I have a few thoughts about the ideas presented in the article. As yet, they don't gel into a coherent argument, but here they are anyway:

1. The basic palette of British Rail's corporate colours happily allowed some branding while retaining a hint of a national identity. There was "Inter City" on blue/grey mainline stock; the reversed livery for Pullmans and the white/blue stripe for a while on DMUs - with some local PTE logos in addition.

2. Most of the time, the journeys that I take involve a combination of different trains (what might be branded local, regional, inter-city and so on). I am rather more concerned that the railway acts as a joined-up network. If it has separate  brands such as IC, it must mean something about that stage of the journey, such as "refreshments always available".  It seems to be reverse-logic that because a train's diagram is short-distance, its passengers are thought of as "commuters".

3. I'm not sure what sort of brand might be appropriate for the types of passenger experience currently being cooked up. The idea that a railway brand would guarantee anything nice seems err.... optimistic at the moment.

4. The article regarded "Regional Railways" as being less successful. In terms of branding this may have been so. However, as a piece of management structure, the idea of making a team responsible for "the rest" (and nothing else) may have worked rather well in giving the poor-relation services some much-needed focus. I don't regard things which grew out of that - such as hourly Cardiff-Portsmouth and Cardiff-Manchester - as anything other than successes.

 
As I’ve said I expect little change, initially at least.

The main positive from day one will be a degree of certainty about the set up.  GBR has been ‘on the way’ for many years now and it will have affected all sorts of things from longer term strategies to, as the day comes nearer, day to day running.

There will no longer be accusations of shareholders taking all the profits or ‘zombie franchises’ and there will be less layers of complexity that various vested parties can hide behind when it comes to being held to account.

 

That really depends on what tangible benefits you see GBR bringing to TransWilts in the customer context, and how that can be articulated and delivered.

What difference is it going to make? Is the question most will ask.

Is it going to mean improved reliability? Additional services?

Or is it just the same people in different ties, and the same trains in a different colour scheme.

 
It's been very interesting travelling around Europe over recent weeks and seeing differing / regional branding and how it's seems to have brought differentiation between service and local pride.

The German example of the ICE (Intercity Express) fleet is nationwide, there are some DB (red trains) regional services, but also a wide range of liveries for various areas.

Perhaps at a time the railway is struggling with reliability and reputation (I find myself getting an unprecedented level of of criticism when I post about day out opportunities) the time for a rebranding is as things get sorted out.  In the last six months, we have been moving towards that on the TransWilts and a new brand might give a new start opportunity.

 
An engaging read on the branding of rail services, including comparisions with practices elsewhere in Europe.

Mark

https://www.freewheeling.info/blog/gbr-needs-a-brand-strategy