anothermember

This kind of anthropomorphisation is bad, it shows a lack of understanding of the technology, it's a terrible idea.

I never said I wasn't happy

Boring isn't necessarily bad, in fact I would argue that my preference for bringing back Rail Blue would be even more boring. I think it's best if people can come to associate their feelings of the railways with the livery rather than the other way round, so I'm favouring something simple and timeless.

What’s insecure about using the British flag on a British state owned railway?

It feels like a forced sense of pride. If anything the British national railway should be a national symbol in and of itself, it shouldn't need to be propped up by the union flag. I don't hate the design either by the way, but it seems heavy-handed.

Just because the rest of the world does something it doesn't mean we should be doing it too. It has been noticed as a new trend.

I don't hate it as a design, though going with the union flag is a bit heavy-handed and not what I would have gone for, on first impression the colours remind me of NSE and not in a bad way. I would have gone for Rail Blue myself.

Must be some other Britain.

It doesn't have to be an either/or; a good bus network reduces traffic and reduces the land needed to be used for roads and parking spaces, creating a nicer, safer environment to live in. Also more buses mean less traffic which mean more reliable buses. Rail has its place too of course, they complement each other.

But the person is assuming the result would still be poor public transport. In a sense they're right, spending a lot of money to still take "an hour to get somewhere that a car will reach in ten minutes" would not be worth it because that would be a failure, but assuming failure isn't a reason to argue against it when lots of places do it well and benefit greatly from it. Reaching for an analogy, it's a bit like saying we shouldn't make an omelette because it'll be raw if we don't cook it and that would be a waste of money.

No one is going to willingly choose to take an hour to get somewhere that a car can reach in ten minutes. No one is going to willingly choose to stand out on a random corner in the snow, rain, cold, or extreme heat just to wait for a bus that might already be delayed, and whose environmental systems might be malfunctioning.

That's the point of improving things, then it wouldn't be like that. But the previous sentence you said it was a pointless endeavour so I'm not sure what your point is.

If you have bad public transport you can't argue against making it good based on the fact that it's bad now since if it was good then it would no longer be bad. I really don't know what else to say.

I suspect the air conditioning system would be present even in Alaskan hotels.

It wouldn't surprise me, my American relatives use a tumble dryer in Arizona.

I think you're missing the nuance here, flying the flag alone doesn't make you a racist, but if it's become culturally associated with racism then it's a data-point that can build up that picture.