(18 Aug 2019, 10:18 pm)Andreos1 wrote

How?

The blues of Arriva were clearly linked back to the blue corporate id in the old livery.

The new version, has a clear link too - with a reference to the operator in huge writing.

I can't see any link to GNE's corporate identity nor any great detail about who the operator is when I look at those images of the X21.

I remember working elsewhere when Sapphire was launched. Initially on seeing it (and not being aware of the brand nor seeing any decals), I thought it was a revised Arriva livery.

It was only on a closer look, I realised that it wasn't a revised livery.

Whatever it was, it was clearly an Arriva vehicle.

Taking a step back and looking at the services ANE used it on initially - they were all well established routes. Granted there had been a variation of service numbers over the years (7 vs 723 as an example) - but still, they were well established and customers knew who the operator was.

I mentioned before that the X21 hasn't been around that long in the grand scheme of things and in that time, has not only had a range of allocations (discounting the 'deliberately wrong' peak allocations), but also a number of different liveries and brand names.

I reckon its been going 13/14 years in its current guise (may even be a couple of years shorter) and in that time, we have had Italian Presidents, a hotch potch of spares (when the Presidents failed) and now the current allocation is in it's second livery and brand name. A livery and brand name which doesn't shout out who the operator is, but sits on a service which operates deep in to Arriva territory and which has seen two of its stable mates in that Arriva territory, go the journey.

The Xlines livery, for the most part, is just the 2019 corporate livery with red changed to gold, and the blue changing depending on the route.

The colour of the Sapphire might be the same as corporate, but in terms of actual Arriva branding, there was very little. I'm not disputing that the updated Sapphire livery does now have the large Arriva logo, but when it was first launched, it looks like they tried to distance Sapphire from Arriva as much as possible.

As for the constant changes on the X21, I can't argue with you there!

IMO, Castles Express was one of the best route brands that GNE ever came up with, mostly because it didn't feel as tacky as some of the others.

I personally don't particularly like change to the Xlines brand, even now people in Tindale still don't know what the X21 is, the amount of people I've seen trying to get on with an Arriva ticket thinking the X1 has been rebranded!