03-05-2025
I don't care what colour my train is, just make it run on time
The cost has not been revealed but what was unveiled this week, in a tented siding to select media, was an Avanti West Coast train adorned in bright, swirling colours with images of folk dancing, tapping drums and playing the saxophone. Musical notes and love hearts float about and, in a hippyish Woodstock font, are the capitalised words: 'Together We Roll.'
This is not, apparently, indicative of what happens to passengers in the event of a train crash, but a joyous representation of the ethnicities of staff and communities that are associated with the Avanti network.
The artwork, or livery to give it its technical term, stretches across all seven carriages of the new Evero rolling stock, which, trainspotting nerds will tell you, is Avanti-owner Hitachi Rail's new type of 'bi-mode multiple unit' (which sounds like a gay bouncer).
The livery is bright and jolly, which is a decidedly poor reflection of the general demeanour of travellers who grind up and down the West Coast main line daily, ferried by Avanti which, according to the most recent figures from the Office of Rail and Road, has the worst record for delays in the UK.
The work, said one commuter, had 'all the cachet of Soviet-era socialist realism'. Another raged: 'I'm so sick of this I want to scream.'
Thus comes what Avanti must think is a wizardly piece of sleight of hand, some cheeky misdirection. Passengers weep into their morning cereal at the prospect of another commuter train delay, while Avanti, with much song and dance, reveals the bombastic creativity of artist Baraka Carberry, whose work acts as a sort of invitation to graffiti other trains.
'Nothing like this has been seen on the UK's railways,' chirruped Kathryn O'Brien, Avanti West Coast customer experience director, whose very job title makes one interrogate the soundness of reality.
And nothing like that has been seen for good reason, because we train habitués would rather hope a train operator's mission would be to get the things running on time before they started spraying an artist's indelible – and expensive – endeavours all over them.
Joining this deluded rabbit-hole chorus was even Lord Hendy, Minister for Rail. 'Diversity is the key to success of any industry,' he said. And there we were thinking it might be stuff like: going to the office, costing out exclusive freight lines, or working out ways to improve lighting and air conditioning.
But no, what the railways need, says his lordship, is creative work that goes 'a long way to sparking conversations, encouraging inclusion'.
He added: 'We still have a long way to go until we have a railway which reflects the society we live in.' Indeed, I look forward to one such 'angry' train. A bright red one, presumably, like the frequently cross James in Thomas The Tank Engine.
Given Avanti's poor record, it surely expected a heap of opprobrium to land on it the second it unveiled such a monument to hubris. Yet it went ahead anyway, suggesting it doesn't just ignore its customers, it is positively contemptuous of them.
What a calm and cohesive society needs is not to have multiculture rammed down its throat. A decent society operates instead in a culture of civil co-dependence and mutual appreciation, of earnest endeavour, respect, order, rule of law and wise governance. Although I know, these days, that in itself sounds like Alice in Wonderland.
I love trains. I opt for the railway every time over the car. Yet so often trains are late, the WiFi is deficient and the expense, eye-watering.
But get me to town on time and you can paint my trains in whatever damn colours take your fancy.
