You're probably wondering what we are on about here, but please persevere with us and hopefully all will become clear!
Rail-Blue Charters' offering is more modernistic and vibrant rather than older and traditional. We try and theme our offering, catering, branding and service delivery with this branding and colours. In this way we can create continuity and seamless delivery which helps with what we try to deliver in total.
We are not aiming at the high end of the market - other established operators do that very well. The mid-market position is where we stand and operate.
When we bought the carriages from Porterbrook Leasing, the carriages carried the colours of the previous operator. Basically most passenger rolling stock is leased by Rolling Stock Companies (or ROSCOs). The previous operator of our rolling stock was Virgin Trains' West Coast operation. We didn't think that anyone, least Virgin Trains, would want to see those carriages carrying old Virgin colours any more. After all Virgin had finished with them, so we sat down and decided what colour we wanted to paint the carriages.
The MkIII carriages have carried three liveries in their lives; British Rail Corporate Blue and Grey, Inter-City grey and red and finally the bright red and deep grey of Virgin Trains. There were very few blue and grey carriages running around representing the era from the 1970s and early 1980s, they needed a repaint anyway - so blue and grey it was.
To add an element of branding to the train, we also used the original 'Inter-City' branding that was first applied when built. 'Inter-City' had long since changed to 'InterCity' as in all one word without the hyphen, so we were able to use the old style 'logo'.
We are justifiably proud of what we have achieved. You are more than welcome aboard our trains to find out for yourself.
© Rail-Blue Charters 2008