London Banter - View Single Post - Victoria Line

[email protected] · April 7th 09, 02:57 PM posted to uk.transport.london

In article ,
(Recliner) wrote:

"Andrew Robert Breen" wrote in message

In article ,
Recliner wrote:

I rode on the nicely refurbished Mk 1 stock (Royal Scot rake) to
Swanage and thoroughly enjoyed the well-sprung armchairs and copious
shiny wood.

Your back obviously has a much higher tolerance of bad seats than mine
does. If the seats in those coaches are anything lke the usual Mk.1
horrors, I'd have had to stand the whole way.

And then there's the noise, harshness and vibration, all there in
copious proportions. I can understand how some (not me!) would like
this as an occasional novelty, but it's not up to the job of
day-to-day transport.

And no, polished wood doth not a quality package make (unless it's a
boat by Fairey Marine). The aforementioned 1967 (design..) car was
blessedly free of such nonsense.

I suspect we're just arguing about the subjective comfort of
various seating designs. I'm happy to agree that modern intercity
trains are quieter, smoother and air-conditioned, so it's just a
case of which seat designs we prefer. As far as I'm concerned, no
train seats come close to matching the comfort and adjustability of
my car's seats, and none let me adjust the temperature to suit
myself, so it's just a case of which trains have the worst seats
compared to my car or a good business class airline seat. But, with
the exception of the awful Mallard standard class seats, I can
tolerate any of them for an hour or two without complaint, and the
best of them for quite a few hours.

I can't say I have any problems with the Mallard seats personally. I'm
tall and therefore bit fussier than some. OTOH I hate airline seats with
a vengeance, mainly because they are so claustrophobic.

--
Colin Rosenstiel