Metropol

AIUI it's always been "Great Western Railway" - all promotional material has referred to it - certainly in the last few weeks or so.

EDIT: Just months after their re-brand, East Coast is now de-branding to just "Virgin Trains". Not that that'll be confusing.....

Alexia wrote:AIUI it's always been "Great Western Railway" - all promotional material has referred to it - certainly in the last few weeks or so.

So, the first day of GWR. The website has changed over, the PIS has been reprogrammed to say 'Great Western Railway' on audio (but for some reason the screens have 'GWR Service' as the TOC name - do they really need the word 'service'?), a (very) small amount of print material has been changed...and that's about it.

Obviously old brands can't be made to disappear overnight, but I remain amazed at what little work they have done in preparation for this rebrand. When Crosscountry started (which IIRC was also on a Sunday), it took them a while to complete the livery modification that they did, but they had all the Virgin shields that were on the ends of the trains and the VT decals off on launch day, along with changing over all print material inside. When the greater west franchise first started, as I said before Wessex Trains was being debranded even before it's franchise had officially ended, to the point that by the actual changeover day their name was pretty already gone apart from on station signeage which even then was still changed within a week or so (I do love though that 1 sign at Dawlish Warren was missed and it took until 2013 to change), and FGW were already well in the process of rolling out the dynamic lines brand for the new franchise whilst still operating the old FGW franchise.

Yet nothing like this has been done for today, at the very least I thought all easily changeable material which didn't require time or skill to update (such as posters on trains and stations, along with other print material and uniforms) would be all ready to go...and at the very least I thought the guard wouldn't say 'First Great Western' for the entire journey!

I remarked this to the lady in the buffet car, who said she expected that more herself would be done.

Alexia wrote:EDIT: Just months after their re-brand, East Coast is now de-branding to just "Virgin Trains". Not that that'll be confusing.....

I was surprised they went for the 'East Coast' sub-brand in the first place - unless it was just a comfort thing for the uninitiated to help them identify their train?. When they had the Crosscountry franchise, both it and VT West coast were just 'Virgin Trains' with a single branding and were marketed as though they were a single operation, I'm not sure if it was even commonly known that they were operating two franchises as very little was made of that by Virgin. Perhaps they're going for the same thing again.

cwathen wrote:Obviously old brands can't be made to disappear overnight, but I remain amazed at what little work they have done in preparation for this rebrand. When Crosscountry started (which IIRC was also on a Sunday), it took them a while to complete the livery modification that they did, but they had all the Virgin shields that were on the ends of the trains and the VT decals off on launch day, along with changing over all print material inside. When the greater west franchise first started, as I said before Wessex Trains was being debranded even before it's franchise had officially ended, to the point that by the actual changeover day their name was pretty already gone apart from on station signeage which even then was still changed within a week or so (I do love though that 1 sign at Dawlish Warren was missed and it took until 2013 to change), and FGW were already well in the process of rolling out the dynamic lines brand for the new franchise whilst still operating the old FGW franchise.

There is a huge difference, and that is that legally nothing has changed. The same company, owner, customer service - everything. FGW is the same thing. First branding hanging around isn't a problem.

Virgin removed all their branding a long way in advance of handover because they didn't want to be associated with the new operation. CrossCountry was then probably more of a basket case than it had been at any other point, before or since, and it would do them no favours being further associated with it - probably one of the reasons Arriva did not assign their brand to it, as they had done with their Welsh and Northern operations.

cwathen wrote:Yet nothing like this has been done for today, at the very least I thought all easily changeable material which didn't require time or skill to update (such as posters on trains and stations, along with other print material and uniforms) would be all ready to go...and at the very least I thought the guard wouldn't say 'First Great Western' for the entire journey!

I heard occasional announcements for both Central Trains and Midland Mainline (although you could argue the latter could be correct if referring to the line rather than the company) for ages after Stagecoach took over their services. Humans and routines, it's understandable.

Isn't it the case that the outgoing franchisee has to debrand before handing over to someone else? As Will says here, First are still in charge, they've just chosen to rebrand at the franchise renewal date.

Far be it from me to accuse First group of knocking out a piece of marketing claptrap...but apparently this is a new dawn, they now see themselves as 'custodians of the railway' and this is absolutely a new era 'far more important than any franchise', and of course there is a (admittedly minor) legal change in that they are now running under a new extension agreement.

Putting to that to one side, my point is more that regardless of the event that has triggered the need to rebrand, we are talking about a company changing it's name and it's entire corporate look. Whilst it is obviously not economically or logistically viable to get all that done for day 1 when the old brand is so entrenched, it certainly is not unrealistic to expect them to have had at least some examples of the finished article in place for their launch day and to get things which can be changed over for no or little cost done straight away.

When it comes to the railway, it has been previously demonstrated, regardless of whether or not there were different politics in play, that it is logistically possible (and presumably reasonably economically possible) to at least get an old name removed pretty much straight away.

Some of the stuff that could have been done with GWR is breathtakingly simple - the HST I was on today had new GWR branded reservation tickets, but the old FGW branded doily-things on the seat backs were left in place when it would have taken nothing to pull these off (I have helped them with this by procuring one for posterity, it can go with my 'First Great Western Standard Class' one from when the HSTs were refurbed).

