"826" wrote in message
om...
"Rich Mallard" wrote in message
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"David Campbell" wrote in message
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"Rich Mallard" wrote in message
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I can well believe that Connex is reponsible for the negative aspects
of
these reprehensible units. Their last spiteful act, perhaps.

Rich

I believe Connex actually went out and sought the views of commuters
as to the layout of the trains and that some seat designs were "tried
out" with some commuters who answered and filled in a customer survey.
A selection of these were taken to try out various designs to
establish in their view which were the best to go for. I was handed a
fairly comprhensive "customer survey" form by Connex staff at
Faversham a couple or so years back and it included a section about
the new 376 trains and the layouts then in the design stage. Could it
be that SET took over before the plan ran it's course? Or are there
some in Kent who find these seats acceptable?

I went to meetings about the 376 as part of the Connex passenger forums, so
no doubt they would claim I was part of the "consultation". It was a total
and utter sham - Olivier Brousse had already decided that they were going to
be building "tube" trains for the routes closer to London, and there was
certainly no debate to be had on that. What it came down to really was: Did
we want a moderate OR very severe cut in the seating numbers compared to
what we're used to?!

We passed comments on some of the original designs (which I never found
particularly clear - they never once produced a proper diagram of the train
layout from above) and were horrified to find some original designs included
sections of longitudinal bench seating at the edges of the train! (Now I
think about it, they really did have an agenda to make these trains as
uncomfortable as possible maybe)

We certainly never discussed or were made aware of there intentions to
remove all padding from the seats, and for them to be so extraordinaly high
and oddly shaped. The assumption was that they would be along the lines of
Networker seats but in a 2x2 formation with slightly wider spacing (which
sounds great...)

All I would say - don't believe most of this "consultation with commuters"
garbage; they were prepared to listen and make only superifical changes, but
what you see in the 376 is largely what *they* wanted.

I thought we would be getting something much closer to a 375 than a
Networker (but with more space by the doors, and wider doors). I wrote a
long follow-up document to Connex, but it would appear that most of my
points were discarded, now I look back at it! In particular:

"Please include carpeting on these new suburban trains. Cold, lino-style
flooring makes for a dull and dreary interior, reminiscent of tube trains
and the current 465 Networkers. There are many very hard-wearing carpet
materials available that are relatively easy to clean, and look very smart."

I hate lino!

Nick