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[WestCoast]

A couple of weeks ago, I had to to Edinburgh-Aberdeen on a 158. Anyone who says they like them must be mad! Three hours jammed into a hard Richmond seat that seemed to be tipping forwards the whole time as if it wanted to shoot me onto the floor and with a headrest that pushed my head forwards so that my chin was jammed into my chest. Then there was the noise, there's something malevolent about the 158 when starting. The ride was OK at 70-90, so I'll give them that. Still, next time I'll get into the 170 instead (only went to the front to save on walking at the other end).

What you're judging here is Scotrail's 158s, since the interior of these trains do take many different guises. Northern's 158s certainly don't have that type of seating.

I don't find anything annoying about the sounds of a 158 either. I personally think 158s are more pleasant than Voyagers.

There happened to be a 156 in the next platform. Softer seats without those awful headrests and a much nicer noise. Also probably a better ride at 50-60 (West Highland/Far North sort of speeds). Only BREL could have ruined such a great design by trying to make it go faster.

Most class 156s have a different type of seating to Scotail. 156s growl loudly too IMO! There is one type of seating that is green fitted by NorthernSpirit/ATN and isn't particularly comfortable. Still, we can't complain in Northern-land, we could have a Mersey pacer with slabs for seating on 2 hours+ journeys.

Just shows that the seating arrangements can make or break a train for some people. Plus, seating is purely opinion in many cases. I really don't have too many issues with any rail seating in the UK (exceptions being some Pacers, which have really awful seating), even the so-called hard seats on Desiros and Pendos.

 

[RichmondCommu]

Class 20's on Skegness trains many years a go. And on the Matlock branch in the early 90's when there was a chronic shortage of DMU's.

 

[mickey]

I really don't have too many issues with any rail seating in the UK (exceptions being some Pacers, which have really awful seating), even the so-called hard seats on Desiros and Pendos.

With the same exception, me neither. I like Desiros, Pendos and 158s (not done the Scotrail ones though); favourite so far is the 170.

 

[tbtc]

10 years ago I would have said 2 car 170s on St Pancras services (just what were MML thinking of ? Constantly wedged no matter what time of day it was)

TBF the 170 services were additional (and not replacing HST journeys and were designed to wait at Leicester for ten minutes to ensure that longer distance passengers could swap to HSTs

 

[shaun]

14x/150/153/156s on anything over 1 hour - Too noisy.
Voyagers on long distance XC routes* (they're probably ok for Manchester-Reading/Bristol type journeys) - Not enough capacity, not enough personal space and quite rattly.
180s on Northern services - Should be doing medium-distance Intercity/Regional type journeys (Liverpool - Norwich or Manchester - Scotland).
HSTs on FGW local services - Ok i know why they're there, but in an ideal world they'd be better off where they were previously with XC doing Aberdeen/Edinburgh - Plymouth/Penzance. Think about that next time you're stuck on a 4-car voyager.
165/166s doing Paddington - Worcester/Hereford and also Marylebone - Stratford/odd Brum run - Turbos are lovely outer-suburban trains (miles better than a 150), but this really needs sorting out.
185s on Manchester - Scotland - Should be EMUs in the long term, but in the short term those nice 180s wouldn't look out of place! A nice alternative to the Pendys (which i dislike, but i'm not going to say they're out of place on the WCML purely due to my dislike of planes on wheels).
442s on Victoria - Gatwick - Could they not just have refreshed some 377s to look like the 379s? 442s are fine on the Brighton fasts with their end doors and Intercity spec, but on an Airport service?

* For the record i don't hate units, i once changed from a 67+mk2s to a class 175 and found it far better to travel on. But come on, voyagers are no HSTs are they!

 

[TEW]

I don't know where this big idea that FGW use HSTs on local services comes from. They are used on a few in the West were rather than running as ECS moves they run in service. Otherwise they run in the Thames Valley where they are needed for the capacity and 125mph capability. You can't use Turbos in the peaks as they do not provide enough seats and they can only go 90mph.

 

[Eric]

Whilst it's a long journey, it is very much a secondary line linking minor places - I don't imagine there are that many people who use it for the full end to end journey. And it's a long journey because it doesn't go by a direct route and calls at every stop along the way.

Anyone wanting to travel from Leeds to Morecambe (or Lancaster) is probably far better off travelling via Preston and I doubt they'd get a Pacer on that journey.

I think you'll find that it's quicker from both Leeds and Bradford to go via Skipton to Morecambe then to go up to Preston for a change to Lancaster and another change to Morecambe.