One train brand leaves travellers in two minds

Following your Greater Anglia story (News, DW 8 April), can anyone shed light on something that’s been confusing me in recent weeks?

I’m a designer who commutes into London. Until recently, I’ve been catching my 7.22 First Great Eastern train to Liverpool

Street with no confusion; until two weeks ago. On waiting for my regular train an announcement stated the next train to arrive at the platform would be the 7.22-one service. Thinking it was the automated announcement service playing up once

again, I just got my train to Liverpool Street. This announcement continued the whole week.

It wasn’t until the next week, when new signage appeared at my station for the new train contractor taking over the rail line, that I realised some bright spark had decided to call the new train service a numeral (One). The announcement wasn’t faulty, it was the train contractor’s name being announced after the train time.

Did [Lawrence & Pierce, which came up with the One identity] think of researching the idea before its launch? I was also distraught to see the new train graphics and wondered how someone could make the word Anglia (a great word to design a logotype for) look so ugly.

Tim Bower

confuseddesigner@hotmail.com