(18 Apr 2026, 9:57 pm)solsburian wrote The last chance for moving away from the Arriva brand was probably with DB, long before franchising, they IMHO should have binned it entirely given how tainted it has always been since 1997, even if they went with painting the busses red/charcoal and calling the local operations DB Northumbria etc. I suppose DB as well seemed to do little to improve the management structure and/or improve corporate discipline/standards either.

I still hold out hope that the franchised network won’t be called “The Angel Network” but I know that is a losing battle perhaps unless GNE/GAG decide to file mass registered trademarks of their existing Angel branding and variants to derail it. That is a topic for another thread haha.

I definitely want franchising but the ‘Angel of the North ‘ thing means nothing to me. A rusty monument that looks awful.