The Story of the Paint Jobs

Have you ever looked at an Abellio Greater Anglia (AGA) train and wondered, that paint job is a bit boring? A bit plain? Or what where they thinking when they painted it plain white? Well, I have, sad I know, but there it is. Virgin Trains East Coast (VTEC) have today been tweeting pictures of their trains today, a lot of which have been repainted, they don't hang around, they've only been operating since start of service yesterday (Sunday 1st March).

Here's an example of a VTEC Driving Van Trailer (DVT), coupled to some newly partly re-painted carriages:

Which would have looked like this (an East Coast train) before being repainted:

Now, AGA have had their trains since February 2012, yet a lot of their trains have remained identical to when they were run by National Express East Anglia (NXEA), the only trains they've repainted are a lot of their InterCity trains and some Class 315 trains, which have been painted white with red doors. Take into account that Virgin Trains West Coast (VTWC) operated them prior to NXEA got their grubby mitts on them.

Here's an example of a DVT while in service with VTWC:

Which ended up looking like this under NXEA:

And will end up looking like this, if it hasn't already, under AGA:

I think you'll agree that it's original VTWC Pre-Pendolino livery looked better, and when VTWC took on another set of Mark III carriages after one of their Pendolino's got derailed, which hence forth became known as the Pretendolino (which AGA have now got their grubby mitts on, thankfully it's not been re-painted white yet):

All those pictures are mainly of DVTs but AGA's Class 315, 317, 321, 360 trains don't look any better, some have still got the full on NXEA Silver and White (with Blue doors) livery, others have the old One Blue with White Stripe livery some with White doors and other with Sky Blue doors, as seen in DVT 82143, and some trains have a NXEA "work in progress" livery which is very similar to the current AGA livery but with Blue doors instead of Red (or Grey on DVTs or locomotives)

So who thinks that, given other Train Operating Companies efforts, AGA should up their game a bit and come up with an interesting livery or not bother repainting their trains at all? Answers on a post card.