The ride quality is the same on all Aventras I've been on.
Let's also take into account that the 7 car sets have too much 1st class provisioning to relieve the overcrowding that often happened on a 5 car set, some of the seats are starting to fall apart, the fold down tables can be a bit grotty sometimes, some of the windows are blown (as in there's condensation between the panes of glass), there's no USB plug sockets (and only 1 standard plug socket per pair of seats), the lights can be a whole mismatch of color temperatures (and need upgrading to LED) and the worst part: you can't pick up FM/DAB/3G/4G/5G/GPS through the metallized carriage windows very well, if at all, which results in the on board Wi-Fi getting extremely overloaded extremely quickly (as in, it barely loads any webpages at all, and cannot load Discord/WhatsApp).
I'd probably agree with them being classed as the "worst" trains on the network, though the handful of remaining PEP-derived classes share many of their flaws (primarily a lack of a decent view from almost every seat). A few other posters have remarked that the PEP design has aged better than the 20m mk3, but I don't share this opinion. Both types to me look exactly like they were designed in the decade they actually were designed in.
I think if this was a couple of years ago, we would all be saying Great Northern 313s
Like when we had both HSTs/43s and Meridians/222s, and I would always try and get an HST wherever possible.
You'd probably be saying the opposite if the HSTs had stayed. They'd probably end up like the I7C fleet ScotRail has.
At least you can still (in all likelihood) pick up a decent mobile phone, GPS, or radio signal through a modified HST set.
170s are excellent units and definitely aged well apart from EMR which haven't even refurbished them yet. 376s are mostly good units for the metro operations. Really what let's them down is the lack of AC.
I'd agree. Can't look out the window the same.
It never takes long to get around to this so I’ll debunk the myth yet again.
Nothing else on the horizon.
I think this is a problem with EMR using 170s as a one-size-fits-all solution - some of the routes (eg Ivanhoe Line) aren’t suitable for regional express trains; but, short of ordering new trains (which the DfT would never allow!), not sure that there was anything else suitable & available to meet the brief. The number and type of Regional routes is too varied for one type of cascaded train (that was available at the time) to be appropriate for everything.
I’d say EMR’s 158s - not as a serious alternative, more just to wind up grumpy Northern users and provoke them to say “hands off our beautiful 170s - we don’t want EMR’s old junk”
Ha ha haI’d say EMR’s 158s - not as a serious alternative, more just to wind up grumpy Northern users and provoke them to say “hands off our beautiful 170s - we don’t want EMR’s old junk”
I’d say EMR’s 158s - not as a serious alternative, more just to wind up grumpy Northern users and provoke them to say “hands off our beautiful 170s - we don’t want EMR’s old junk”
Any other what's? 195s or 170s?
There are quite a few 195s in the area - e.g. operating Leeds - York, Leeds - Manchester Victoria - so a microfleet would not be formed I think.
No third-rail entertained so far north; it's hard enough getting even the slightest of fill-in schemes considered in ex-Southern territory. Batteries were suggested with recharging at turn-round points, but this never really gained any traction. (Source, anonymized Northern franchise bid, in author's head)
