The British Rail Corporate Identity Manual is a corporate identity guide created in 1965 by British Rail. It was conceived in 1964, and finished in July 1965 by British Rail's Design Research Unit, and introduced British Rail's enduring double arrow logo, created by Gerald Barney and still in use today as the logo for

National Rail National Rail (NR) is the trading name licensed for use by the Rail Delivery Group, an unincorporated association whose membership consists of the passenger train operating companies (TOCs) of England, Scotland, and Wales. The TOCs run the ...

. The manual spanned four volumes, and was created as part of a comprehensive redesign of British Rail following the

Beeching Cuts The Beeching cuts (also Beeching Axe) was a plan to increase the efficiency of the nationalised railway system in Great Britain. The plan was outlined in two reports: ''The Reshaping of British Railways'' (1963) and ''The Development of the M ...

as part of a plan to attract more passengers. It is noted as a piece of British design history.

History

The first volume, published in July 1965, introduced Rail Blue, a standardised colour for use of

rolling stock The term rolling stock in the rail transport industry refers to railway vehicles, including both powered and unpowered vehicles: for example, locomotives, freight and passenger cars (or coaches), and non-revenue cars. Passenger vehicles can ...

liveries and the total adoption of Rail Alphabet, a

typeface A typeface (or font family) is the design of lettering that can include variations in size, weight (e.g. bold), slope (e.g. italic), width (e.g. condensed), and so on. Each of these variations of the typeface is a font. There are thousands o ...

Design Council The Design Council, formerly the Council of Industrial Design, is a United Kingdom charity incorporated by Royal Charter. Its stated mission is "to champion great design that improves lives and makes things better". It was instrumental in the prom ...

, London in the same year. The second volume was published in November 1966, contained guidance on printed publicity such as posters and regional logos. The third and fourth volumes, issued in 1970, focused on the non-rail sectors of British Rail, including architecture, and new branding for

Sealink Sealink was a ferry company based in the United Kingdom from 1970 to 1984, operating services to France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Isle of Man, Channel Islands, Isle of Wight and Ireland. Ports served by the company included: Dover, Folkesto ...

. In 2016, the manual raised £55,102 for a reprint, combining the four volumes into one book.

References

{{reflist 1965 non-fiction books British Rail Train-related introductions in 1965