Could reversible seating be introduced to UK trains?

[Tetchytyke]

Seating facing the direction of travel is a great experience. It isn't normal to sit backwards.

It's mostly a social expectation that we sit facing forwards.

On road vehicles I prefer to sit facing forwards as I find I suffer from motion sickness if I'm not. But that's because road vehicles are inherently quite unstable and will move around a lot. It's easier to focus on the horizon out of the front of the vehicle when facing forwards.

Rail vehicles don't have this issue, they are very stable vehicles.

I don't mind which way I face on trains. And I also note that it is actually safer to be facing backwards in the highly unlikely event of a crash. This is even more true of aircraft, where the brace position for rearward-facing seats is simply to sit back firmly in the seat.

I think we can safely file this under 'solution looking for a problem'.

 

[NER1621]

Travelling facing forwards on public transport being regarded as the norm is a social convention, nothing more. It derives from the fact that the private car experience now sets the norms for travel experiences more widely. If you travelled/travel on most horse-drawn vehicles you faced forwards, backwards or sideways; buses often have sets of forward and backward facing seats at the rear. Luxury coaches as beloved of travelling football teams etc usually have the seats arranged in railway-style bays around a table for four. If you travel in a party of four or more in a London taxi then one or two of you travel backwards on the tip up seats.

I’d also suggest that on planes the key issue for the airlines is packing in as many people as possible without actually amputating their legs. For this reason all seats facing the same way is their preference, but I’d take a large bet that they’re completely indifferent as to whether the “same way” is forwards or backwards. If they could get more bodies in with backwards facing seats then that’s what they’d do!

 

[joieman]

Buses often have sets of forward and backward facing seats at the rear.

As I mentioned in the Bus Design thread, from my experience the backwards facing seats are rather unpopular. They're often used as little more than footrests, despite signs saying "No cheesy feet on the seats, please!" Wheel arches are a headache for bus designers. Most double decker buses these days are built with transverse rear-facing seats over the rear wheels, but I prefer the idea of longitudinal seats instead, as seen on some older buses. Some single-decker buses manage to get away with having all the seats facing forward, but some buses such as the Scania K230UB chassis (in particular those with the Irizar i3 or the integral Scania Omnilink bodywork) have seats so very high up that they look like a theatre on the inside!

 

[30907]

As I mentioned in the Bus Design thread, from my experience the backwards facing seats are rather unpopular.

Understandably, in a vehicle that is liable to stop suddenly with no warning. Which is pretty irrelevant on a rail vehicle.

Most double decker buses these days are built with transverse rear-facing seats over the rear wheels, but I prefer the idea of longitudinal seats instead, as seen on some older buses.

All, I would have thought, in the days of rear entrance buses - but it reduces the potential seating slightly I imagine.

 

[joieman]

Understandably, in a vehicle that is liable to stop suddenly with no warning. Which is pretty irrelevant on a rail vehicle.

All, I would have thought, in the days of rear entrance buses - but it reduces the potential seating slightly I imagine.

Over one wheel, you can have four transverse seats backing to each other, but usually only two longitudinal seats. The particular buses I was thinking of with the longitudinal seating were examples of the DAF DB250/Alexander ALX400, the DAF DB250/East Lancs Mylennium Lowlander and the Optare Tempo. (The first of these actually had four longitudinal seats on each side in the rear, which only reduces the amount of seating further, although perhaps this was influenced by the fact that older DAF ALX400s had a centrally-located staircase.
One thing I forgot to mention is that some smaller single-decker buses such as the Alexander-Dennis Enviro200MMC do have only forwards-facing seats near the rear wheel arches, except that the row immediately behind the wheels is über-cramped.

 

[Meerkat]

Travelling facing forwards on public transport being regarded as the norm is a social convention, nothing more.

I disagree - it’s a comfort thing. It’s much nicer to see where you are going than have the scenery whizz past then recede away.

 

[NER1621]

I disagree - it’s a comfort thing. It’s much nicer to see where you are going than have the scenery whizz past then recede away.

Happy to agree to disagree over personal preferences.

 

[Halish Railway]

Recently various Amtrak routes operated with Amfleet carriages around the Northeast Corridor have done away with reversible seating to have half facing forwards and half backwards, presumably to facilitate the phasing in of fixed direction seating on the new Siemens Aero sets, as well as introducing allocated seats on Acela trains and in business class on Northeast Regional trains.

Presumably Amtrak is going the way of introducing allocated seating across its network and allowing groups to be sat around a table, perhaps to differentiate its seating arrangement from that of a competing aircraft or long-distance coach.

One caveat to this is that Amtrak is hardly a bastion of common sense policies.

 

[railfan99]

I disagree - it’s a comfort thing. It’s much nicer to see where you are going than have the scenery whizz past then recede away.

Thank you for stating what the majority of passengers prefer.

 

[Route115?]

You can actually see the seats being reversed at Tokyo Shinkansen station. When I was there last the seats on the Tokaido Shinkansed were turned manually by the cleaning staff, whilst it was done electrically on the latest JR East trains.

It might work in this country for trains that do not reverse in service. Some do, for example X Country at New St, but also at plenty of other places. Would reversing seats which are occupied work?

 

[30907]

You can actually see the seats being reversed at Tokyo Shinkansen station. When I was there last the seats on the Tokaido Shinkansed were turned manually by the cleaning staff, whilst it was done electrically on the latest JR East trains.

It might work in this country for trains that do not reverse in service. Some do, for example X Country at New St, but also at plenty of other places. Would reversing seats which are occupied work?

It can be done - I experienced it at Kristiansand in 1980, during a 20+ minute stop (when lunch was delivered in takeaway containers!) - but it does depend on cooperative passengers!

 

[lxfe_mxtterz]

You can actually see the seats being reversed at Tokyo Shinkansen station. When I was there last the seats on the Tokaido Shinkansed were turned manually by the cleaning staff, whilst it was done electrically on the latest JR East trains.

It might work in this country for trains that do not reverse in service. Some do, for example X Country at New St, but also at plenty of other places. Would reversing seats which are occupied work?

I've been on a handful of trains in Japan which do change direction in service, and the way it was managed on those was to have the seats facing forward in accordance to the longer part of the journey.

For example, going northbound on the Hida Limited Express, the direction of travel changes about 20 minutes into the journey, so you're sat going backwards for the first 20 minutes of the journey (from Nagoya to Gifu), and then forwards for the remainder (about 3 hours and 30 minutes if travelling all the way to Toyama).

There were announcements warning passengers not to "worry" (or words to that effect) that the seats were facing the wrong way around, as the direction of travel would be changing soon. You are still free to flip the seats around manually yourself though, as I witnessed.