Revealed: Designs for trains hitting the tracks after London Midland services disappear
London Midland services will be re-branded with a new colour scheme from December after a takeover.
A new purple and orange livery will be created for the new West Midlands Railway services from December 10.
London Midland's west coast line services will become London Northwestern from the same date.
A joint venture of Dutch business Abellio and Japanese partners JR East and Mitsui is taking over the routes operated by London Midland with the start of the next West Midlands rail franchise.
London Northwestern is designed to reflect the increasing economic power and growth of the north western corridor placing the West Midlands at its heart.
The West Midlands Railway brand has been created by the West Midlands Combined Authority to better serve its local customer base.
London Northwestern and West Midlands Railway will have a shared management board.
Having two separate railway brands is to enable potential devolution of the West Midlands routes to the West Midlands Combined Authority. London Northwestern would then remain under the remit of the Department for Transport for future re-tendering
Nearly £1 billion of investment into the network is planned over the next nine years by Abellio, JR East and Mitsui. This includes £680m on new trains, produced by Bombardier and CAF and £70m on new depots.
Dominic Booth, managing director of Abellio UK, said: “We are delighted to bring the London Northwestern brand to a whole new generation of passengers, and it seems apt during a time of record investment into the railways.
“This is all part of the £1bn of improvements we are delivering to the network over the coming years.”
Abellio has a 70.1 per cent share of the company and JR East and Mitsui own the remaining 29.9 per cent in a 50:50 split.
More than £60m is to be invested in station improvements delivering over 1,000 new car parking spaces and over 2,500 cycle parking spaces. This is alongside new and refurbished waiting rooms, more seats at stations and feasibility studies into developing new stations in the West Midlands
New Sunday services are to be introduced by 2021 including services from Birmingham to Shrewsbury.
