I live on the SWR mainline and can happily say that the class 444 is my favourite passenger unit. It has end doors so the passenger saloons are comfortable whatever the weather. The interior is full of light with loads of window and no bulkheads interrupting the view. The seat heights allow me (admittedly 6 foot tall) see around me and out. 2+2 seating. Comfortable seats. Good glazed overhead racks that will take cabin bag size bags.
All great for long distance commuting.
But! That's not all that these units are used for.
At weekends and, especially in the Summer, they serve a huge leisure market, and luggage requirements change dramatically. I remember my daughter saying how difficult it was to visit me from London with an infant in a buggy. There's just not the space allocated for those. Think about how every single bus can now accommodate at least one!
Then there are holiday makers and homebound students with big cases. Absolutely nowhere to put those except to hijack the two disabled spaces per unit, or find the very limited cycle space, or dump them on seats. The result is seats crammed with big bags, which cannot be sensibly stacked so take up far more room than they should.
SWR did a refresh of the units early on, but did nothing to revoke this issue
My solution would be to remove the four seats across at every saloon end and replace them with tip-up seats. Same seating capacity for commuting but proper luggage/buggy space for the offpeak.
All great for long distance commuting.
But! That's not all that these units are used for.
At weekends and, especially in the Summer, they serve a huge leisure market, and luggage requirements change dramatically. I remember my daughter saying how difficult it was to visit me from London with an infant in a buggy. There's just not the space allocated for those. Think about how every single bus can now accommodate at least one!
Then there are holiday makers and homebound students with big cases. Absolutely nowhere to put those except to hijack the two disabled spaces per unit, or find the very limited cycle space, or dump them on seats. The result is seats crammed with big bags, which cannot be sensibly stacked so take up far more room than they should.
SWR did a refresh of the units early on, but did nothing to revoke this issue
My solution would be to remove the four seats across at every saloon end and replace them with tip-up seats. Same seating capacity for commuting but proper luggage/buggy space for the offpeak.