Newly emerged from a repaint in Plymouth (but picture taken in Exeter), here's one of the 150 fleet - 150244 - in First's new branding.


at: http://www.therailwaycentre.com/NewSite%20POD%202007/POD13_01_07.jpg

Thsi unit emereged from the paint shops there last Friday night ... I'm sure that the passengers on the Looe Branch, the St Ives line, and the TransWilts are really happy that FGW prioritised the repainting/rebranding of the train over using it to actually run services on those lines that week.   After all, I wouldn't be seen dead in a train with a three year old paint job - would you?  Were the buses smart?

[[Painting has to take place in a clean environment - so this won't have been happening at the same time as an overhaul ...]]

Just one thing - it hasn't actually been repainted. It's been vinyled. The livery is on big sheets of vinyl which you just stick on the side of the train. Much quicker than actually painting it and as an added bonus it's easier to remove graffiti too - in a worst case scenario you just peel off the affected vinyl and stick a new piece on 
If you look at http://great-western.fotopic.net/p37718373.html you'll see that local place names are part of the livery. That would be much too time consuming to do if it was painted. Vinyling is much quicker than painting, you can vinyl a train in just a day or two.