"What's black, white, and red all over?"

The current Transport for Wales livery, that's what.
Thew new TfW livery which is being applied to their DMUs comprises of a relatively plain and boring white and red livery, with black window surrounds. Personally, I think that this livery is too similar to the current Virgin Trains West Coast (VTWC) livery on the Class 390 Pendolinos, which comprises of just a white side and dark grey doors, void of any sort of branding bar the splash of red at each end of the units with the Virgin branding on.

These two new liveries on the UK rail network are both very similar and very boring. What happened to the days of the old FGW liveries? What happened to the old blue ATW? In these cases, a branding change and a franchise change were the respective reasons for the change in livery. However, the Virgin Pendolinos were not subject to a franchise change when they received a new paint job; the livery change was supposed to make them fit in with the new Azuma Class 800/801/802 units which were designed to arrive in service in 2018. However, the new Azumas were going to run on the ECML and the Pendolinos on the WCML. Also, Virgin wanted a unified system, with one livery across the whole network they owned, but the franchise change from VTEC to LNER on the ECML meant that these ideas were not going to come to fruition.

The ECML now comprises of two different liveries; the livery on the Class 43s and 91s, and the livery on the Azuma units. The new Azumas carry a more modern livery, with less red branding. The only branding on the new units is around the windows and at the end of each unit. The 43s and 91s are all, with the exception of certain liveries, red with the white stripe and the LNER logo. The LNER logo, in fact, is actually in a different shade of red to the original colours.

But that's all I've got time for this time.

Thanks,

-Peter