A quick paint job this morning has seen a Great Western Railway (GWR) train decorated to mark the England women’s team victory at the Euro football finals yesterday evening.
(c) GWR
GWR applied the decal to Intercity Express Train 800316 early this morning, while it was standing at Paddington station. It left Paddington at 7:37am after the decoration had been added, to go to the depot, and will return to passenger service later this morning.
GWR Human Resources director Ruth Busby watched the big match with her family last night and was overjoyed by the result. Ruth said: “We at GWR have a long and proud history of celebrating Great Westerners – past and present heroes from across our network – and the Lionesses are truly worthy of recognition for bringing football home in such brilliant style.”
(c) GWR
In June GWR added the official Platinum Jubilee Emblem to the side of its Queen Elizabeth II train, 800003, as part of the celebrations to mark Her Majesty’s 70 years on the throne.
Other Great Westerners to have been recognised include World War II codebreaker Alan Turing OBE, Bristol civil rights pioneer Dr Paul Stephenson OBE, Covid-19 fundraising hero Captain Sir Tom Moore, and Welsh sporting legends Sir Gareth Edwards and John Charles.
Why do train companies bother with this stuff. Not one person will buy a ticket because of it or there other virtue signalling. If you add up the hourly wage of the people who debated and decided this, then the cost of design and installation, it’s not cheap. Why not invest that in train or ticket improvements?
Granted, they’re not a patch on the beauty and individuality of named steam locos.
But, it’s a bit of fun, a bit of marketing yes and you can’t be suggesting that it won’t raise a smile from commuters? What about the kids, they’ll be running to their mums. Look mum, look!
Heavens, there’ll be the odd thousands of bloody selfies too, no doubt and maybe a trainspotter or two will be created.
More positives than negatives I’d argue.