The crux of it is for me, how many people don't travel based on the seat, few I'll bet.
I don't particularly like the seats on the pendos. However I don't really consider the seating when deciding if to book or not.
Price is the biggest factor putting me off these days.
This whole concept of ohh but the seats are fine for short journeys or ohh its only 20 mins to stand, its a race to the bottom and the car industry is laughing all the way to the bank. Rails biggest competition is the car, the car is percieved to be far more convenient even if rail is sometimes a lot quicker, so if rail wants to compete then rail needs to be more comfortable and ideally cheaper too.
But what this forum keeps throwing up time and time again in these debates is what the purpose of rail is, is it a "social need" that we want to minimise the costs of as much as possible, is it a part of a more sustainable transport future, or is it a cash cow to milked?
I think this country needs to stop taking for granted that people will travel by rail because they have no other option, if the EU can do comfortable train seats so can we, but ppl are too concerned with penny pinching and trying to calculate the minimum comfort ppl will put up with to save a few pennies that they then lose in lost fares to the cars.
And we need to drop this idea that Thameslink is only for short journeys, every day you will have people standing from Three Bridges and posibly further out and vice versa, certainly to Brighton you can have the trains be Full and Standing on Weekends, London to Brighton is not a short journey, its not a short hop like West Hampstead to Hendon. Ppl will be put off by standing all the way to Brighton on their day off and will take the car if they have one the next time.
And for those that get a seat the Thameslink standard seats are hard. Yes commuters may have gotten used to them but that does not make them more comfortable than the modern car seat which is what the train is competing against.
I don't ever travel in standard on LNER or GWR - comfort or not I'm not willing to deal with days of back pain following the journey. That used to mean I'd upgrade to first, but now I largely fly instead. (GWR is generally part of a journey from further.
I think the problem is less that people will rule it out altogether, and more that, thinking about previous journeys, it will feel easier and more natural for them to just go straight to BA/Easyjet instead, or to just rule out public transport and get in the car.
This i think is totally true, i avoid LNER like the plauge unless its an Intercity225 service, Lumo gets my money or the airlines, who very often are cheaper even with the transfer at either end. I will add that Ryanirs seats are not comfirtable but 1 hour on a ryanair plane to Scotland is preferable to 4-5 hours on an LNER azuma standard class with the hideous seats. GWR, they lose my money to national express or SWR. It says a lot when the coach is more attractive comfortwise than the train.
As i say the attitude towards modern train seats in the UK is a race to the bottom