samuelmorris
Established Member
As a regular 345 user I'd disagree. They aren't terrible, but the telltale Bombardier rattles and squeaks appeared on units that were only a few months old. The 707 is the higher quality product, I can almost guarantee it, but I genuinely believe the Aventra is the better quality design. The Desiro City has a few shortcomings, one of which led to the 701s replacing them in the first place, and that isn't something you can inherently blame on the TOC (or their predecessor that ordered them) or the DfT etc.Actually, I find the Aventras are gifted with good build quality.
The seating on the 701s as far as I can tell will be identical to that on the 707s, so no better but no worse.
As for the Alstom quality argument, wasn't a fair amount of the 95/96TS assembly carried out in spain? When slagging off Alstom people also tend to forget about the Pendolinos, which while not perfect by any means, certainly don't have the unenviable reputation the Junipers had.
Back on-topic, I was very disheartened to see the concept renders with the yellow fronts, but actually if it stays like that I think this is the best looking Aventra yet. The main difference being the lack of horn grille. Is that going to change do we think?