Varamis Rail Brand Guidelines: A 2019 Parcels Start-Up on Converted Electric Trains

A start-up train operator for parcels.

Varamis Rail is the trading name of Varamis Ltd, a British rail freight company set up to carry parcels and express goods on electric trains. Companies House records the company as incorporated on 7 June 2019, with freight rail transport and the operation of rail freight terminals as its lines of business, and the privacy policy on its website names Varamis Ltd as the business behind the Varamis Rail name.

Its idea was to use Britain’s electrified main lines and city-centre stations for parcels, traffic that has largely moved to the road. The company argues that conventional freight trains are slow, citing an average speed of 24 mph from a Network Rail London freight strategy paper of March 2020, and offers instead a 100 mph electric “linehaul” service, the trunk journey between logistics depots, for parcel carriers and logistics firms.

The trains came from passenger service. In March 2021 the leasing company Eversholt Rail announced plans to convert a Class 321 electric multiple unit, 321334, to carry parcels, and in July 2021 Eversholt and Wabtec revealed it in “Swift Express” livery, English Wikipedia says. Varamis agreed to lease a Swift Express unit from Eversholt in October 2022, its own news page records, and trial running began that month, according to Network Rail.

The regular service started on 9 January 2023. Network Rail announced on 19 January that Varamis, which it called “the UK’s newest train operator,” was running Monday to Friday between Scotland and the Midlands, aimed at express parcel and third-party delivery companies handling next-day consumer goods, and that Eversholt had converted the four-car electric trains for the work. The PA news agency described Varamis as the UK’s first electric-only rail freight operator and reported scheduled journeys between Mossend freight terminal, near Glasgow, and Birmingham International of just under five hours.

Converted units on an overnight run.

The core product is an overnight run. The company’s route page describes a weekday service in each direction between Mossend and Birmingham International, taking roll cages, pallets and loose items, with run times of about four hours, for parcel companies and logistics providers moving goods for next-day delivery between Scotland and the Midlands.

The trains themselves are older than the company. The Class 321 is an electric multiple unit built by British Rail Engineering at its York carriage works in three batches between 1988 and 1991 for Network SouthEast and Regional Railways, English Wikipedia says. The Swift Express conversion began as the leasing company’s project rather than an operator’s: in November 2021 Eversholt said four more units would be converted, and in 2022 an unnamed customer secured the first, later confirmed as Varamis, which launched its Scotland to Birmingham service with unit 321334.

The fleet grew as others stepped back. In September 2023 Eversholt abandoned the Swift Express project after converting four Class 321 units; Varamis said it was considering taking it over, and in early 2024 it bought the four converted units, according to English Wikipedia, whose fleet table now lists eight Class 321s with the company.

A second fleet followed the end of Royal Mail’s own trains. In July 2024 Royal Mail announced that it would stop moving mail on its own rail fleet in October that year, and English Wikipedia, citing The Railway Magazine of May 2025, lists six of the former Royal Mail Class 325 units as owned by Varamis. The Class 325s were built at ABB’s Derby works in 1995 and 1996 to carry mail between London and Scotland at up to 100 mph.

London took longer. Varamis announced a Birmingham to London service in February 2024 and held a launch event at London Liverpool Street in March 2024, its news page shows. In April 2025 RailFreight.com reported that, after attempts to use Euston and King’s Cross, the company was set to move into Liverpool Street from May. The same month, the broadcaster Michael Portillo visited Varamis at Birmingham for his Great British Railway Journeys series, the company’s news page says.

Design and documentation.

Rail freight operators sell a service that most people only glimpse from a level crossing or a station platform, so their identities lean heavily on the one thing everyone does see: the locomotive. Liveries, fleet numbers and named engines carry the brand across a whole network, and operators publish photographs of their fleets on their websites, in press releases and on social channels. A repaint for a customer, a partner or an anniversary is usually announced as news in its own right.

The second visual constant is the map. Operators that sell regular routes tend to show them as network diagrams, with ports, terminals and inland hubs joined by lines, much like a passenger timetable. Those that run trains to order describe their work in service categories instead, such as intermodal container trains, block trains for bulk goods, single wagonload and first- and last-mile shunting, and the wording on those pages is the company’s own description of what it offers.

Fleet pages are a genre of their own. Many operators list their locomotive classes with build dates, power systems and the routes they work, and new orders are presented as milestones, often with the builder and the leasing company named alongside. Numbers on these pages, from staff and trainloads to tonnage and market share, are figures the companies give about themselves at a particular date, and they change from year to year.

Sustainability pages have become standard across the sector. They usually set out targets, partnerships and new traction such as electric, bi-mode or biofuel locomotives, each tied to a dated announcement. In the guides that follow, those pages are treated as statements of what each company says it is doing and when, alongside its ownership history and the names it has traded under.

A pause in 2025.

Services stopped in the summer of 2025. On 28 July 2025 RailFreight.com reported that Varamis had temporarily halted services amid rising costs and wider industry pressures. On 7 August 2025 the same publication reported that the company’s owner said it had restructured successfully and was confident of resuming its nightly service between Birmingham and Scotland. Companies House lists Varamis Ltd as an active company, with accounts filed to June 2025 and a confirmation statement dated June 2026.

The company presents itself in ambitious terms. Its website describes Varamis as “redefining express freight” and as the UK’s first high-speed rail logistics company, claims that are the company’s own, and its team page names Robin Gisby as chairman and Matthew Carter-Brown as chief executive.

For a design guide, Varamis Rail shows how a small operator can build an identity around reused trains, a single overnight route and a coined name. Compare Direct Rail Services, a much older British operator that also runs container trains between the Midlands and Scotland, and GB Railfreight. For this guide we use an indigo, a signal teal and a soft grey with a sans, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

Keep Varamis Rail’s identity on hand — save it to a board in the Made Good inspiration library.