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British Rail created many brand names for its products, designed to catch the eye and imagination of current and potential travellers and freight users. These included brands both for services and for multiple units. The privatised successor companies have built on this tradition, sometimes adopting the original British Rail brand, sometimes introducing their own (eg, Midland Mainline's "Meridian" trains, Virgin's "Voyager" services).
Services
Britain's state railways underwent a corporate identity change in 1965 with the introduction of the system-wide name "British Rail", the double-arrow symbol and a "Rail Blue" livery. The size of British Rail's fleet and the time required to repaint every locomotive and carriage meant that examples of the previous liveries could continue to be seen until c.1970.
In 1966, British Rail launched the first of its service brand names: "Inter-City" (the hyphen was later dropped to become "InterCity") and "Railfreight".
By the 1980s and 1990s, British Rail operated services under a number of brand names:
- Passenger Serices
- InterCity - high-speed express trains between major towns and cities
- Network SouthEast (originally London & South East) - commuter and medium-distance trains operating in an area bounded roughly by King's Lynn, Peterborough, Worcester, Bedwyn, Exeter and Weymouth
- Regional Railways (originally Provincial) - other passenger services in England and Wales, often suffixed by a regional description, e.g. Regional Railways North West
- ScotRail - passenger services within Scotland (officially part of Regional Railways, but with a distinct identity)
- Eurostar - international trains from London-Paris/Brussels (also used to describe the Class 373 units that operate the service)
- Alphaline - regional express services on secondary routes, operated by Regional Railways using 90mph Class 158 trains.
- Motorail - long-distance pasenger services that also carried cars (operated as part of InterCity)
- Ryde Rail - passenger services on the Isle of Wight (Ryde - Shanklin)
- Freight Services
- Rail Express Systems - Post Office and parcels services
- Trainload Freight - whole-train services, divided into sub-sectors covering Coal, Construction, Metals and Petroleum
- Freightliner - container services
- Speedlink - wagonload services
Multiple Units
Several families of multiple unit have been given official brand names for publicity purposes. These are listed below:
| Brand Name | Unit Classes | |
|---|---|---|
| Diesel Units | ||
| Blue Pullman | 251 | |
| Coradia 1000 | Adelante | 180 |
| Coradia | 175 | |
| Desiro | 185 | |
| Heritage | 100 to 131 | |
| Intercity 125 | 253, 254 | |
| Pacer (or Skipper on Western Region) | 140, 141, 142, 143, 144 | |
| Sprinter-family | Sprinter | 150 |
| Super-Sprinter | 153, 155, 156 | |
| Express-Sprinter | 158, | |
| South Western Turbo | 159 (Network South East) | |
| Turbo-family | Network Turbo | 165 |
| Network Express Turbo | 166 | |
| Clubman | 168 | |
| Turbostar | 170, 171 | |
| Voyager-family | Voyager | 220 |
| Super-Voyager | 221 | |
| Meridian | 222 (Midland Mainline) | |
| Pioneer | 222 (Hull Trains) | |
| Electric Units | ||
| Advanced Passenger Train | 370 | |
| Blue Train | 303, 311 | |
| Clacton Express | 309 | |
| Desiro | 350, 360, 444, 450 | |
| Electrostar | 357, 375, 376, 377 | |
| Eurostar | 373 | |
| Heathrow Express | 332 | |
| InterCity 225 | 91 and Mark 4 hauled coaching stock | |
| Juniper | 334, 458, 460 | |
| Nelsons (unofficial) | 404 (4-Cor, 4-Res, 4-Buf, 4-Gri) | |
| Networker | 365, 465, 466 | |
| Networker Classic (prototype) | 424 | |
| Pendolino | 390 | |
| Wessex Electric | 442 | |
"British Rail brand names"