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Author	Message
davidhood999 Admin	# Posted: 29 Oct 2008 09:38 Why do we travel on trains in the 21st century that are far less comfortable than a lot of trains on equivalent journeys were in the 1960s? Increasingly over the years rolling stock has been built with 3+2 seating configuration that replaced older stock, usually with 2+2 seating which quite frankly had the ability to provide a far superior travelling environment. An example that most will be familiar with being Trans Pennine services operated by class 31s, 47s and early Mk2s being replaced by Class 150, 143 and 144 DMUs in many cases. Another horrific case is the London Liverpool Street to Clacton service. From the 60s this service had state of the art InterCity style class 309 EMUs. These trains mainly consisted of Mk1 corridor stock with some TSOs and provided catering facilities in the form of a Griddle car. In the case of the standard loco hauled corridor stock that these units were based on, these coaches had six seats per compartment, although eight people often squeezed in at peak times. Six seats equates to a seating configuration of 2+1, in standard class! Nowadays you are greeted with a ghastly class 321 or at best a class 360 Desiro, both of which provide 3+2 seating for the same journey as the 309 provided. Obviously there are no catering facilities either. This just should not be happening. We all know that as years go by, people get healthier, live longer, and........ get bigger! Yet we are constantly being squeezed into smaller spaces on trains. You do not see any car manufacturer squeezing extra seats into their cars at the expense of passenger comfort. If they did, people would not buy them.
mol42 Member	# Posted: 30 Oct 2008 11:45 - Edited by: mol42 In support of the above letter I would like to add the following; I would challenge any government minister to travel on a peak service consisting of 3+2 seating, as most commuter services do, and to arrive at their destination having had a pleasing comfortable journey. Even the slimmest of adults are considerably wider than aforementioned seating arangement. It is encouraging to hear the shadow transport minister, Theresa Villers commenting that "too many people are having to put up with travelling cattle class". I gather by this comment that if the Conservitives gain power in the next election that she will endevour to remedy these appaulling cramped travelling conditions. The Tories may be onto a vote winner from the travelling public here. Comments such as above coupled with the promise that if the Conservitives win, they will build a new high speed link from London, linking Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds, could win over people such as myself that are traditionally Labour voters. J.H. Colchester
matt p Member	# Posted: 8 Dec 2008 10:30 Hello. I think its simply a reflection of the governments (and previous governments) attitude to the railways. Which is; they dont actually want anymore people travelling on it. If they did want people to choose rail over road or air, they would make it an attractive option. ie comfortable (not to mention reliable), like they used to be! re; BR Mk1s, Mk2s and even Mk3s with their more spartan appearance. My answer to all of this is that the railways need to be Nationalised, then run as a business by a government quango, similar to Trinity House. That quango should then be free to run the business as it sees fit, and should be free to respond to demand, and borrow money from banks, or the government to do so. And it would of course be responsible for paying it back. What we would then have is a railway that might one day be developed in such a way that it can support itself financially, and any profit would then be ploughed back into investing in the railway. Not in greedy managers and shareholders back pockets like it does now. I might add here that the "profit" made by the so called private railway that we have now is not generally real profit either, as we the tax payer put extra money into the railway in order to pay them a profit for running a loss making service. Why not cut out their false, on paper profit and put that money back into the railway? As it is the railway operaters have absolutely no incentive to attract more people onto our railways, and even less incentive to invest in it.
Blackcloud Railways Member	# Posted: 21 Apr 2009 16:11 The 3+2 seating is a product of the same origin as the one and two car trains on long distance services. Overcrowding, quite simply, is cost effective. I used to love the old Mk1 stock with three or four abreast even in second class but those days are gone. I also have to add, for the benefit of those who inflict the cost effectiveness on passengers so that shareholders can reap the rewards of government subsidies, that I much prefer to travel by car these days because I rate comfort higher than cost. If I wanted to travel with the standard of comfort normally associated with buses I would pay bus prices and travel by bus. When passengers are expected to pay higher (considerably higher in most cases) prices to travel by train they expect a higher level of comfort in return. I struggle to find this on modern trains, which is why I don't use them as much as I did in the past.

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