly at about 17.40 today caught me unaware but got these (poor) shots of the new livery for what there worth...

 

 

 

 

Wish I'd had a decent camera on me at the time. First impressions.... Think it's going to grow on me

[surfsup]

Rumured to have cost First Group 7.5 Million.

 

That HST was on a FGW/gWr new branding staff 'party' held at Newbury Racecourse today, with one from Swansea and one from Plymouth.

[rob D2]

No, I wasn't accusing you fenman.

 

However the EWS beasties were applied to 250 brand new class 66s so they must have liked it. One of the design houses did correctly say the name EWS didn't really portray what they did at all.

 

But then again look at RES, that blue flash livery didn't really convey much to me - were those parcels travelling at light speed or something ?

[Peter Kazmierczak]

The photos above, from bgman (sorry I don't know your first name), illustrate how unimaginative the whole "look" appears on a typical British cloudy and dull afternoon.

 

The green appears very cold and unwelcoming to me.

 

BUT I've not seen it in the flesh, so might be completely wrong...................

[Legend]

I think it demonstrates the point. It looks black. I'm not really into multiple stripes but this is at the opposite end of the spectrum . Completely bland and boring. I'd vote it one of the worst liveries around .

 

Conversely I've just spent Friday and Saturday in a lovely flat at Spittal, Berwick upon Tweed , with the ECML at the bottom of the field. Have to say I'm very impressed with Virgin EC livery on both 91s and HSTs . That's a proper livery. Also surprised at the amount of stock wearing the new livery. It's certainly in the majority, particularly with coaching stock

[DavidB-AU]

I agree the VTEC livery looks very flash.

 

Time will tell how the new GWR livery stands up. Maybe when it gets a bit dirty it won't look as black on a dull day.

 

It's funny what time does to liveries. I didn't particularly like the LM livery at first but it does stand out and has grown on me, especially on the 350 and 172. Somehow the livery just suits that shape (not so much the 170 and 323).

 

Cheers

David