Interesting letter re NXWM livery....

[RW]

in today's Birmingham Mail.
"Why don't the owners of our local bus company where new buses are coming on stream change the old fashioned colour scheme? Surely now is the time to bring these bus colours up to date.........Our buses are so dull with the white always looking dirty........There is no correlation and sympathy between red and white as a bus colour. .......the two colours and the place where they meet is so out of date. No one with any artistic bent must have had any input into the final design and colour scheme we have to put up with".
These are views not infrequently expressed on this forum so it's clearly not only public transport enthusiasts who feel the current livery is a little less than exciting and that the use of so much white is unsuitable for vehicles operating in city environments. Even if the livery was determined on cost grounds and simplicity, avoiding the use of any design consultants, an alternative to white could have been selected.
Personally the only vehicles I feel are entirely suited to the current livery, despite the white, are the few Scania Omnicitys.

[Kevin]

I'll be honest I actually like the red and white

[andrew1991]

I'll be honest I actually like the red and white

I prefer it to the twm livery on the tridents, it looks neater. Bit plain bit neat.

[P419 EJW]

I prefer the Travel West Midlands livery. The colours didn't fade as much as the current red colour does. The TWM livery made buses look smart. It was in a good design, unlike NXWM livery.

[pb2012]

They could alter the appearance slightly with vinyl graphics just as stagecoach do with theirs?

[Sh4318]

I'd just like it if all NX buses were in livery. Never mind changing it again

[makkacdt]

In my opinion the old twm livery on the old metros were the best, still to this day

[winston]

I think the current livery has vastly improved since NXWM changed the shade of both red & white used. The livery now seems to be wearing much better & refurbs are staying looking freshly repainted for much longer.

I do think something darker should be added to the livery around the rear wheel-arches/bonnet areas etc

[Mike K]

In my opinion the old twm livery on the old metros were the best, still to this day

That livery was good but I think it would look dated on the current fleet. The current NXWM livery is however undoubtedly dull and unimaginative.

NXWM could do with getting Ray Stenning to design their livery, unfortunately on this one it looks like they used Ray Charles.

Given the effort and cost to get much of the fleet through the repaint programme, I don't think we can expect much on the new livery front for some time.

[Westy]

I think the current livery has vastly improved since NXWM changed the shade of both red & white used. The livery now seems to be wearing much better & refurbs are staying looking freshly repainted for much longer.

I do think something darker should be added to the livery around the rear wheel-arches/bonnet areas etc

Certainly something needed adding near the bottom of the vehicle!

Wasn't as noticeable with the previous livery.

By the way it's nice to see the fleet name sticker join is no longer obvious!

In the later PTE era, it wasn't,  but during the West Midlands Travel era, it was very obvious with the different shades for the stickers, along with the 'West Midlands part of National Express' era.

[Liberator9]

The NX livery suits the Scanias (Omnilinks and Omnicitys) the best - although the Tridents also look better in it than the old TWM offering. The fading colour problem seems to have been solved by changing the shade of red used fortunately. However does anyone know why that paint faded so badly - looking at the YW and AG Scanias, the red used to be a very bright red in 2009/2010. By late 2011/early 2012 it had already faded to a dull red which has stayed the same. The same has happened with the Wright Eclipse Urbans from 2011/2012 - the only bus I recognise out of the WEUs is 2110, has it has the bright new red shade. It has always struck me too why the Coventry buses livery has not faded and even the 2010 refurbished Tridents still have a neat blue shade. Personally I would prefer the light blue for the entire network - with silver used (like the Signature buses in Solihull) instead the white, with a black band at the back.

[Stevo]

I agree with using Ray Stenning - he really makes buses look special.

[karl724223]

Should be all white like coaches or white /grey like hotel hopper buses

[the trainbasher]

Or even like this for hybrids


http://s252.photobucket.com/user/kentish121/media/ADLEnviro200TravelWMHybrid2.png.html?sort=9&o=1

[2900]

With all the health safety rammed down our through ts y not paint the buses in high viz green , just a random thought .