East Coast Mark 4s

[JPTRAIN]

Just seen this:
http://railwayherald.org/imaging.centre ... gallery=X2
Anyone know when the first set is due for release??

[carlwestwood]

thats nothing to really shout about... a coach in undercoat/primer grey

[USRailFan]

Are they gonna keep the red doors?

[Kromaatikse]

Apparently there is "disabled access" legislation which requires the doors to be in a bright contrasting colour these days. As such, it's quite likely that any new livery will have something similar - no matter how offensive it looks to those of us with normal sight. Sigh.

In the old days I assume that finding the doors for a partially-blind chap was the station porter's job. Not many of those left in these lean, modern, efficient times.

[BR7MT]

I think you will find that is the Rail Vechicle Accessability Regulations (RVAR), which I think have been partially superseded by the less prescriptive European TSI's.

Regards,

Dan

[Kromaatikse]

Well at least GNER did a less eye-watering job of it than most. I'm convinced that First Group's corporate designers are completely colour-blind.

Looking at the various Finnish train liveries, only the commuter Sm1/2/4 types have had the doors highlighted at all until very recently. Even there, having the doors painted red is not exactly a sin when the livery is itself red and white.

The new "green" livery (http://www.vr.fi/eng/palvelut/junat/) for the intercity trains has painted the doors white in the middle of a green stripe on the bodywork, so I assume that is as a result of the EU directive. The new Sm5 commuter units (http://www.vr.fi/eng/palvelut/junat/lahijunat.shtml) also have white doors on a generally blue livery. Both of those manage to look fairly attractive while still clearly pointing out the location of the doors.

[USRailFan]

Take a look at this Norwegian commuter train and then tell us again exactly what was wrong with the British design?

[Kromaatikse]

Wow. That actually manages to be simultaneously bland and offensive. Impressive, but not to be emulated.

I still stand by my belief that magenta should not be used in a train livery, and especially not for large interior fittings. First Group take note.

[glasgowworks]

Here's first few MK4s completed East Coast repaints:
http://orange33009.fotopic.net/p66238181.html

All we need is a matching class 91 and DVT

[phill70]

I am flabbergasted that these TOC's come up with liveries like that
Give it a couple of weeks, and that will end up very dirty, I know, lets have a white and cream livery

[JPTRAIN]

Here's first few MK4s completed East Coast repaints:
http://orange33009.fotopic.net/p66238181.html

All we need is a matching class 91 and DVT

Looks interesting, btw they have done a matching dvt see here (not my video)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6s4ftvfPb3E

[455driver]

This kind of thing really winds me up. TOC's are constantly moaning about the difficulties making any profit and even making staff redundant etc and yet every time a new company takes over (or even every few years within the same franchise) they spend loads of money re=painting trains.

Southeastern have recently started to change the yellow doors for purple doors...I'm sure all the commuters are reaping the benifits of this when the trains are still cancelled/delayed/over crowded etc-at least the doors are now a nicer colour! They also spent a load of money re-branding when GoVia took over with new logos etc from South Eastern to Southeastern.

Scotland has the right idea with a uniform livery for who ever runs the franchise. East Coast especially seems a waste of time as they are just meant to be an interim operator. I say paint all trains one colour and let the companies stick their name on the side and that is all. I hate to think how much the design of a new livery and logo alone costs!

Anyway...rant over!

[danny3]

No offence but Southeastern still have the same amount of Trains as they did before (infact a few more now with the 395s) but still how can Southeastern improve things such as overcrowding when most of the problems are caused by the DFT, fair enough there are a few trains delayed but not all trains are late, delayed or cancelled like people keep saying, I used to travel on them everyday and most of them were on time! (as for south eastern trains to southeastern railway, the logos didn't change straight away though, aside from connex they have been the same?)

The only problem is that the train companies aren't allowed to buy their own trains apparently, if they did it would help with the overcrowding, although then that would have the other issue when the companies finished with that TOC! (i.e. they would take the trains with them!)

[nwallace]

Scotland has the right idea with a uniform livery for who ever runs the franchise.

Someone tried to complain about that when it was announced because it would cost more, they were shot down rather quickly as the new colour scheme is only being applied during normal repaint schedules.

East Coast especially seems a waste of time as they are just meant to be an interim operator.

What if a set reaches the repaint schedule during the interim?

I say paint all trains one colour and let the companies stick their name on the side and that is all. I hate to think how much the design of a new livery and logo alone costs!

Boring.

[455driver]

I agree that southeastern arn't as bad as they used to be but my point was more that when southeastern is struggling with the cost of day to day running (as are a number of TOC's) then it would make more sense to just repair/repaint rolling stock with standard colour schemes rather than (and you know it happened) managment setting up focus groups, spending money on designs etc. I know it would be boring to have all trains in the same livery but it costs a fair bit to re-design and apply liveries which would be better spent else where.

It is similar I suppose to Southern who are currently re-shaping various departments and looking to cut back spending all over whilst still spending money on re-designing and producing new uniforms to be rolled out in the autumn. And what have the top design companies (who have worked with BA and Virgin Atlantic etc as they kept telling us) come up with? The same as the old uniform only different colour shirts and bigger logos on the waterproofs!

Sorry to sound so grumpy about it all and I know that issues like over crowding arn't issues that TOC's can deal with and even if they could buy their own stock things like platform length, CLI & signalling sections would still need changing but it just seems that the big companies running the TOC's would prefer literally paint over the problems with their services in an attempt to fool passengers into thinking that things are improving.