Said HST also did actually have the dynamic lines and FGW vinyls pulled off most of the coaches to leave them plain blue which I would imagine is a pretty big job, yet there were still plenty of FGW posters onboard when it would be the easiest thing in the world to change these. And if they were going to that bother on the coaches, you'd think some temporary GWR stickers would have been produced to go on them pending a respray of the stock into the proper GWR colours.

When it comes to stations, St James' Park in Exeter has actually been repainted from FGW purple into GWR green, but all the FGW vinyls have been left in place on the signeage - surely it makes sense that if you are going to send a team to do this work, then they should be going equipped to get it all done at once or otherwise what was the point?

It's not about whether or not it legally matters that it will take a long time to get everything changed, it's more that I find it odd such a big push would be made about a rebrand (even extending to radio advertising which I heard all day at work) but then to have such laclustre execution of it on the ground.

It's made particulary obvious since the PIS has been changed over and 'Great Western Railway' echos through stations hundreds of times a day whilst almost everything you can see still reads 'First Great Western'.

If they did want to plod on at a slow pace for cost or other reasons, I wonder why they didn't start doing this work now but hold off on the official rebrand until more of it had been completed.

thegeek wrote:Isn't it the case that the outgoing franchisee has to debrand before handing over to someone else? As Will says here, First are still in charge, they've just chosen to rebrand at the franchise renewal date.

Another occasion where this didn't happen is with East Coast, which is obviously because East Coast was a special case as it was in public ownership. Many trains still have 'East Coast' on the side, staff still wear East Coast uniforms, ties etc, with the logos still on full view.

Regarding Virgin Trains now subsequently dropping the 'East Coast' part, it was never going to work when the original Virgin Trains stubbornly stayed as just 'Virgin Trains' with no 'West Coast' suffix added.

I'm surprised they've done this though as Virgin will now operate two completely different types of train, both now and in the future, which will make it confusing when either downplaying the current stock, or bigging up the new stock or talking about Penolinos. This wasn't a problem with WC & XC as they went from 'old trains' to 'brand new shiny Virgin Trains' with the same interior specs at approx. the same time.

WillPS wrote:CrossCountry was then probably more of a basket case than it had been at any other point, before or since, and it would do them no favours being further associated with it - probably one of the reasons Arriva did not assign their brand to it, as they had done with their Welsh and Northern operations.

Funny you say this, as I saw a CrossCountry Voyager last week and noticed that at the front of the train near the first passenger window, there's now a small bit of lettering added, reading something like "CrossCountry is part of Arriva". It was quite small and looked like the afterthought it must've been, certainly wasn't part of the livery before.

Andrew wrote:

thegeek wrote:Isn't it the case that the outgoing franchisee has to debrand before handing over to someone else? As Will says here, First are still in charge, they've just chosen to rebrand at the franchise renewal date.

Another occasion where this didn't happen is with East Coast, which is obviously because East Coast was a special case as it was in public ownership. Many trains still have 'East Coast' on the side, staff still wear East Coast uniforms, ties etc, with the logos still on full view.

Regarding Virgin Trains now subsequently dropping the 'East Coast' part, it was never going to work when the original Virgin Trains stubbornly stayed as just 'Virgin Trains' with no 'West Coast' suffix added.

I'm surprised they've done this though as Virgin will now operate two completely different types of train, both now and in the future, which will make it confusing when either downplaying the current stock, or bigging up the new stock or talking about Penolinos. This wasn't a problem with WC & XC as they went from 'old trains' to 'brand new shiny Virgin Trains' with the same interior specs at approx. the same time.

Staff uniforms often outlast the franchise significantly. East Midlands Trains staff were still wearing Central Trains and Midland Mainline stuff for a year or more after the franchise changed. The unions, quite rightly, object to uniforms being inflicted upon staff without consultation.

cwathen wrote:[585 words about how First are fools or some shit for not making sure every last bit of FGW branding has not yet been destroyed]

Money talks, bullshit walks.

cwathen wrote:It's not about whether or not it legally matters that it will take a long time to get everything changed, it's more that I find it odd such a big push would be made about a rebrand (even extending to radio advertising which I heard all day at work) but then to have such laclustre execution of it on the ground.

Have a look to the east, where Abellio are running trains around in the same condition (internally and externally) as they were 4 rebrands previously, and are still refusing to repaint or vinyl them - the remaining Anglia Railways 170s - this is a brand which disappeared over 11 years ago. Amongst the rest of the fleet there are examples of virtually every brand and sub-brand that has appeared in the meantime.

Andrew wrote:I'm surprised they've done this though as Virgin will now operate two completely different types of train, both now and in the future, which will make it confusing when either downplaying the current stock, or bigging up the new stock or talking about Penolinos. This wasn't a problem with WC & XC as they went from 'old trains' to 'brand new shiny Virgin Trains' with the same interior specs at approx. the same time.

4 different types. Pendolinos, Voyagers, HST's and Electra's. 5 once the IEPs join the party.

scottishtv wrote:Funny you say this, as I saw a CrossCountry Voyager last week and noticed that at the front of the train near the first passenger window, there's now a small bit of lettering added, reading something like "CrossCountry is part of Arriva". It was quite small and looked like the afterthought it must've been, certainly wasn't part of the livery before.

Does it also say that Arriva is a DB Company, as their buses and Welsh trains now do?

Yes. The text in full is

Part of Arriva - a [DB] company