New train seating mock ups at Marylebone station

[londontransit]

I dont think this has been mentioned anywhere, not even in the rail news it seems, except perhaps a couple of tweets. However there's an exhibition of train seating mockups at Marylebone station until April 2nd - its adjacent to the ticket barriers.

Its basically to show how train seats can be reconfigured to give more space. Whether it actually does that or its merely a sense of having extra space is probably subjective to different users. However its interesting the apparent straightjacket on train seating configurations is set to be broken - but whether its a real radical change or not is another thing altogether! TBH the seats are quite fine, at least they're not ironing boards!

The company involved in the work, PriestmanGoode, are well known for their new Tube for London design, the first mockups for the Piccadilly Line which were revealed at Siemens new factory in Goole earlier this week.

I wrote about the Marylebone 'Take a seat' display on my blog along with some pics from the first and second days.

 

[JonathanH]

I imagine the final choice of covering will be up to the rail operator, but its possible the vinyl style of seating will be for standard class areas and the fabric style for first class areas.

Yuck. I totally hope no one is thinking about installing vinyl seats in UK trains. It is bad enough that bus operators have gone back to them following the mistakes of the 1970s.

I appreciate that they call it leather but in reality it is generally a composite of leather fibres. True vinyl would be worse.

Even that fabric looks like some sort of flat cloth. Why do people have to reinvent seat coverings from tried and tested moquette?

 

[ChilternTurbo]

I like traditional moquette or leather/e-leather because the latter is easy to wipe down and keep clean and moquette does give a cosier ambience. Flat cloth is fine for home furnishings but seems to stain easily. Some of the flat cloth seats on the GWR Hitachi fleet look truly revolting with a variety of dubious looking stains...

I'll have to try these out when I pass through Marylebone next week. I had an episode of sciatica last year and I really don't get on well with low slung seating. The generally well liked IC70 seats are torturous for me...

 

[londontransit]

Yuck. I totally hope no one is thinking about installing vinyl seats in UK trains. It is bad enough that bus operators have gone back to them following the mistakes of the 1970s.

I appreciate that they call it leather but in reality it is generally a composite of leather fibres. True vinyl would be worse.

Even that fabric looks like some sort of flat cloth. Why do people have to reinvent seat coverings from tried and tested moquette?

LOL! I don't like the coverings too much either! Also I do not know what the seats are made from except they're described as 'the latest developments in sustainable materials, trims and finishes.' The plasticky looking ones which I describe as 'vinyl' are not even that but some unknown polymer that looks similar.

 

[meld3]

True "vinyl" seating will be remembered by those of us who were kids in the 1970's as the car seats that removed the skin from the back of your legs on hot summer days.....

 

[pdeaves]

True "vinyl" seating will be remembered by those of us who were kids in the 1970's as the car seats that removed the skin from the back of your legs on hot summer days.....

Yep. Please let's not go back to that now!

 

[Bletchleyite]

It is interesting that the thread has got hung up on leather/vinyl and not what is interesting about this trial - the slight offset that could make things vastly better when two males are sitting next to one another. Most males have shoulders wider than backside, so offsetting the seats slightly could mean quite considerably more comfort. I have seen this proposed for air travel, too.

But talking of e-leather, it is well worth doing the headrest with it and the rest of the seat moquette. It not only looks classy but is also easy to clean when you inevitably get hair grease on the headrest, and retains the comfort of moquette on the rest of the seat.

 

[JonathanH]

It is interesting that the thread has got hung up on leather/vinyl and not what is interesting about this trial - the slight offset that could make things vastly better when two males are sitting next to one another. Most males have shoulders wider than backside, so offsetting the seats slightly could mean quite considerably more comfort. I have seen this proposed for air travel, too.

It is equally interesting that the people putting forward the design concept didn't concentrate on this offset and other novel design features instead of clouding the issue with alternative less comfortable seat coverings.

 

[Taunton]

It is interesting that the thread has got hung up on leather/vinyl and not what is interesting about this trial - the slight offset that could make things vastly better when two males are sitting next to one another. Most males have shoulders wider than backside, so offsetting the seats slightly could mean quite considerably more comfort. I have seen this proposed for air travel, too.

