"Roland Perry" wrote in message

In message , at 16:29:16 on
Fri, 7 Oct 2011, Recliner remarked:
So, the new Docklands cable car now has a commercial sponsor:
Emirates. The airline will be putting in £36m of the estimated £60m
cost (was originally £25m), in return for which it gets its name on
both the link itself, as well as both 'stations'. Will this be the
first time that a UK public transport link has been branded in this
way? See
http://www.businesstraveller.com/new...ames-cable-car

Depends what you mean by "branded" and "public". The cable-car at
Birmingham Airport is branded BMI, and the shuttle at Stansted was
(somewhat irritatingly) branded "Go Go Go" for a while.

I think the Gatwick transit to the North Terminal was also BA-branded,
but I don't regard those airport shuttles as public transport as such.


Then there's the London Eye, used to be BA branded and now EDF.

That's a privately-owned visitor attraction, not a line on the London
Tube map. It's no different to, say, the Saatchi gallery or even the
Sainsbury Wing of the National Gallery.


In a sense the entire Virgin Rail exercise is branding (the
operational bit coming from Stagecoach).

But you don't depart from Virgin Euston and arrive at Virgin Piccadilly,
though. I'm also not so sure that the whole operational bit is from
Stagecoach -- Virgin is the majority owner, and the operation is quite
distinct from the Stagecoach TOCs.