European Railroad Discussion > Seats

I'm currently sitting in 1st Class in an East Midlands class 222 enroute to Loughbrough and I am prompted to ask whether anyone pays any attention to seat/window placement?  This seat would be great if I were traveling in the other direction, but . . .

The train is nice and the seat actually has some padding, unlike SWR 444's.

Gordon

gbmott Wrote:
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> I'm currently sitting in 1st Class in an East
> Midlands class 222 enroute to Loughbrough and I am
> prompted to ask whether anyone pays any attention
> to seat/window placement?  

The short answer is not much. Ever since the Mk3s took to the rails in the mid 1970s there has been a mismatch between seats and windows, resulting in restricted views. And ever since the execrable Hitachi 800s have appeared there are some seats with no view whatsoever, on account of Hitachi's attachment to sliding as opposed to plug doors, and the consequent deep door pockets.

Some units are pretty good, in particular Alstom's 175s and 180s and in some configurations of Bombardier's 377s, but far too many are not.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/20/24 14:55 by 86235.

You can blame manufacturers and Train Operating Companies like EMR but my ire is directed at government. Particularly in recent years the Department for Transport (with The Treasury pulling strings in the background) the name of the game has been to reduce the nuber of carriages in a train and then squeeze as many seats in as possible.

It's getting worse. My local operator GWR ordered fleets of class 800 trains. The orders consisted of 5 car and 9 car units.They wre intended for use on trains in and out of London to the far flung parts of the GWR network. In an attempt to save money the DfT has recently been working at reducing the size of the GWR fleet. The results have been, if not catastrophic, interesting. Trains that were being operated with 2x5 car units are just 1x5 car. Stopping trains on the Exeter to Cardif routes are now 1x5 car instead of HSTs. The fleet is pretty well at a point where it is under resourced. The are infrequent but noticeable occasions when a train from London to Penzance has got as far as Exeter and everyone has been detrained an put onto one of the units intended for local service. There was a recent occasion when a Plymouth to London service was operated throughout (and the return) by a 3 car local unit.