This was not taken into account with the recent reconfiguring of the newer type of DLR trains (and set to continue with the new builds). It was presented as "the same number of seats as before", when the traditional 2+2 transverse seats were all repositioned against the car walls transverse style.

However if you look up a DLR train with traditional seats which have two people in them, the one on the aisle side is invariably hanging out over the aisle, as the seats are just not wide enough. However, people manage. Put these same seats all together longitudinally and that's not possible any more. People then sit in alternate seats, and it's just not possible to fit an adult in between them.

I'm reminded of the old style 1950s buses with a squashed upper deck to go under low bridges, a sunken gangway on one side, and bench seats for four. Some of these, instead of plain straight-across benches, had the four seats slightly staggered an inch or two, similar to shown, which was probably for the same reason. I don't know if this was achieved by them being slightly tilted instead of facing straight ahead, but I bet someone here does.

 

[Razorblades]

Crikey! I used to run these seat configuration focus groups for a living - it's been a few years since one was road-showed. At least Priestman-Goode are a credible agency. Let's see what becomes of this exercise....

 

[yorksrob]

Crikey! I used to run these seat configuration focus groups for a living - it's been a few years since one was road-showed. At least Priestman-Goode are a credible agency. Let's see what becomes of this exercise....

I seem to remember a similar exercise by Northern a couple of years back.....

 

[Bletchleyite]

I seem to remember a similar exercise by Northern a couple of years back.....

Which to be fair in my view had a good outcome. People didn't like the flat base of the ironing board, but presumably did like the legroom the thin back provided compared to the FISA LEAN which is a quite thick-backed seat with a central niche similar to the original 158 seat, great if you're tall and a beanpole but bad if you're tall and heavily built. So they implemented, when it came to it, a hybrid "best of both worlds" option, the thin back with a very comfortable (to me) contoured base very similar to that of the Grammer E3000.

Anyone whining about "ironing boards" when only having sat on the Southern/Thameslink variety (and I know this won't be you!) needs to try the Northern/Scotrail variety before commenting. The experience is totally different.

 

[yorksrob]

From the photos, the seats look a nice shape, but the base still looks too thin to be comfortable

 

[Bletchleyite]

From the photos, the seats look a nice shape, but the base still looks too thin to be comfortable

If the white plastic is a solid form and the cushion just the thin bit on top, then you'd likely be right, but if they're just the sides and the cushion squashes down inside, then they're quite generous.

As for the folding, I think that's a bad idea for two reasons. One is it'll break. The other is that it basically encourages bags taking up seating space and makes the barrier to taking the seat much higher. Better to provide adequate proper storage. FWIW I've seen this before, on DB's 1990s InterRegio coaches, which had a very unconventional layout indeed, with some 5-seat compartments with a child seat and an open area based on a modified compartment layout rather than conventional 2+2.

 

[yorksrob]

If the white plastic is a solid form and the cushion just the thin bit on top, then you'd likely be right, but if they're just the sides and the cushion squashes down inside, then they're quite generous.

It also depends on how form the cushion is. Alas I'm too far from Marylebone to be able to put it to the test !

As an example, the new seat bases on the northern 158's look a similar thickness but are too firm (sat on one as I type !).

 

[cjmillsnun]

True "vinyl" seating will be remembered by those of us who were kids in the 1970's as the car seats that removed the skin from the back of your legs on hot summer days.....

Yup. I remember them well. Travel blankets on the seat base were the only solution.

 

[BRX]

Article here

Flexible train interior concept goes on show at London Marylebone

UK: Design agency PriestmanGoode has put a flexible train interior mock-up on display at London Marylebone station. Branded ‘Proteus’ after a Greek god able to foretell the future, the design concept aims to offer more comfort and flexibility and reflect societal changes emerging from the...

www.railwaygazette.com

I don't quite understand how the stagger helps - maybe it would become clear trying it in person. Does it mean that the shoulders of the "front" person slightly overlap the shoulders of the "back" person? That feels a bit weird to me.

