In article ,
wrote:

"Recliner" wrote in message
...


Personally, I'd rather ride in a 1967 stock train than the modern Jubilee
and Northern line trains that came from the same factory. I certainly
wouldn't prefer to ride in a 1967 car compared to almost any modern
car[1].

I, OTOH, would take the '67 car (well, at least one model of '67 car,
provided it was fettled up well and I wasn't going to try and tow my boat
with it) over pretty near of the iterative bore-boxen being ground out
now. Handling matters to me, as does driving pleasure and I'm willing to
compromise on NVH supression. OTOH, I'd avoid any pre-Mk.3 train like the
plague, and off the IC routes would prefer to shun anything pre-158. If
I'm sitting in something as a passenger, then ride comfort comes very high
up the list, and I want seats that don't wreck my back (equally vital in a
car, of course, but then the '67 design wins there as well, with better
seats than anything else I've come across[2]. And if I'm a passenger,
then wind noise and suspension vibration matter more as well. Modern stock
really do win out there[1], as well as providing what's generall/y a nicer
passenger environment.

It does seem that older model trains are more sturdy and run better, doesn't
it?

No. Not in any way at all. When we had eaqrly Mk2s down here last summer
for the steam specials I had to stand most of the way from Dovey to
Portmadoc and back, the seats were so bad. And as for the noise and
vibration and poor ride (oh, and the water leaking into the vestibules..).
Horrible things, just horrible. Even the Purple Moose beer couldn't redeem
them.

[1] Clearly better in every way (bar towing capacity and the heater) to
the 1997 car I now own, for example, and cars in general have only
declined in appeal since '97 (I can't think of a single
marginally-appealing car in the mass market at the moment, aparet from
maybe the 1-series BMW - and you'd need to put a bag over your head when
walking out to it to avoid being horrified by just how ugly it is..
[2] Apart from that shame of the railways, the 185, of course.

--
Andy Breen ~ Not speaking on behalf of the University of Wales, Aberystwyth
Feng Shui: an ancient oriental art for extracting
money from the gullible (Martin Sinclair)