Re: New Livery for Melbourne Electric Trains????

["Michael Walker" <walker@hotkey.net.au>]

>I have noticed over the past couple of days a handful of Melbourne Comeng
>and Hitachi sparks with the god-awful green and yellow stripey colour
>scheme very neatly removed from their front-ends.  It is probably only
>about one train in 20 at the moment but there seems to be an active effort
>to remove it - and its not merely caused by the painted strip falling off
>or something silly like that because its always in pairs - ie both motor
>cars of a three car set will either still have the colour or its been
>removed from both.
>
>Should I conclude that we're about to see these trains emerging in a
>"Hillside Trains" or "Bayside Trains" livery in the near future?
>
I wouldn't be at all surprised, there has been some concern in high quarters
about the lack of recognition of Hillside Rail as a marketing brand. Indeed,
Hillside staff have all been issued with baseball cap style hats with the
Hillside logo on it and have been asked to wear it to work. They are black,
the first ones had a stick on white patch with the logo and looked cheap and
nasty. Version 2 was embroidered and looked quite nice. Having said that,
they still don't go with the blue uniform.
    Perhaps if Hillside were more serious, they would use their own posters
for more than warning against fare evasion and use Hillside colours on
stations and on advertising. I did see a Hillside banner at Doncaster
Shoppingtown of all places with an information booth but that is as good as
it has gotten so far.