One of the things I've noticed when travelling on Southern or South West
Trains in the commuter belt is that their carriages generally don't have any
sets of three seats on one side of the aisle. By contrast the local National
Express London to Shenfield service has the old layout with one side having
three seats except for immediately adjacent to the vestibles or doors.
London Overground services have a mix with some third seats removed, and
also has some side-ways seating that creates more standing room.

A consequence on the National Express services is that the trains get
horrendously overcrowded, not least because it's hard to move down the
carriages quickly and so passengers instead crowd in the vestible areas.
Consequently these are often rampacked, with people physically forcing their
way in at Stratford, whilst not every seat is used. This has led to more
than one incident and I fear it won't be long before someone's badly hurt or
worse.

An obvious simple solution would be to remove the third seats in the
carriages, thus creating wider aisles that allow more standing room and also
make it easier to get out of the train in time. This could reduce some of
the sardine effect, and very few more passengers would have to stand as it's
rare for every seat to be taken even when there is a scrum.

How do the other commuter carriages handle this?

Tim Roll-Pickering wrote:
One of the things I've noticed when travelling on Southern or South
West Trains in the commuter belt is that their carriages generally
don't have any sets of three seats on one side of the aisle.

An obvious simple solution would be to remove the third seats in the
carriages...

....and it led to a right old bashing by the media when SWT took the seats
out didn't it. The 455s and the high capacity 450s all started out with 2+3
seating throughout, and the reduction in seated capacity is fairly recent in
the overall scheme of things, ie within the last few years.

Then because the standing capacity as a percentage of seated capacity is
much increased they get grief for that as well whenever there is another
'seats for all' campaign in the Standard...

Merseyrail are the only regional TOC to have done anything similar, but I'm
not sure you are right about Southern, I think all their inner suburban 455s
are all still 2+3. The London Overground 313s have had a number of 3rd seats
removed, but of course that is nothing compared to their new 378s which have
only longitudinal seats throughout.

Paul S

On Jul 5, 9:42*pm, "Paul Scott"
wrote:

Merseyrail are the only regional TOC to have done anything similar, but I'm
not sure you are right about Southern, I think all their inner suburban 455s
are all still 2+3.
Paul S


They are indeed, and so are a great many of the carriages in their 377
fleet that operate the outer suburban runs, often all the way to the
coast.

Peter H

In article ,
(Tim Roll-Pickering) wrote:

*Subject:* Third seats and standing room on commuter rail carriages
*From:* "Tim Roll-Pickering"
*Date:* Sun, 5 Jul 2009 20:56:55 +0100

One of the things I've noticed when travelling on Southern or South
West Trains in the commuter belt is that their carriages generally
don't have any sets of three seats on one side of the aisle. By
contrast the local National Express London to Shenfield service has
the old layout with one side having three seats except for
immediately adjacent to the vestibles or doors. London Overground
services have a mix with some third seats removed, and also has
some side-ways seating that creates more standing room.

A consequence on the National Express services is that the trains
get horrendously overcrowded, not least because it's hard to move
down the carriages quickly and so passengers instead crowd in the
vestible areas. Consequently these are often rampacked, with people
physically forcing their way in at Stratford, whilst not every seat
is used. This has led to more than one incident and I fear it won't
be long before someone's badly hurt or worse.

An obvious simple solution would be to remove the third seats in
the carriages, thus creating wider aisles that allow more standing
room and also make it easier to get out of the train in time. This
could reduce some of the sardine effect, and very few more
passengers would have to stand as it's rare for every seat to be
taken even when there is a scrum.

How do the other commuter carriages handle this?

The refurbishment of the class 317/2s to create class 317/6 changed nearly
all the seating from 3+2 to 2+2. I think the only exception was around the
pantograph down feeds.

--
Colin Rosenstiel

Paul Scott wrote:

Merseyrail are the only regional TOC to have done anything similar, but
I'm not sure you are right about Southern, I think all their inner
suburban 455s are all still 2+3.

What definition of "inner suburban" do you mean though? I *think* I've seen
2+2 on some trains to both Epsom and Epsom Downs and location wise they're
analagous to Shenfield, but I may be mistaken.

On Jul 6, 12:36 am, "Tim Roll-Pickering" T.C.Roll-
wrote:
Paul Scott wrote:
Merseyrail are the only regional TOC to have done anything similar, but
I'm not sure you are right about Southern, I think all their inner
suburban 455s are all still 2+3.

What definition of "inner suburban" do you mean though? I *think* I've seen
2+2 on some trains to both Epsom and Epsom Downs and location wise they're
analagous to Shenfield, but I may be mistaken.

