AS someone who commute for a long while going back to the 312s before the 360s came in, the 360s were a breath of fresh air for the region and excellent trains, I think we all agree that the 321s are tired trains in their current state and need replacing and the 317s even more so, but my whole issue with this situation is that I expected newer generations to offer higher levels of comfort and from everything that i have seen so far that isn't going to be the case. I would have rather stuck with hand me downs with better levels of comfort than new trains that cram them all in.
Abellio generally have done very well in the stock they have refurbished and the 321 refurb and the MK3 refurb was much better than anything that was suggested or attempted by National Express, having had to sit through 8 years of badly looked after trains under NXEA, finally when GA have increased the comfort levels that have plagued a lot of stock under NXEA, it seems a bit of a cheat, that only after a couple of years we're going to go backwards when it comes to comfort levels after having it so bad for so long.
Personally the fact stuff was so badly done by NXEA is why I and a few other people are frustrated by this pack them in mentality and lack of comfort, we've had rolling stock that should be comfortable after a refurb, left unloved for the best part of a decade, when that rolling stock finally is given some TLC and modern treatment, it's going to be taken away from us not long after in favour of stock which will offer far less in the way of comfort, now part of that is not GA fault because they were not NX, but the franchise has suffered from half measures a lot since 2004 and it's a huge disappointment that such a potential change to transform travel in the region, won't give us the same levels of comfort that other franchises have got.
It just feels like one step forward under AGA after standing still under NXEA and then two steps back on the new GA franchisein some respects, as a passenger where are very little issues with overcrowding, the thought of losing my comfortable 12 car Desiro in exchange for a 10 car new unit that packs a couple of hundred if not more seats in, doesn't fill me with joy, I'm all for new trains and adding more seats if there is demand or future demand for them, but my problem with this is that I have a car, and I abandoned using NXEA because they were awful and if they take comfort for granted I can easily go back there again.
The problem with this rolling stock strategy if you had a slider between comfort on the left and capacity on the right they've slid it right to the right hand side, and whereas for sure they need additional capacity to grow, they've pushed it too far that way.
The 312s were much nicer trains than the 360s are, for one they had the nice comfy seats. Also ive always found that the seats aboard a 321 offered much more comfort than a 360 did, though Abellio did reduce this slightly during the seat cover changes as the Ex FGE green seats always seemed much firmer than the Abellio grey.
With regards to NXEA, dont forget it was down to that franchise that the 379s were introduced, yes NXEA didnt do a major overhaul of the MK3s but let face it, AGAs refurbishment wasnt exactly done very well either, as there are now fewer toilets aboard the MK3s, there are power sockets but they dont always work, the seat covers are now very rough compared to the much comfier blue chicken drumstick seat covers that NXEA had on them, the WIFI is actually less reliable than it used to be when NXEA brought it into use. Though train refurbishments waiting until the AGA franchise cant be blamed on NXEA, they had a minor refresh when NXEA brought them in from the WCML, but they were told what they had to do with the franchise by the DFT, if anyone wants to blame anyone for the lack of investment during the NXEA franchise then blame the DFT, they set the rules for the franchise and the TOC goes by what they have been told to do by the DFT. IT like all rail franchises in the UK, if the DFT says work with what rolling stock you have then that is all you can do even though NXEA wanted more trains which they got from cascaded 321s and then the 379s. Franchises suffer poor capacity as the DFT doesnt allow TOCs to get new stock, the Southeastern franchise is another victim of the DFT not allowing any new rolling stock which Southeastern has been crying out to the DFT for ages to be granted but the DFT says NO.
With regards to the new rolling stock, i will be sad to see the workhorse Class 321s go as they have a nice charm about them in their current state, might be the body design plus those awesome sounding motors as they houl along at high speeds and the nice accelerating sound compared to the horrid 360s with hard seats and poor airconditioning. I know they were poor as had previously done journeys in summer starting on a c2c to West Ham from Barking with a nice cool train carriage then transfer via tube to Stratford then ended up on a 360 where it didnt feel as pleasant as the 357 train.
Let just hope the rural fleet will be good, the 156s do not have the capacity that they need especially on the Wherry Line routes in summer as they cannot cope with the loadings between Norwich and Great Yarmouth, even worse when AGA have decided to use a 153 on its own or when a previous service has been cancelled and you now have 2 trains worth of passengers aboard a 2 car train, this partly down to AGAs poor train planning, with the LST to NRW FLIRTS, all i hope is for the 2 hour journey from LST to NRW that the seats do have padding but easy to get into unlike the horrid seats on the MK3s in standard class.
NXEA werent any worse than AGA were, alot of their delays were mostly down to infrastructure failures such as trackside and OHLE equipment failures but when AGA took over the service got even worse than it had been under NXEA, trains were always late and became dirtier and i actually missed NXEA as when there was disruption they were better at recovering the service, yes this included running services fast still stopping at crucial stations but AGA never seemed truly able to implement a good service recovery plan.
Finally, you can never get every customer to like every new bit of rolling stock that is introduced, someone will always criticize the TOCs choices but as others have said, passengers wanted more capacity on the train so GA are doing that, look at the 376s on SE, people complain about the lack of toilets onboard those trains yet it was the commuters during the consultation in the Connex/State owned Southeastern Trains period who said they wanted more space on the train at the expense of having a toilet aboard the train so that what they were given, toiletless Metro trains, in some ways GA throwing the look of the train out to the passengers may in some ways not always be a sensible idea as history can repeat itself and then a few years down the line new commuters or passenger will be like why is this train like this or why doesnt it have this.
