New GBRf Livery Unveiled

GBRf 66720 after being unveiled at the Nene Valley Railway

The first ever freight locomotive livery to be designed by a six year old girl was revealed by GB Railfreight (GBRf) at a special ceremony at the Nene Valley Railway on Sunday 3rd July.

The unveiling followed the naming of a Class 66 loco ‘Jayne’ after Jayne Taylor, GBRf roster manager at Doncaster, maintaining GBRf’s tradition of naming its engines after female employees.

Emily Goodman, the now seven year old daughter of GBRf’s Whitemoor-based Yard Shift Leader Ben Goodman, won a kids’ ‘design a livery’ competition last autumn, run on one of the company’s annual family days out.

Her two colourful designs of night and day were chosen by a panel of judges, including MD John Smith and now feature on both sides of loco, 66720.

Joining Emily at the ceremony were mum and dad, Julie and Ben, along with sister Sophie and brother Josh.

Ben, who is now training to become a train driver, said: “Emily, crayon in hand, drew a day-night theme for the loco complete with sun, moon and alien!  It’s a delight to think that I could soon be driving a loco up and down the country with her design on its sides.”

John Smith paid tribute to Emily’s designs and to those who turned her original colourings into the huge vinyls that now cover the loco.  He said: “I think the loco looks great.  It’s colourful, eye catching and a bit of fun.  My thanks to all who made this possible.”

Emily’s design ended up applied to the loco thanks to the work of a team of GBRf’s engineers, graphic design suppliers and vinyl manufacturers.   Her original drawings were given to graphic designers, Woodhouse Creative, who turned them into artwork, which was then sent to vinyl manufacturers SSDM.  They produced the massive vinyl sheets and then applied them at GBRf’s March depot.

Dear Passenger (The RPO Remix).

Dear Passenger

I’m sorry but your ticket is only valid for use on another operators services from this station.  If you wish to travel on this train you will need to pay the difference and upgrade your ticket.

Please don’t swear, there are children present.

You have an Advanced Purchase Ticket which is only valid on the train shown on your seat reservation.  I’m sorry you missed your train, due to being in the toilet/Burger King/WH Smith (delete as applicable). If you wish to travel, you will need to go to the booking office and purchase a new ticket.  I’m further sorry that your £20 journey will now cost you £199 but it’s not my fault you missed your train.

Please refrain from using such foul language in front of me.

Please ensure that you have your railcard with you when you travel on your railcard discounted ticket.  I cannot allow you to continue your journey until you have amended your ticket at the booking office to the full fare applicable.  However, if the discount is more than £30, you could go to the booking office, fill out the forms, get a photo done and buy a new railcard, this will allow you to travel on your original ticket.

Please, Please stop swearing at me, I cannot and will not assist you if you continue.

Please understand that your ticket says “Not London” on it.  This means that you should not be here and you should have changed trains at Station X.  My only course of action is to excess your ticket to the correct fare for the ticket you need(if you’re lucky this may be a zero excess due to price paid, valid ticket price, etc.) or to send you back to where you should have changed trains and get you to follow the route you should have taken.

For the final time, please refrain from any further profanity or I will have to take action.

I’m sorry, I can’t just “let you off”.  If I did this for you I would have to do it for everybody and this would result in me losing my job as I would not be living up to the requirements of my position.  Oh really, well, let me ask you a question.  If you went into a Supermarket, filled up a trolley full of goods and walked out without paying, would you expect the supermarket to let you off?

Right, that’s it, Officer please remove this passenger from the station, they will not be travelling from this station due to excessive use of profanity.  I’m sorry, you were warned several times about your behaviour and you chose to ignore me.

By the way, HAVE A NICE DAY!!  (Customer Service Training, always wish the customer a nice day/pleasant journey).

The above post gives you an insight into the kind of situations an RPO can deal with several times in one shift.  Please understand that we can get a little fed up with saying the same things over and over again.