Interesting to see the idea of having a tip-up seat which you're actually encouraged to use as luggage storage space, a kind of official approval of the standard strategy of stopping someone from sitting next to you by putting your stuff on the other seat. I'd have thought that would not be encouraged because it reduces capacity. But does it mean that you can then reduce luggage rack space and regain some capacity there? I doubt you'd get back as much as you'd lost.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I don't quite understand how the stagger helps - maybe it would become clear trying it in person. Does it mean that the shoulders of the "front" person slightly overlap the shoulders of the "back" person? That feels a bit weird to me.

Yes, that's why. Most males (even podgy ones like me) have wider shoulders than backsides, and so seating two together can be uncomfortable. This overlap idea is better than being pressed together.

Interesting to see the idea of having a tip-up seat which you're actually encouraged to use as luggage storage space, a kind of official approval of the standard strategy of stopping someone from sitting next to you by putting your stuff on the other seat. I'd have thought that would not be encouraged because it reduces capacity. But does it mean that you can then reduce luggage rack space and regain some capacity there? I doubt you'd get back as much as you'd lost.

Yes, I think that will cause conflict and is thus a bad idea. Tip-ups generally are.

 

[Fyldeboy]

Yes, I think that will cause conflict and is thus a bad idea. Tip-ups generally are.

But would a tip-up that doesn't stay up be workable - ie an underseat (secure because youre sat on the seat) storage area like used on some modern cars?

 

[Bletchleyite]

But would a tip-up that doesn't stay up be workable - ie an underseat (secure because youre sat on the seat) storage area like used on some modern cars?

The space is needed for the legroom of the people behind! If you want to put stuff under the seat in front like on a plane, though, you can already do that unless it's taken up by a cantilever mounting.

 

[BRX]

If something's of the size that you could put it under a seat, you might as well put it in the overhead rack.
The benefit of the tip-up seat would be that you could put something large (a large wheelie suitcase or large rucksack) there instead of in a carriage-end luggage rack.
That would actually be quite appealing for me when travelling alone - big bag is where you can see it and get stuff in and out of it without leaving your seat ... and you have a excuse not to have someone sat next to you.
The problem is obviously that it would reduce seating capacity.

 

[Davester50]

Yuck. I totally hope no one is thinking about installing vinyl seats in UK trains. It is bad enough that bus operators have gone back to them following the mistakes of the 1970s.

I appreciate that they call it leather but in reality it is generally a composite of leather fibres. True vinyl would be worse.

Even that fabric looks like some sort of flat cloth. Why do people have to reinvent seat coverings from tried and tested moquette?

True "vinyl" seating will be remembered by those of us who were kids in the 1970's as the car seats that removed the skin from the back of your legs on hot summer days.....

I'd be happy with fabric seats, but getting rid of fabric head rests, or they need to bring back the wee oval patch at least.
The seats I was using last week were a bit yuk.

 

[physics34]

Nobody mentions sprung seats. Why.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Nobody mentions sprung seats. Why.

Because most people don't like them? Car seats are mostly foam these days (though more comfortable than rail ones), and I doubt many peoples' sofas are sprung either.

 

[JonathanH]

I doubt many peoples' sofas are sprung either.

Most sofas will have springs below a cushion rather than having the cushion placed on a solid base.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Most sofas will have springs below a cushion rather than having the cushion placed on a solid base.

Not these days. Most are a foam cushion on a hard base.

 

[physics34]

Because most people don't like them? Car seats are mostly foam these days (though more comfortable than rail ones), and I doubt many peoples' sofas are sprung either.

Not sure how they were a thing for 70 plus years then all of a sudden most people dont like them. I think many have just accepted harder seats without complaining.
sprung seats were almost a secondary suspension for leaf-sprung bogies, but IMO newer stock has a bad enough ride and our track is of poor enough standard for seating to have a certain level of 'give' to it, not just a few inches of sponge.

I get AM9's argument previously that sprung-heavy cushioned seats become uncomfortable over time.

Most sofas are sprung or 'strapping', u could be right about cars....

 

[BRX]

Not sure how they were a thing for 70 plus years then all of a sudden most people dont like them.

Maybe just that foam technology has improved somewhat in that time.

 

[warwickshire]

However though at least this style of seating is far better than that of a class 720. Plus at least we will be able to get down the corridor too, without getting stuck between parts of seating in the isles…

 

[greyman42]

Not these days. Most are a foam cushion on a hard base.

That's the cheaper ones.