All their 455s are 2+3. It's possible that SN has run the occasional
Electrostar on Epsom trains.

--
John Band
john at johnband dot org
www.johnband.org

"John B" wrote in message
...
On Jul 6, 12:36 am, "Tim Roll-Pickering" T.C.Roll-
wrote:
Paul Scott wrote:
Merseyrail are the only regional TOC to have done anything similar, but
I'm not sure you are right about Southern, I think all their inner
suburban 455s are all still 2+3.

What definition of "inner suburban" do you mean though? I *think* I've
seen
2+2 on some trains to both Epsom and Epsom Downs and location wise
they're
analagous to Shenfield, but I may be mistaken.

All their 455s are 2+3. It's possible that SN has run the occasional
Electrostar on Epsom trains.

Some of the Electrostars have a mix of 2+2 in the end cars, and 2+3 in the
intermediates, so what you see dependson where you happen to get on...

Paul S

On 5 July, 21:57, wrote:
In article ,



(Tim Roll-Pickering) wrote:
*Subject:* Third seats and standing room on commuter rail carriages
*From:* "Tim Roll-Pickering"
*Date:* Sun, 5 Jul 2009 20:56:55 +0100

One of the things I've noticed when travelling on Southern or South
West Trains in the commuter belt is that their carriages generally
don't have any sets of three seats on one side of the aisle. By
contrast the local National Express London to Shenfield service has
the old layout with one side having three seats except for
immediately adjacent to the vestibles or doors. London Overground
services have a mix with some third seats removed, and also has
some side-ways seating that creates more standing room.

A consequence on the National Express services is that the trains
get horrendously overcrowded, not least because it's hard to move
down the carriages quickly and so passengers instead crowd in the
vestible areas. Consequently these are often rampacked, with people
physically forcing their way in at Stratford, whilst not every seat
is used. This has led to more than one incident and I fear it won't
be long before someone's badly hurt or worse.

An obvious simple solution would be to remove the third seats in
the carriages, thus creating wider aisles that allow more standing
room and also make it easier to get out of the train in time. This
could reduce some of the sardine effect, and very few more
passengers would have to stand as it's rare for every seat to be
taken even when there is a scrum.

How do the other commuter carriages handle this?

The refurbishment of the class 317/2s to create class 317/6 changed nearly
all the seating from 3+2 to 2+2. I think the only exception was around the
pantograph down feeds.


That's not my experience of travelling between Cambridge and Liverpool
in recent months. Although the 317/2s have been refurbished over the
past couple of years (new seat covers and carpet, internal painting,
garish pink colour scheme, removal of sliding doors around first class
section) they're still 3+2 in standard. Even the ones branded as
Stansted Express.

PaulO

On 6 July, 13:27, Paul Oter wrote:

That's not my experience of travelling between Cambridge and Liverpool

...street.

PaulO

In article
,
(Paul Oter) wrote:

On 5 July, 21:57, wrote:
In article ,

One of the things I've noticed when travelling on Southern or South
West Trains in the commuter belt is that their carriages generally
don't have any sets of three seats on one side of the aisle. By
contrast the local National Express London to Shenfield service has
the old layout with one side having three seats except for
immediately adjacent to the vestibles or doors. London Overground
services have a mix with some third seats removed, and also has
some side-ways seating that creates more standing room.

A consequence on the National Express services is that the trains
get horrendously overcrowded, not least because it's hard to move
down the carriages quickly and so passengers instead crowd in the
vestible areas. Consequently these are often rampacked, with people
physically forcing their way in at Stratford, whilst not every seat
is used. This has led to more than one incident and I fear it won't
be long before someone's badly hurt or worse.

An obvious simple solution would be to remove the third seats in
the carriages, thus creating wider aisles that allow more standing
room and also make it easier to get out of the train in time. This
could reduce some of the sardine effect, and very few more
passengers would have to stand as it's rare for every seat to be
taken even when there is a scrum.

How do the other commuter carriages handle this?

The refurbishment of the class 317/2s to create class 317/6 changed
nearly all the seating from 3+2 to 2+2. I think the only exception
was around the pantograph down feeds.

That's not my experience of travelling between Cambridge and Liverpool
St in recent months. Although the 317/2s have been refurbished over the
past couple of years (new seat covers and carpet, internal painting,
garish pink colour scheme, removal of sliding doors around first class
section) they're still 3+2 in standard. Even the ones branded as
Stansted Express.

None of the units branded as Stansted Express or in the new National
Express livery is a class 317/6. They are either in "One" blue or the
strange WAGN cream and red and brown and black (or whatever) colour
scheme. The 317/2 to 317/6 refurbishment was completed in WAGN days.

--
Colin Rosenstiel