Public Transport in your particular part of the region

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Nick Harvey
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Joined: Fri 15 Aug, 2003 22.26
Location: Deepest Wiltshire
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This item might amuse those of you interested in GWR's "bogey coloured" recent rebrand.

http://www.gazetteandherald.co.uk/news/ ... complaint/
Alexia
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Joined: Sat 01 Oct, 2005 17.50

It's more of a baby-poo green close up.....
Andrew
Posts: 330
Joined: Fri 15 Aug, 2003 18.18

Thameslink have scrapped the branding which they have only used for about five minutes and introduced a new one

http://www.thameslinkrailway.com

Of course it is now out of step with Great Northern. I can't see why they've done this, I was expecting Southern to fall into line at some point, not for Thameslink to fall out of line.
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Beep
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Joined: Sat 24 Mar, 2007 23.53
Location: That London

The plan is for GTR routes on the GN to go over to the TL brand post 2018 when the St Pancras canal tunnels open and most services from Cambridge, Peterborough and the further north run through to Brighton and St P, and the inner suburban network will run into 9-11 at KX.

I think GTR even have a new logo, dropping this
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for this
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madmusician
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Joined: Mon 11 Dec, 2006 19.11
Location: Worcester, UK

I received an email from Abellio Greater Anglia yesterday informing me that the franchise is going back to being known as Greater Anglia from 2am on 16th October. This coincides with the new franchise period that they have won.

So in the last 12 years, we've had: One, National Express East Anglia, Greater Anglia, Abellio Greater Anglia and now Greater Anglia again. I don't know why they think it's sensible to do another rebrand now - I'd rather see money spent on improved service!!
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WillPS
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madmusician wrote:I received an email from Abellio Greater Anglia yesterday informing me that the franchise is going back to being known as Greater Anglia from 2am on 16th October. This coincides with the new franchise period that they have won.

So in the last 12 years, we've had: One, National Express East Anglia, Greater Anglia, Abellio Greater Anglia and now Greater Anglia again. I don't know why they think it's sensible to do another rebrand now - I'd rather see money spent on improved service!!
DfT want customer facing brands to be independent of the operator going forward.

Although that said Stagecoach have slapped a Virgin logo on every East Coast train recently.
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cwathen
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-ox ... e-37908735
Electrification of some GWR routes now 'deferred' with a new 'aim' of 2024 for finishing the whole project...and no doubt with it further delays on sending the turbos to the West to help with the stock shortages here.
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WillPS
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cwathen wrote:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-ox ... e-37908735
Electrification of some GWR routes now 'deferred' with a new 'aim' of 2024 for finishing the whole project...and no doubt with it further delays on sending the turbos to the West to help with the stock shortages here.
There are other opportunities which might help - Class 155 reformation and Vivarail in particular.
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cwathen
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Joined: Fri 15 Aug, 2003 17.28

WillPS wrote:
cwathen wrote:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-ox ... e-37908735
Electrification of some GWR routes now 'deferred' with a new 'aim' of 2024 for finishing the whole project...and no doubt with it further delays on sending the turbos to the West to help with the stock shortages here.
There are other opportunities which might help - Class 155 reformation and Vivarail in particular.
I do think at some point though there needs to be an acceptance that post-electrification stock cascades cannot cover everything. For one thing, such cascades are difficult to timetable as GWR electrification delays has shown, and for another those trains are just getting older and older and refits of them seem to be more and more superficial (see the difference between 150s refurbed by Wessex vs those refurbed by FGW for a start), it shouldn't be an acceptable situation to just keep cascading old hand me downs onto routes which deserve something of a decent standard - the best hope to relieve crowing on an Exeter-Paignton service is that a 25 year old train gets moved from Thames Valley duty down to Bristol so that a 30 year old train can help out in Devon (add as many years onto that as are necessary depending on when the cascade finally happens). That really shouldn't represent the best they can do but that it is how it is.

Ultimately, IMO part of the future of rail (assuming there will be no master plan to electrify the entire network) has to include building new high quality DMUs, whether that gets up the backs of environmentalists or not. AFAIK, the single new source of 'new' DMUs is the Vivarail D trains, which will be slower than than all existing DMU stock (even pacers). That surely can't be all that will be done for new DMUs?
woah
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Joined: Sun 28 Mar, 2010 12.39

Well there's the Class 195 DMUs on the way for Northern - I guess time will tell whether more DMUs are ordered to replace the ageing BREL-era stock.
Alexia
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Joined: Sat 01 Oct, 2005 17.50

BUMP

A lot's happened in the last year.

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> South West Trains is now South Western Railway, indeed under FirstGroup although we at GWR haven't been given reciprocal travel on it yet, although a SWR manager got on in First Class of my GWR train the other day so perhaps it's working the other way.

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> The cancellation of electrification between Cardiff and Swansea meaning that the brand new Maliphant Depot at Swansea will only be used by diesel trains for the forseeable future. Came after the Tories lost their only two seats along the route. Coincidence surely. Anyway there's also plenty of other scuttlebutt going around about the whole GWR electrification process, from underpowered trains that can only get up to 80mph on their diesel engines, to the newly installed overhead electrical infrastructure in the Severn Tunnel already corroding and rusting away.

> The tendering of the Wales & Borders franchise which is up for renewal in 2018 with little to no sign of the Welsh Government's preferred option of a public/private partnership akin to TfL coming to fruition any time soon.

> Stagecoach continuing to haemmhorage routes in South Wales and surrounding areas, with local operators picking up the slack at a cost to the taxpayer who have to subsidise the routes.

Elsewhere, there's more strike action going on against various things, including DOO implementation and changes to working rosters, including cutting Hidden down to 8 hours for non-safety critical staff. Greater Anglia have been using rapidly "trained" strikebreaking office staff to run trains, with trains leaving stations early, dispatch attempts being made against red signals, and in one case, opening the doors on the wrong side of the train.

Welcome news that Arriva and the FAW have got their heads together to provide football special trains for North Walian fans to get to and from late night kickoffs in Cardiff.

Another welcome distraction this summer was Geoff & Vicki visiting all 2563 mainland stations in Great Britain (and Anglesey, and possibly the Isle of Wight, we think.) I got to meet them when they came through Bristol and bought them lunch. Lovely couple. Great series. Well worth a watch if you like railways.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SoA1OTQ ... G-C_2tH1W9
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