Rebranding isn't all the expense it is often made out to be. Staff
uniforms have to be renewed anyway so that's just a matter of choosing
a livery, likewise with printed materials. Savings could be made by
waiting until the full life of the items have expired, not that long
for these items. I suspect much of it is tax deductible anyway.
Station signs and trains are most obvious changes though. Wrapping
trains in vinyl liveries isn't all that expensive and provides
protection for the train body against the elements. Renewing station
signage can be considered environmental improvement, given the dire
state of most stations any sort of improvement will be welcome and if
the motivation is corporate identity rather than a genuine desire to
improve the image of the railway, then so be it. In most cases
nothing more than a cheap (but effective) vinyl transfer is needed. I
say effective, only if there is consistency throughout the operating
area, something many tocs have failed on, throughout England at least
there are still examples of BR train and station livery in an
extremely tatty state (and I don't mean the BR symbol alone)