Not the best.

[Prodigy]

Edinburgh to Manchester yesterday on WCML. Potential of a good journey ruined by the awful leg room I had on a table seat.... Legs nearly fell off at the end of the journey and it was so hard lugging my bag up the hill to my house when I finally get hope.

I hope to do the journey again, but leg room puts me off, I aint paying for first class.

 

[Crossover]

At a guess I would say you did it with TPE on a 185?

Great trains, but really not designed for the Anglo-Scottish runs at all

 

[Prodigy]

Yeah I love the trains a lot but it was just a hellish journey, though the 185 ran smoothly so no complaints about that. I was tempted to just sit on the flip out seats but thought like I'd look like a prat.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Do I take it that you are one of the "six foot plus" travellers with "long-leg" problems? My wife and I of "medium" hight travel from Manchester Airport on the First TPE Class 185 units to many places and have never had a problem when sat at the table seats.

 

[Prodigy]

Aye 6ft1 so maybe thats a problem. Maybe regular seats are a bit better, I heard the seats on these Desiros provide decent leg room compared to Pendolinos

 

[Crossover]

Yeah I love the trains a lot but it was just a hellish journey, though the 185 ran smoothly so no complaints about that. I was tempted to just sit on the flip out seats but thought like I'd look like a prat.

I tend to sit on the flip up seats myself, but for 45 minutes it isn't too bad.

 

[Prodigy]

Yeah, I love the trains, and I hope to do the route once more with more comfort as I had a nice experience on the East Coast route.

 

[WestCoast]

The airline priority seats have rather good legroom on the 185s.

Doesn't legroom on a table seat depend on if someone is sitting opposite? If they aren't you can stretch your legs there...

 

[googolplex]

I did that journey on a 185 at the beginning of the month and found I had a table to myself most of the way down and from about Lancaster onwards on the way back. That was on a Wednesday, with the ~09:55 from Edinburgh and the ~16:00 from Manchester.
I'm 6ft and it was bearable for the hour or so between Manchester and Lancaster, but I think I'd have been struggling had it been any longer.

Might first class advances be worthwhile? There seemed to be some reasonable prices up to the 6pm cut off the day before when I was looking.

 

[WestCoast]

Sorry to drift, but I feel very sorry for any tall people on a Merseytravel Pacer, the legroom is simply atrocious. They can run on longer journeys too like Sheffield - Manchester. I can't sit straight and I'm average height.

 

[142094]

Sorry to drift, but I feel very sorry for any tall people on a Merseytravel Pacer, the legroom is simply atrocious. They can run on longer journeys too like Sheffield - Manchester. I can't sit straight and I'm average height.

6'2" here, and as much as I like Pacers I don't particularly like the ex-Merseyrail ones. Keep calm and carry on is my motto when faced with one of those.

 

[WestCoast]

6'2" here, and as much as I like Pacers I don't particularly like the ex-Merseyrail ones. Keep calm and carry on is my motto when faced with one of those.

They are much more common on the West Side of Northern, think yourself lucky. I think Pacer lovers and haters can unite on disliking those units!

If the ex-ATN pacers were more common on the West, I'd probably not mind Pacers too much! The East has the best...

 

[142094]

They are much more common on the West Side of Northern, think yourself lucky. I think Pacer lovers and haters can unite on disliking those units!

If the ex-ATN pacers were more common on the West, I'd probably not mind Pacers too much! The East has the best...

Aye, but when you travel as much as me across the North then you are bound to get an ex-Merseyrail one once in a while! Thankfully I haven't seen them turning up at Heaton recently for maintenance, although did have an original bus seat one a while back (funnily enough it failed at Darlington, so didn't actually go anywhere on it). 99% of the time it is the Northern Spirit ones which is good.

 

[WestCoast]

Aye, but when you travel as much as me across the North then you are bound to get an ex-Merseyrail one once in a while! Thankfully I haven't seen them turning up at Heaton recently for maintenance, although did have an original bus seat one a while back (funnily enough it failed at Darlington, so didn't actually go anywhere on it). 99% of the time it is the Northern Spirit ones which is good.

At least you don't get a bus seated one or a Mersey one pretty much every day, like I do. I reckon the North Western Trains side of Northern would be much more tolerant of them if they were Northern Spirit Pacers! It's amazing how much difference the seating makes!

The hatred of them has brewed with the poorer interiors!

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

It is good to see that the hatred of the Pacers is still as vehement as ever on both sides of the Pennines!!

The amazing thing is that rail units like the ex-Merseyrail Pacer units have old-fashioned bus seats, yet buses like The Lancashire Witch and The Yorkshire Coastliner have comfortable high-backed seats.