Have any interior pictures of the West Midlands Trains class 196 been released? Given the very spartan interior suggested in the published interior pictures of the W&B Civitys, they could well be the same as the West Midlands fleet. Certainly the exterior pictures of both fleets look like they could be a single design perhaps with very minor interior variations. On that basis, assuming the West Midlands fleet will be 196/0 and 196/1 the W&B units could be 196/2 (2-car units) and 196/3 (3-car units).
Yet they have not published any pictures of a regional express train; only suburban ones with wide doors making lots and lots of standing room. I think this looks like another Thameslink; passengers making long journeys (eg. Bedford to Brighton in Thameslink's case) have to do it on a Metro train.
I agree that the bulk of the work for the new W&B CAF fleet will be long-distance regional express services, and therefore feel that the 1/3, 2/3 door arrangment (which would only be suitable on a tiny proportion of the planned Civity routes) is a case of the tail wagging the dog. It shouldn't matter that a train is leaving a big city at peak time; if a large number passengers will be travelling for over 15 minutes then the train should be long enough to ensure they all have a comfortable seat. The extra standing room provided by the suburabn door layout should not be necessary on regional express services.
Not just the 175s but the 158s as well, and to meet the same spec the doors need to be narrower so space isn't lost to standing room. Instead of the proposed all-suburban fleet (let's call them 196/2 and 196/3 as suggested above) I think the Civity's should be three or four types:
- class 196/3 (3-car) (for Liverpool-Llandudno, Cardiff-Shrewsbury stoppers (if such a thing happens) and Liverpool-Shrewsbury stoppers (ditto))
- class 197 (2-car) with narrow doors at the vehicle ends (like the 397s, but with the cabs from the 196 and the doors right at the ends of the driving vehicles like they are on the class 397 intermediate cars)
- class 197 (3-car) as above with the 2-car 197s but with an intermediate vehicle similar to a 397
- possibly class 196/2 (2-car) for Llandudno-Holyhead stoppers (allowing the Birmingham and Cardiff services to have fewer calls west of Llandudno Junction) and maybe the Shrewsbury-Crewe shuttle
None of these should have the ironing board seats and at least a few table bays should be available on the 196s, increasing to about half of each coach on the 197s.
Incidently are any side-view drawings of the new CAF units (
like this for class 360s) available online?
